Analysis
The Myanmar junta has escalated its surveillance campaign to monitor and control online activity.
For the brutal Myanmar junta, killing people has not been enough to suppress the nationwide anti-regime movement or completely silence criticism of it. So along with the use of violence, it has been increasingly active in maintaining 24/7 online surveillance of individual citizens to detect attempts to communicate hidden or indirect anti-regime messages online.
The junta has killed over 3,600 dissenters and arrested tens of thousands more since its coup in 2021. At the same time, it has consistently targeted online platforms and social media channels by, among other things, imposing internet shutdowns, blocking access to social media platforms like Facebook, imposing restrictions on virtual private networks (VPNs, which can bypass internet censorship), and conducting online surveillance to control and monitor online activities.
The junta’s online surveillance campaign has seen a growing number of people jailed, face arrest warrants, lose their properties, become targets of prosecution, and flee their homes.
“We don’t feel safe posting or commenting anything on social media, like before [under the ousted civilian government],” said Yangon resident Ma Zin (not her real name), conveying the sense of intimidation caused by the junta’s online campaign.
Like others, Ma Zin used social media, especially the country’s most popular platform, Facebook, to express her disapproval of the military takeover that overthrew Myanmar’s elected civilian government in February 2021, and the brutal killings of peaceful protesters that ensued in the following months.
However, the 36-year-old said she stopped doing that in late 2021, fearing detention as the junta started monitoring social media posts and making arrests.
“Even talking about power outages when they happen [can get you arrested]. They arrested Byuhar immediately. So what would we ever dare to talk about?” Ma Zin said, showing her frustration.
Singer Byuhar was among the most recent high-profile victims of the junta’s online crackdown. He was arrested last month in Yangon for posts on Facebook criticizing the junta’s handling of power outages.
Ma Zin is just one of many Myanmar social media users who feel threatened by the military regime’s monitoring of social media.
Ko Thant Zin (not his real name) from Yangon said he not only stopped posting on Facebook after the coup, but also deleted old posts related to politics, as pro-junta telegram channels began circulating new and old posts made by individuals, and providing information about them to junta forces for use in making arrests.
He said this had added another layer of threat to daily life. Some of his friends were targeted by pro-junta channels, he said, and one was recently arrested by junta forces for posting on Facebook about an explosion near her neighborhood.
“Both offline and online, it is unsafe for us,” he said.
Doxing: Bringing the threat to victims’ doorsteps
The junta and its supporters have increasingly employed doxing as a method of intimidation. Doxing refers to the act of revealing or publishing private or personal information about an individual without their consent.
Pro-junta Telegram accounts such as Han Nyein Oo, Ba Nyunt, Kyaw Swar and Thazin Oo regularly dox anti-regime activists, journalists and individuals whom they perceive as criticizing the junta or challenging its authority.
They expose the targeted individual’s personal information on their channels, including names, addresses and even family information, along with screenshots of Facebook posts deemed critical of the regime. They incite attacks against the targeted individuals, ranging from demands for authorities to detain them and seize their property, to calls for their executions or—if the targeted individual is female—sexual harassment. Their doxing often leads to arrest and persecution by the junta, and even physical harm.
A few of these channels were briefly taken down after being reported for breaching Telegram’s rules, but the pro-junta groups involved simply created new Telegram channels under the same names shortly afterwards.
Ma Wai Phyo Myint, a digital rights advocate and Asia Pacific Policy Analyst for Access Now, an advocacy group for digital rights around the world, said the junta has greatly expanded the use of doxing as a mechanism to instill fear and deter civilians from engaging in any revolutionary activity. She added that it was a tactic used by the regime to control the civic space.
“They are attempting to exert control offline and also over the remaining online civic space, incrementally.”
She said that initially doxing only targeted those affiliated with the National Unity Government, its parliamentary committee and its armed wing, the People’s Defense Force, as well as protest leaders, but later doxers began targeting anyone seen as supporting the anti-regime movement online.
Among the recent victims is model May Panche, who was sentenced to three years’ imprisonment for expressing sympathy on Facebook for the victims of the junta’s deadliest air strike to date, which killed over 160 people in Sagaing’s Pazi Gyi Village in April.
After she announced that she would postpone her live online jewelry sale on the day of the air strike, pro-junta channels posted screenshots of old pictures showing her participating in an anti-coup protest, and urged that she be detained. On the same day, dozens of citizens who condemned the air strike on Facebook or changed their profiles to black in a show of sympathy for the victims were arrested across Myanmar.
Last week, composer Aung Naing San was arrested in Yangon’s Sanchaung Township for commenting under a news story about the shooting of staunch junta supporter and nationalist Lily Naing Kyaw, who was gunned down on May 30 and died on June 6.
“You could be being watched at any time. That is what the junta wants to instill in people,” Ma Sein, a digital rights activist whose name was changed to avoid repercussions, said about the junta’s increased online surveillance.
She denounced the junta’s online repression campaign as a violation of Myanmar people’s basic rights, including freedom of expression and access to information.
However, the digital rights activist said that despite these surveillance and suppression tactics, people continue to find ways to resist. Some employ encryption tools to bypass restrictions and share information securely, but she urged the public to be extra cautious about their digital security and not to share any personal information on the internet.
Ma Sein added that the junta was also attempting to legalize its digital suppression of critics with its new draft cyber security law and enhanced counterterrorism law, which make it “legal” for the regime to eavesdrop on suspects, monitor online activities and access user data as part of its increasing attempt to tighten control over the digital space.
Digital rights activists and advocacy groups have warned that the junta is attempting to build a surveillance state and urged the international community and technology companies to stand with the people of Myanmar and resist the coup—both physical and digital.
