5/24/22, 8:12 PM In mid-coronavirus crisis, Myanmar blocks 221 sites for “fake news” | RSF VIOLENCE AGAINST JOURNALISTS INDEPENDENCE AND PLURALISM DISINFORMATION AND PROPAGANDA LEGAL FRAMEWORK AND JUSTICE SYSTEM NEWS In mid-coronavirus crisis, Myanmar blocks 221 sites for “fake news” ORGANISATION:  RSF_en Reporters Without Borders (RSF) calls on Myanmar’s authorities to immediately restore mobile phone access to the 221 news websites they have arbitrarily blocked on the pretext of combatting disinformation during the Covid-19 crisis, in what is a disturbingly authoritarian move. Without any public announcement, the transport and communications ministry issued orders to Myanmar’s four mobile phone operators in the last two weeks of March to block access to a total of 221 sites on the grounds that they were spreading “fake news,” to use the ministry’s term. The government has not provided a list of the censored sites, but several leading media outlets are now blocked, as are a number of news sites aimed above all at Myanmar’s ethnic minorities. According to a statement issued by one of the operators, Telenor Myanmar, whose headquarters is in Norway, the legal basis given by the government was article 77 of the telecommunications law, which allows sites to be blocked in an “emergency situation.” The ministry’s concern was “fake news” about Covid-19, an official later claimed. Telenor Myanmar eventually complied with the order fully after initially resisting. The other three mobile operators, which are either state or army offshoots, all appear to have complied immediately. https://rsf.org/en/mid-coronavirus-crisis-myanmar-blocks-221-sites-fake-news 1/5