8/22/22, 10:18 PM Myanmar: Freedom on the Net 2019 Country Report | Freedom House blocking and filtering lists and there are no public reports about blocking or filtering during the period under review. Network measurements have not detected software used for censorship or manipulation of traffic inside Myanmar since 2012. 63 Political content appears to be almost universally available, and even content such as pornography was generally not blocked as of mid-2019. 64 Telenor, Myanmar’s second largest mobile service provider in terms of subscribers and the only provider to publish annual transparency reports, reported receiving no requests to block content from the government during the coverage period. 65 B2 0-4 pts Do state or nonstate actors employ legal, administrative, or other means to force publishers, content hosts, or digital platforms to delete content? 1/4 Pressure to remove content continues to originate from state and nonstate actors both within Myanmar and from outside the country. Google, Twitter, and Facebook have not reported any official requests for content removals from the government, including the courts. 66 Similarly, there are also no publicly available reports on formal government or court requests for publishers and content hosts to remove content. However, the government employs other channels to pressure social media platforms and users. Government calls for content hosts and platforms, notably Facebook but also WhatsApp, to address rampant intolerance, misinformation, and incitement on their platforms continue. 67 But the government itself has failed to tackle these problems and often is responsible for perpetrating them. 68 Amid investigative reports on inflammatory online content that encouraged violence against the Rohingya people, there have also been international efforts targeting platforms to remove content, including from US lawmakers. 69 As a result, Facebook has apparently increased its moderation practices and the use of its automated filtering mechanisms to remove content. 70 According to Facebook, it has removed hundreds of pages and accounts on Facebook and Instagram originating in Myanmar, with millions of followers, for violating its community standards. 71 Removals included the accounts and pages of Commander-in-Chief Min Aung Hlaing of the Myanmar Armed Forces, the military’s Myawaddy television network, and other military leaders, 72 as well as nonstate actors such as the ultranationalist anti-Muslim monk Wirathu and pages run by the Buddhist ultranationalist group Ma Ba Tha. 73 The pages and accounts of the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA), Arakan Army, Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army, Kachin Independence Army, and Ta’ang National Liberation Army were also removed because Facebook considered them “dangerous organizations.” 74 This designation meant that any content and pages supporting these individuals or groups could also be removed once identified. Activists, particularly women and religious minorities, reported being subjected to violence or threats intended to force them to remove their own content. 75 Pressure to remove content is also prevalent in coordinated reporting campaigns in which users misuse Facebook’s mechanism for reporting content that violates the platform’s community standards 76 in order to disable pages or temporarily limit users’ ability to post or send messages. 77 Activists have argued that progovernment and military users have carried out a targeted campaign to report the content of pro-Rohingya and human rights groups. https://freedomhouse.org/country/myanmar/freedom-net/2019 7/20