47 San Yamin Aung, “New Telecom Firm Mytel Transmits First Call,” The Irrawaddy, February 13, 2018, https://www.irrawaddy.com/news/burma/new-telecom-firm-mytel-transmits-first- call.html. “Mytel aiming to get 10 million subscribers by year end,” Myanmar Times, January 8, 2019, https://www.mmtimes.com/news/mytel-aiming-get-10-million-subscribers-year-end.html. 69 percent of Ooredoo is owned by the Qatar government and related entities, see “Ooredoo Q.P.S.C.: Group Structure and Presence,” Investors, Ooredoo, last modified July 23, 2018, https://www.ooredoo.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/Ooredoo-at-a-Glance-2018-Final.pdf.; 54 percent of Telenor is owned by the state of Norway, see “Major Shareholdings,” Telenor Group, June 30, 2019, https://www.telenor.com/investors/share-information/major-shareholdings/. 50 Joseph Waring, “Myanmar operators unite on subscriber data use,” Mobile World Live, November 9, 2018, https://www.mobileworldlive.com/asia/asia-news/myanmar-operators-unite-onsubscriber-data-use/. 51 Kang Wan Chern, “Amara Communications to launch 4G+ data-only service,” Myanmar Times, March 2, 2018, https://www.mmtimes.com/news/amara-communications-launch-4g-dataonly-service.html. 52 Joseph Waring, “Myanmar 4G newcomers ready to roll,” Mobile World Live, February 14, 2018, https://www.mobileworldlive.com/asia/asia-news/myanmar-4g-newcomers-ready-to-roll/. 53 Even at the last moment, MPs attempted to derail the process of giving out licences, see Gwen Robinson, “Myanmar telco auction: the good and the bad,” Financial Times, June 27, 2013, https://www.ft.com/content/befaee5a-22cc-33e3-a8d3-84ce27742dc3. 54 “Realising Digital Myanmar,” Telenor, last modified February 6, 2018, https://www.telenor.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/Telenor-Realising-Digital-Myanmar-Report-06-February.pdf. 55 Aung Kyaw Nyunt, “Yangon warns telecoms to get proper permits,” Myanmar Times, December 4, 2017, https://www.mmtimes.com/news/yangon-warns-telecoms-get-proper-permits.html. 56 Chester Toh and Jainil Bhandari, “Myanmar: The Legal Landscape,” Getting the Deal Through, November 2018, https://gettingthedealthrough.com/country-focus/article/6460/myanmar48 49 legal-landscape. Discussions with participants at the Myanmar Digital Rights Forum, Yangon, 18 January 2019. Namali Premawardhana, “Myanmar forges ahead in ICT,” Myanmar Times, December 18, 2018, https://www.mmtimes.com/news/myanmar-forges-ahead-ict.html. Discussions with experts at the Myanmar Digital Rights Forum, 18 January 2019. 60 Feedback from human rights defenders working on digital rights in Yangon, Myanmar Digital Rights Forum, January 2018, https://phandeeyar.org/category/digital-rights/. 61 Discussions with digital rights activist, Yangon, March 2019. 62 Zaw Zaw Htwe and Aung Kyaw Nyunt, “Critics rail against govt budget for monitoring of Facebook,” Myanmar Times, March 22, 2018, https://www.mmtimes.com/news/critics-rail-againstgovt-budget-monitoring-facebook.html. 63 Blue Coat software, which can be used for internet filtering, censorship, and surveillance was detected during HTTP-field-manipulation tests in Myanmar in 2012 but in later tests was not detected, see Kay Yen Wong et al, ”The State of Internet Censorship in Myanmar,” OONI, March 29, 2017, https://ooni.torproject.org/post/myanmar-report/. 64 “Overview,” OONI, https://explorer.ooni.torproject.org/country/MM; “The State of Internet Censorship in Myanmar,” OONI, https://ooni.torproject.org/post/myanmar-report/. 65 “Telenor Myanmar 6th Annual Sustainable Business Briefing 2019,” Telenor, https://www.telenor.com.mm/en/about/sustainability. 66 Myanmar is not included in Google’s transparency report which has not been updated since June 2018, see “Government requests to remove content,” Transparency Report, Google, accessed October 2, 2019, https://transparencyreport.google.com/government-removals/by-country; Twitter’s data on information requests and removals has not been updated since June 2018 and Myanmar is not included, see “Removal requests,” Transparency Report, Twitter, December 31, 2018, https://transparency.twitter.com/en/removal-requests.html; Facebook’s data on removal requests has not been updated since June 2018 and did not include Myanmar, see “Facebook Transparency Report,” Facebook, https://transparency.facebook.com. 