New York Times: Fighting a Brutal Regime With the Help of a Video Game. “Opponents of the coup in Myanmar have flocked to a new online game that lets players shoot virtual soldiers while raising money for the real-life resistance.”
NBC News: Young Rohingya photographers capture life in world’s largest refugee camp. “A new virtual exhibition explores the identity of Rohingya Muslims from Myanmar living in the world’s largest refugee camp, through the lens of Rohingya photographers.”
Frontier Myanmar: Pro-military death squad rallies openly on social media. “After tea shop owner U Khin Maung Thein was abducted and killed in April, pictures of his body were uploaded to the social media platform Telegram. Hanging around his neck, over his bloodstained shirt, was a lanyard with a strange symbol: a red circle with an image of an ancient Burmese warrior holding two swords. This is the calling card of Thwe Thauk Apwe, a new pro-military vigilante group whose violent rise has played out over social media, particularly Facebook and Telegram.”
Associated Press: Facebook fails to detect hate against Rohingya: report. “A new report has found that Facebook failed to detect blatant hate speech and calls to violence against Myanmar’s Rohingya Muslim minority years after such behaviour was found to have played a determining role in the genocide against them. The report shared exclusively with The Associated Press showed the rights group Global Witness submitted eight paid ads for approval to Facebook, each including different versions of hate speech against Rohingya. All eight ads were approved by Facebook to be published.”
South China Morning Post: Rotting fruit, sinking fortunes – Covid-19 curbs take their toll on China’s Myanmar border. “Thousands of tonnes of watermelon are lying dumped by the roadside along Myanmar’s border with southwestern China, with local exporters complaining that strict Covid-19 pandemic controls had made trade in perishables ‘nearly impossible’. Major road links to the city of Ruili in Yunnan province – China’s major gateway to Myanmar – remain jammed with hundreds of trucks waiting to clear the checkpoints.”
CNN: Meta bans businesses run by Myanmar’s military from Facebook. “Meta, the owner of Facebook and Instagram, is further clamping down on content linked to Myanmar’s military amid pressure to step up safety controls in the country. The company announced Wednesday that it would ban military-controlled businesses from Facebook, wiping out their pages, groups and accounts.”
Business Insider: Facebook is fighting to keep records of its own investigation into the genocide of Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar out of court. “Facebook on Wednesday challenged part of a judge’s order that would require the tech giant to release internal documents and private user content connected to the genocide of 24,000 Rohingya people in Myanmar. The company is appealing US Magistrate Zia Faruqi’s September mandate that said Facebook must disclose records from the company’s private investigation into its role in the systematic mass executions of Rohingya civilians by the Myanmar military.”
Reuters: U.S. court orders Facebook to release records of anti-Rohingya content for genocide case. “A U.S federal judge has ordered Facebook FB.O to release records of accounts connected to anti-Rohingya violence in Myanmar that the social media giant had shut down, rejecting its argument about protecting privacy as ‘rich with irony’.”
BBC: Covid and a coup: The double crisis pushing Myanmar to the brink. “On 1 February, Myanmar’s military seized power from its civilian government, leading to a series of mass protests that show no signs of stopping. Among the protesters were thousands of healthcare workers who walked out, leading to a collapse in the healthcare system and throwing Myanmar’s vaccination and testing response into chaos. And now, a surge in coronavirus cases fuelled by the highly infectious Delta variant has dealt the country a fresh blow.”
KrAsia: Supporters and detractors of Myanmar’s coup take fraught conflict to TikTok, Facebook, and Twitter. “Apps and websites like TikTok, Facebook, and Twitter not only host and disseminate text, photos, and videos from Myanmar, but also serve as ideological battlefronts.”
The Citizen (Tanzania): The UN’s refugee data shame, and what needs to be done. “Back in 2017, I wrote of the risks of the UN’s refugee agency, UNHCR, collecting biometric registration data from Rohingya refugees, noting that the data could be used to drive unwilling repatriation; that collecting such data may make refugees believe their access to aid depends upon providing such data; and that – once collected or shared – such biometric data is virtually impossible to get rid of. Nearly four years later, a report from Human Rights Watch (HRW) says these worst-case scenarios have come true: A detailed database of the Rohingya refugee population has been handed over to Myanmar’s government, which drove them across the border into Bangladesh almost four years ago.”
Washington Post: Rights group: Facebook amplified Myanmar military propaganda. “Facebook’s recommendation algorithm amplifies military propaganda and other material that breaches the company’s own policies in Myanmar following a military takeover in February, a new report by the rights group Global Witness says. A month after the military seized power in Myanmar and imprisoned elected leaders, Facebook’s algorithms were still prompting users to view and ‘like’ pro-military pages with posts that incited and threatened violence, pushed misinformation that could lead to physical harm, praised the military and glorified its abuses, Global Witness said in the report, published late Tuesday.”
Thomson Reuters Foundation: Songs, stories, pottery: Refugees preserve their heritage in digital archives. “Solima Khatun has been a refugee six times in her long life. She first left her home in Myanmar during the Second World War, and most recently in 2017 – when relatives had to carry her as they fled to Bangladesh with nearly one million other Rohingyas…. Khatun’s story – along with pictures of her and her loda – are among scores of exhibits featured in the Rohingya Cultural Memory Centre (RCMC), a new digital archive of the art, literature and treasured belongings of refugees in Cox’s Bazar.”
