5/22/22, 12:03 AM Myanmar: Freedom on the Net 2021 Country Report | Freedom House never intended to be used to block all content. 115 The law does not explicitly hold intermediaries liable for content, but some provisions are vague and could feasibly be interpreted to justify content removal. 116 There are also no avenues for appealing restrictions, 117 and the only potential safeguard against abuse, the MCRC, has still not been established (see A5). In the absence of the MCRC, the PTD retains control over content restrictions. The PTD does not publish procedural information on how or when any such decisions are made, or by whom. Military directives— and government directives before the coup—that order internet shutdowns and website blocks have not been published, and users have had to rely on telecommunications companies and civil society testing for more information about content restrictions. 118 The orders have become so common that many are conveyed to providers by telephone rather than through official channels. 119 Recipients of directives are unwilling to publicize the orders’ exact terms due to the risk of legal liability, including potential violations of the Official Secrets Act, and there have been no reported legal challenges to test the directives’ lawfulness in courts. The only ISP that had been documenting and publishing the existence of restrictive directives following the coup, Telenor, ceased those activities on February 14, citing threats of license revocation and intimidation of staff. 120 In 2018, following complaints about its content moderation from within Myanmar and elsewhere, Facebook increased its moderation activity, expanded its appeals process for account and page takedowns, 121 and established a self-regulatory Oversight Board. 122 According to the company, it subsequently removed hundreds of Facebook and Instagram pages and accounts—with millions of followers—that had originated within and outside of Myanmar and were found to have violated the platforms’ community standards. 123 Removals in 2018 included the accounts and pages of top military commander Min Aung Hlaing, other military leaders, and the military’s Myawaddy television network, 124 as well as accounts associated with the Buddhist ultranationalist group Ma Ba Tha. 125 After the coup, Facebook removed or reduced the distribution of many pages run by the military or military companies, including Tatmadaw True News Information Team, MRTV, and MRTV Live. 126 The pages and accounts of various ethnic rebel groups have also been removed by Facebook in recent years, as the company deemed them “dangerous organizations.” 127 This designation meant that any content supporting the groups could also be removed once identified. An unintended consequence of Facebook’s increased moderation activity has been the removal of legitimate content. 128 Some activists continue to argue that some of Facebook’s removals have compromised the public’s right to information about important national stakeholders, and that they have swept up a wide range of valid content, including commentary on and documentation of human rights violations. 129 For example, certain media outlets, journalists, and human rights defenders have alleged that their content was wrongfully removed, particularly journalistic reporting about banned organizations. 130 Despite requests from civil society, 131 Facebook is only minimally transparent about its restrictions. Some in Myanmar’s civil society sector suspect that this opacity masks significant internal problems, such as poorly trained staff who lack contextual and language expertise, problematic and insufficient algorithms, 132 and discriminatory decision-making. 133 The Oversight Board has agreed to review one case in which an appellant challenged Facebook’s decision to remove a post criticizing the postcoup environment TOP on the grounds that it violated the platform’s hate speech policy. 134 A 2020 survey of journalists conducted by Free Expression Myanmar found that Facebook had warned a third of the participants that their journalistic content violated the platform’s community standards. 135 https://freedomhouse.org/country/myanmar/freedom-net/2021 11/28