67 Tome Miles, “U.N. investigators cite Facebook role in Myanmar crisis,” Reuters, March 12, 2018, https://www.reuters.com/article/us-myanmar-rohingya-facebook/u-n-investigators-cite57 58 59 facebook-role-in-myanmar-crisis-idUSKCN1GO2PN. 68 “Report of the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Myanmar,” Note by the Secretariat, Human Rights Council, March 5, 2019, https://www.ohchr.org/EN/HRBodies/HRC/RegularSessions/Session40/Documents/A_HRC_40_68.docx; “WhatsApp the Media Platform of Choice for ARSA,” The Irrawaddy, June 12, 2018, https://www.irrawaddy.com/news/burma/whatsapp-the-media-platform-of-choice-for-arsa.html; For example, the Minister for Information suggested in a June 2018 meeting with Facebook employees that the platform should control inciting or vulgar content. Meanwhile, the Minister for Religious and Cultural Affairs has been accused of spreading hate speech; “Facebook closes some accounts of Myanmar hard-liners,” The Nation Thailand, June 9, 2018, http://www.nationmultimedia.com/detail/breakingnews/30347347; https://www.ohchr.org/EN/HRBodies/HRC/RegularSessions/Session40/Documents/A_HRC_40_68.docx. See for example communications from US Senator Markey to Facebook: “Senator Markey: Facebook’s Efforts to Address Hate Speech in Burma Still Insufficient,” Ed Markey US Senator for Massachusetts, March 14, 2019, https://www.markey.senate.gov/news/press-releases/senator-markey-facebooks-efforts-to-address-hate-speech-in-burma-still-insufficient. 70 No clear information exists on exactly what Facebook removes and why. Civil society have noted increases in warnings, and Facebook employees have stated that such actions have increased dramatically over the past 18 months. For example, see discussions at the Myanmar Digital Rights Forum, Yangon, January 19, 2019. 71 “Removing Myanmar Military Officials From Facebook,” Facebook Newsroom, August 28, 2018, https://newsroom.fb.com/news/2018/08/removing-myanmar-officials/. 72 Hanna Ellis-Petersen, “Facebook removes accounts associated with Myanmar military,” The Guardian, August 27, 2018, https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/aug/27/facebookremoves-accounts-myanmar-military-un-report-genocide-rohingya. 73 “Facebook closes some accounts of Myanmar hard-liners,” The Nation Thailand, June 9, 2018, http://www.nationmultimedia.com/detail/breakingnews/30347347. 74 “Removing More Dangerous Organizations from Facebook in Myanmar,” Facebook Newsroom, February 5, 2019, https://newsroom.fb.com/news/2019/02/dangerous-organizations-in69 myanmar/ Personal communication with the authors of an upcoming report on cyber harassment of women activists in Myanmar, Yangon, May 2018. Julia Carrie Wong, Michael Safi, Shaikh Azizur Rahman, “Facebook bans Rohingya group's posts as minority faces 'ethnic cleansing',” The Guardian, September 20, 2017, https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/sep/20/facebook-rohingya-muslims-myanmar. 77 Unpublished presentation on deletion of Myanmar-language content on Facebook, presented in Yangon by a civil society coalition, May 2018. 78 “Telecommunications Law,” Law. No. 31/2013, Article 77, Free Expression Myanmar, October 8, 2013, http://freeexpressionmyanmar.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/telecommunicationslaw-en.pdf. 79 For example, Article 77 give the government powers to stop or prohibit any type of communication. 80 “Telecommunications Law,” Law. No. 31/2013, Article 77, Free Expression Myanmar, October 8, 2013, http://freeexpressionmyanmar.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/telecommunications75 76 law-en.pdf. Discussions with civil society on the PTD, Myanmar Digital Rights Forum, January 18, 2019. Discussions at the Myanmar Digital Rights Forum, Yangon, January 19, 2019. 83 “Why are posts by Rohingya activists getting deleted?” BBC News, September 23, 2017, https://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-trending-41364633. 