Netizen Revolution:
Taking Back the Internet
Photo: A woman sets up a VPN on her smartphone (Photo Courtesy of Mi-Kun)
Despite horrendous torture and repressive strategies, Myanmar people are not giving up on
gaining back their rights. Urban and rural youth, who grew up online and have an intimate
knowledge of everything digital, are making the most of their inconsistent access to the
Internet to organize the revolution, celebrate small victories and break the isolation.
Two months after the coup, Twitter experienced a mass surge in Myanmar users who used the
platform to keep the anti-coup movement alive after it became too dangerous to take the
streets. "Pro-democracy activists have employed centralized coordination tactics on Twitter
since late March, bringing together thousands of users owning multiple accounts in organized
hashtag campaigns. Each coordinated tweet has three main components: a date hashtag (for
example, #June3Coup), an overarching hashtag (#WhatsHappeningInMyanmar, etc.), and a
tactical hashtag, which are meant to cultivate international pressure," explains the DFRLab
(Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensic Research Lab).
The hashtags change every couple of days according to the evolution of the situation, from
#ASEANimposeJuntaEmbargo in June, #MyanmarNeedsO2 at the height of the Covid-19 crisis
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