The Return of the Darkness Photo: Teenagers play the game 'Mobile Legend Bang Bang' in a mass protest in downtown Yangon in February 2021. On the cardboard, the message: "Short-sized MAL - D**k Face". (Photo Courtesy of Mi-Kun) After the coup, all investments in telecommunications were put on hold, and access to the Internet became weaponized. The downfall of the Myanmar economy, and particularly of its telecommunications sector, comes at a huge cost for the junta-led state as well as the citizens. On the day of the coup, the military council cut the Internet and banned access to telephone lines. The first overnight Internet shutdown was imposed on February 6th, 2021, the same day the first mass protests took place. By February 13th, Internet use in Myanmar dropped to 15% of its normal traffic. For more than two months, Fiber cables and Wi-Fi lines were cut from 1 p.m. to 9 a.m. to avoid live-streaming of night raids as the crackdown on protesters and opposition figures intensified rapidly. "In some places Wi-Fi hotspot boxes were totally crashed by the soldiers which makes it very difficult for residents to stay connected as most of them can't afford a fiber line at home,” details a member of the People’s Defense Force (PDF) during our interview.[1] From February 4th, the military council began to disrupt Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, which, along with video-sharing app Tik Tok, are the most popular social media platforms in Myanmar. James Griffiths, author of "The Great Firewall of China" says that "the decision to ban Facebook and Twitter was not surprising but the overnight Internet shutdowns were a lot stranger. Such blocks are relatively easy to achieve, especially when the government controls ISPs (internet service providers) which in the case of a military junta we must assume they do physically even if they don’t legally.” 4