84 Civil society have repeatedly stated that Facebook’s lack of transparency is a substantive concern, see “RSF calls for more Facebook transparency on Myanmar,” Reporters Without Borders, August 31, 2018, https://rsf.org/en/news/rsf-calls-more-facebook-transparency-myanmar; Russel Brandom, “Activists from Myanmar and beyond call for Facebook to fix moderation,” The Verge, May 18, 2018, https://www.theverge.com/2018/5/18/17369570/facebook-coalition-myanmar-syria-sri-lanka-moderation-transparency-audit; Rebecca MacKinnon, “Facebook is part of an industry-wide problem: lack of transparency about policies affecting users’ online rights,” Business 7 Human Rights Resource Centre, accessed October 2, 2019, https://www.business-humanrights.org/en/facebook-is-part-of-an-industry-wide-problem-lack-of-transparency-about-policies-affecting-users’-online-rights; Timothy McLaughlin, “How Facebook’s Rise Fueled Chaos and Confusion in Myanmar,” Wired, June 7, 2018, https://www.wired.com/story/how-facebooks-rise-fueled-chaos-and-confusion-in-myanmar/; Dunstan Allison-Hope, “Our Human Rights Impact Assessment of Facebook in Myanmar,” Business for Social Responsibility, November 5, 2018, https://www.bsr.org/en/our-insights/blogview/facebook-in-myanmar-human-rights-impact-assessment; Paul Mozur, “Groups in Myanmar Fire Back at Zuckerberg,” New York Times, April 5, 2018, https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/05/technology/zuckerberg-facebook-myanmar.html. 85 Monika Bickert, “Publishing Our Internal Enforcement Guidelines and Expanding Our Appeals Process,” Facebook Newsroom, April 24, 2018, https://newsroom.fb.com/news/2018/04/comprehensive-community-standards/. 86 Discussions about the effectiveness of Facebook’s content moderation, Myanmar Digital Rights Forum, 19 January 2019.; Kyaw Ye Lynn and Su Myat Mon, “On social media, cleaning up isn’t easy,” Frontier Myanmar, December 28, 2018, https://frontiermyanmar.net/en/on-social-media-cleaning-up-isnt-easy. 87 For example, some pro-Rohingya activists believe that content removal trends demonstrate prejudices among content reviewers against Rohingya. 88 “Myanmar journalists 'harassed' for reporting on Rohingya crisis,” Al Jazeera, October 16, 2017, https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2017/10/myanmar-journalists-harassed-reporting-rohingyacrisis-171016070429902.html; “IFJ Blog: No Press Freedom in Myanmar,” IFJ, November 2, 2018, https://www.ifj.org/media-centre/news/detail/category/press-releases/article/ifj-blog-no-pressfreedom-in-myanmar.html. 89 “Myanmar’s media freedom at risk,” Free Expression Myanmar, May 2018, http://freeexpressionmyanmar.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/myanmars-media-freedom-at-risk.pdf; Hanna 81 82 Ellis-Petersen, “Censorship and silence: south-east Asia suffers under press crackdown,” The Guardian, February 24, 2019, https://www.theguardian.com/media/2019/feb/25/censorship-and-silencesouth-east-asia-suffers-under-press-crackdown. Personal communications with human rights defenders working on digital rights, Yangon, May 2018. Personal communications with human rights defenders working on digital rights, Yangon, May 2018. For example, recent discussions at the Myanmar Digital Rights Forum, Yangon, 18 January 2019, and at the American Center, Yangon, 22 May 2019: US Embassy Rangoon, Facebook Post, May 20, 2019, https://www.facebook.com/usembassy.rangoon/posts/2226172564131217/. 93 “Myanmar journalists 'harassed' for reporting on Rohingya crisis,” Al Jazeera, October 16, 2017, https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2017/10/myanmar-journalists-harassed-reporting-rohingya90 91 92 crisis-171016070429902.html. “Myanmar bans Radio Free Asia for using the term “Rohingyas”,” Reporters Without Borders, June 12, 2018, https://rsf.org/en/news/myanmar-bans-radio-free-asia-using-term-rohingyas. Julia Carrie Wong, Michael Safi, Shaikh Azizur Rahman, “Facebook bans Rohingya group's posts as minority faces 'ethnic cleansing',” The Guardian, September 20, 2017, https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/sep/20/facebook-rohingya-muslims-myanmar. 96 “Daring to defy Myanmar’s Patriarchy,” Free Expression Myanmar, 2018, http://freeexpressionmyanmar.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/daring-to-defy-myanmars-patriarchy.pdf. 97 “Daring to defy Myanmar’s Patriarchy,” Free Expression Myanmar, 2018, http://freeexpressionmyanmar.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/daring-to-defy-myanmars-patriarchy.pdf. 94 95 Free Expression Myanmar (FEM) and Freedom House - Freedom of the Net: Myanmar - အင်တာနက်ေပ*တွင် လွတ်လပ်မ/ - ြမန်မာ2ိ4င်ငံ - Page 38