NPR: Parts Of Myanmar Unaware Of COVID-19 Due To Internet Ban, Rights Advocates Say. “An Internet shutdown that began a year ago in parts of Myanmar is keeping some villages unaware of the coronavirus pandemic, humanitarian groups say. Restrictions on mobile Internet were put in place in eight townships in the state of Rakhine – and one in nearby Chin state — in June of last year amid fighting between the country’s military and an ethnic minority, the Rakhine, and their Arakan Army.”
Myanmar
The Register: Internet blackout of Myanmar States that are home to ethnic minorities enters second year
The Register: Internet blackout of Myanmar States that are home to ethnic minorities enters second year. “The internet blackout in towns in two states of Myanmar (Burma) has entered a second year. Myanmar’s government imposed the blackouts in Rakhine State and Chin State on June 21st, 2019, citing security concerns as justification.”
University of Toronto: U of T’s Myanmar digital library shares rare manuscripts with scholars around the world
University of Toronto: U of T’s Myanmar digital library shares rare manuscripts with scholars around the world . “The open-access digital archive features manuscripts and rare print editions of texts from libraries across Myanmar. It is the result of an ongoing digitizing project led by an international team of scholars and volunteers who have spent more than five years cleaning, cataloguing and curating texts that cover a range of topics connected to the Southeast Asian country, from Buddhist literature and doctrine to medicine and astrology.”
Reuters: Facebook shuts dozens of Myanmar social media accounts over ‘inauthentic behavior’
Reuters: Facebook shuts dozens of Myanmar social media accounts over ‘inauthentic behavior’ . “Facebook Inc said on Thursday it had shut 216 social media pages, groups and accounts in Myanmar, some tied to the army, to stymie efforts to ‘manipulate or corrupt public debate’.”
The New York Times: The Government Cut Their Internet. Will Abuses Now Remain Hidden?
The New York Times: The Government Cut Their Internet. Will Abuses Now Remain Hidden?. “Rakhine State, a ribbon of marsh and mountain on the western coast of Myanmar, is isolated in the best of times, racked by guerrilla warfare and ethnic cleansing that takes place far from international scrutiny. Now, an internet blackout has all but severed parts of the state from the outside world, in a dramatic display of how easily a government can silence a population in the digital age.”
TechCrunch: Facebook adds new limits to address the spread of hate speech in Sri Lanka and Myanmar
TechCrunch: Facebook adds new limits to address the spread of hate speech in Sri Lanka and Myanmar. “As Facebook grapples with the spread of hate speech on its platform, it is introducing changes that limit the spread of messages in two countries where it has come under fire in recent years: Sri Lanka and Myanmar. In a blog post on Thursday evening, Facebook said that it was ‘adding friction’ to message forwarding for Messenger users in Sri Lanka so that people could only share a particular message a certain number of times. The limit is currently set to five people.”
Myanmar Times: Open History project
Myanmar Times: Open History project. “In Myanmar, one man is on the path to build a library of many millions of words by collecting as much archival, antiqued and stored treasure as possible to save it for posterity. The collection also includes videos and artworks. He is Ko Aung Soe Min of Pansodan gallery. With the vast materials already collected, Ko Aung Soe Min has put on shows in Yangon and Magway, among other places, for the benefit of the public. He named this show, the ‘Open History Project’.”
The Irrawaddy: Archivist Salvages Myanmar’s Neglected Photographic History
The Irrawaddy: Archivist Salvages Myanmar’s Neglected Photographic History. “Austrian photographer and archivist Lukas Birk collects vintage images by local photographers and exhibits them with the aim of reinterpreting Myanmar’s history and reviving the stories told by photographers of bygone eras. His major project, the Myanmar Photo Archive, is an ongoing labor of love comprising more than 20,000 images so far. Lukas is himself a photographer but has devoted the past decade to working on historical research in various countries. He started his Myanmar project in 2015 after learning of the country’s rich photographic history.” An online archive is in the works.
TechCrunch: Facebook bans four armed groups in Myanmar
TechCrunch: Facebook bans four armed groups in Myanmar. “Facebook is taking action in Myanmar, the Southeast Asian country where the social network has been used to incite racial tension and violence, after it banned four armed groups from its service. The U.S. company said in a blog post that it has booted the groups — the Arakan Army (AA), the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army (MNDAA), Kachin Independence Army (KIO) and the Ta’ang National Liberation Army (TNLA) — and that ‘all related praise, support and representation’ will be removed.”
TechCrunch: Jack Dorsey and Twitter ignored opportunity to meet with civic group on Myanmar issues
TechCrunch: Jack Dorsey and Twitter ignored opportunity to meet with civic group on Myanmar issues. “Responding to criticism from his recent trip to Myanmar, Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey said he’s keen to learn about the country’s racial tension and human rights atrocities, but it has emerged that both he and Twitter’s public policy team ignored an opportunity to connect with a key civic group in the country.”
Engadget: Twitter’s Jack Dorsey promotes Myanmar despite genocide reports
Engadget: Twitter’s Jack Dorsey promotes Myanmar despite genocide reports. “Unfortunately, social network leaders still appear to be tone deaf regarding Myanmar’s reported atrocities. Twitter chief Jack Dorsey posted a series of tweets encouraging followers to visit Myanmar after he’d been there for a birthday meditation retreat, seemingly ignoring widespread evidence of the country’s government committing genocide against the Rohingya people and forcing hundreds of thousands of them to flee. He focused solely on his trip, noting that the ‘people are full of joy’ and celebrating the experience of listening to a Kendrick Lamar album after breaking silence.”
New York Times: Facebook Admits It Was Used to Incite Violence in Myanmar
New York Times: Facebook Admits It Was Used to Incite Violence in Myanmar. “Facebook has long promoted itself as a tool for bringing people together to make the world a better place. Now the social media giant has acknowledged that in Myanmar it did the opposite, and human rights groups say it has a lot of work to do to fix that.”
Myanmar: Myanmar’s Military Said to Be Behind Facebook Campaign That Fueled Genocide
New York Times: Myanmar’s Military Said to Be Behind Facebook Campaign That Fueled Genocide. “They posed as fans of pop stars and national heroes as they flooded Facebook with their hatred. One said Islam was a global threat to Buddhism. Another shared a false story about the rape of a Buddhist woman by a Muslim man. The Facebook posts were not from everyday internet users. Instead, they were from Myanmar military personnel who turned the social network into a tool for ethnic cleansing, according to former military officials, researchers and civilian officials in the country.”
BuzzFeed News: Facebook Just Met With Reps From Myanmar, The Philippines, And Sri Lanka To Discuss Its Global Misinformation Problem
BuzzFeed News: Facebook Just Met With Reps From Myanmar, The Philippines, And Sri Lanka To Discuss Its Global Misinformation Problem. “Facebook last week held a two-day meeting with academics, researchers, and civil society organizations from Myanmar, the Philippines, Sri Lanka, and elsewhere to discuss misinformation and propaganda, three sources told BuzzFeed News.”
Channel NewsAsia: Russian ‘Facebook’ bans Myanmar army chief, hardline monk
Channel NewsAsia: Russian ‘Facebook’ bans Myanmar army chief, hardline monk. “Russian social media site VKontakte (VK) has followed Facebook by banning Myanmar’s army chief and a nationalist monk known for stirring up Islamophobia in a country condemned globally for the treatment of its Rohingya Muslims.”
