in to trouble.” (FGD_05) A recent article featured on Reuters.com has identified the central coordinating unit for social media surveillance as the military’s Public Relations and Information Production Unit in Naypyidaw, also known as Ka Ka Com. The unit is said to coordinate a large number of smaller social media teams throughout the country that sift through and extract information on people who “should be arrested or subject to on-the-ground surveillance” (Potkin & Lone, 2021). 4.2.6 Dalan (Informer) A common fear among participants was the awareness of and fear of informants and a mistrust of online accounts pretending to be someone they are not for this purpose. “It is very complicated because of informers called ‘dalan’. If you post something they will automatically know, they really like to report to the military. It is always dangerous.” (FGD_05) Participants expressed a feeling that informants are ‘always there’ yet not always visible, and that their reporting has direct consequences on the lives of civilians. “I live in a place where nothing is safe, and three days ago, three people got killed because the military got information from the informers. Informers are the issue, they are helping the military, and putting everyone in danger in their everyday lives.” (FGD_05) (Female) 26 Figure 4: (Left) An image displaying printed Facebook profiles claimed to belong to NUG supporters at an unverified location. This image claims that military staff are tracking those showing support for the NUG online. Source: A screenshot posted on Historically Important Photos Storage | Facebook Figure 5: (Right) A screenshot of a social media post on the Than Lwin Times Facebook page on 7.10.2021 This media post claims that the SAC has instructed all government staff to create two new Facebook accounts per department with the purpose of disseminating anti-NUG content, as well as to share military propaganda content from a designated military Facebook page. Source: Than Lwin Times | Facebook This is further complicated by the widescale use of fake names, images and multiple social media accounts being created online for safety purposes. Finding out who someone really is online, has become far more difficult, as even if they can verify an account or number as belonging to somebody they know and trust, these can be compromised at any moment. “(for youth) using multiple accounts before the coup was a strategy to make the internet more anonymous for themselves. A way to separate your interests and still interact with people and not having everyone in your life see the

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