5/6/24, 11:09 AM Myanmar | RSF The privately owned media’s economic model was already fragile before the coup. Myanmar Media outlets Politics Laws Economy Society Safety Pre Investigative reporting by sites such as Myanmar Now and Mizzima had relatively few readers. As a result of the coup’s upheaval, the pro-government media have taken over the newsstands and airwaves, and the independent media have been reduced to clandestinity and therefore to even more uncertain modes of financing. At the start of 2022, the junta introduced a new system of taxation of Internet services, starting with SIM cards, the sole purpose of which is to make it harder for people to get news and information and to communicate online. Sociocultural context Before the 2021 coup, under the government of Aung San Suu Kyi, the climate surrounding press freedom was already difficult with the persistence of taboo issues, such as the plight of ethnic minorities. The biggest blow was the 2018 arrests of two Reuters journalists who had investigated a massacre of Rohingya civilians. They were subjected to a sham trial and finally pardoned and released after more than 500 days in prison. Their ordeal served as a warning to all journalists, who realised they would have to think twice before doing any investigative reporting that could embarrass Myanmar’s armed forces, the Tatmadaw. This case was accompanied by a surge in disinformation and hate speech on Facebook, whose failure to regulate content had a disastrous impact on the public debate in Myanmar. Safety With significant risks of being tortured, jailed, or murdered, journalism is an extremely dangerous profession in Myanmar, which has become one of the world’s biggest jailers of journalists, second only to China – and, relative to its population, by far the country that imprisons its journalists the most. The few accounts emerging from Myanmar’s jails reveal extremely harsh conditions and systemic use of torture. In some cases, these abuses lead to the death of journalists, adding to the long list of those killed by the junta. https://rsf.org/en/country/myanmar 3/3