before the coup and has never been adequately addressed. The most infamous Telegram and Facebook channels to promote social punishment are run by Han Nyein Oo. This is one of the main sources for celebrity gossip and 'yellow journalism', which reappears every three to four days despite being repeatedly taken down. Amidst a nationwide conflict, the leaking of sexually explicit images or videos, real or fake, has become a political weapon employed by both the military junta and its opponents. Hundreds of women, from young pro-democracy activists to relatives of security officers, have been targeted by such abuse. This reflects a universal trend, as Danielle Keats Citron explains in her book “Hate Crimes in Cyberspace”: “Persistent online attacks disproportionately target women and frequently include detailed fantasies of rape as well as reputation-ruining lies and sexually explicit photographs. And if dealing with a single attacker’s ‘revenge porn’ were not enough, harassing posts that make their way onto social media sites often feed on one another, turning lone instigators into cyber-mobs.” Citron also explains: “Cyber-harassment is a matter of civil rights law, and legal precedents as well as social norms of decency and civility must be leveraged to stop it.” In Myanmar, however, organizations that could offer at least some advice and support to the victims are now unable to function, and people are very reluctant to act because the authorities are entirely unpredictable. Since September, informants in Yangon stopped paying their electricity bills as an act of resistance. In turn, the authorities intermittently turned off the whole network in some neighborhoods, cut the wires or confiscated satellite dishes. Smartphones and computers have become more expensive due to international trade route disruption and inflation. The rate of the MMK against the dollar shot up exponentially with the currency losing 60% of its value in the course of the month of September. Any basic smartphone now costs more than 1,000,000 MMK. Since the military council couldn't afford the Internet shutdown, they moved to make it more expensive for civilians. This was also a way to tackle the widely popular Click2Donate campaign, which raised money for pro-democracy groups by simply installing an application and then asking people to share, search, shop or participate online. Revenues from advertisements are automatically derived and transferred to a specific fund to support the NUG or PDFs. On December 7th, the Ministry of Transport and Communications, under the military council, ordered telecommunications companies to restrict internet speed and raise prices. As businesses’ profits stumbled in Myanmar and investments slowed to a standstill, people feared the return of telecommunication darkness. An informant from southern Rakhine state explained: “I haven’t been at school for one year and a half because of Covid-19 and then the coup. The only thing that kept me going and gave me a perspective for the future was my online English lessons. Now I can’t even afford to buy the 1 GB of data I need to attend the course on Zoom, as it went from 1,000 to 3,000 MMK from one day to another. The cheapest I found is 2,850 MMK from the military-owned network MPT, which I would never use”. 11

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