Introduction

When the military seized power over Myanmar in a sweeping coup on 1 February 2021, the country was catapulted into a new situation reminiscent of the years under the military junta, yet completely different after more than 10 years of rapid transformations. This report from The Myanmar Social Media Monitoring Project provides an overview of the transformative changes that have taken place in Myanmar following the military coup as seen through the lens of social media.

Over the course of six months, the project has monitored the most commonly used social media platforms in Myanmar to better understand the military’s way of operating in the online sphere as well as the protest movements’ use of and reliance on social media for communication and information sharing.

The Myanmar military is known to be particularly savvy when it comes to information warfare, and it has only expanded its skillset with the arrival of the internet and social media platforms. Their capabilities in this regard were particularly noted during the 2017 Rohingya crisis when it became public knowledge that the military had systematically used Facebook to influence public sentiments and frame the Rohingya Muslim minority as the cause of a variety of issues in the country. The main purpose of this campaign was to legitimise what UN officials called a “textbook example of ethnic cleansing”, resulting in the deaths of tens of thousands and the exodus of more than 700,000 Rohingyas into neighbouring Bangladesh. Although public sentiments on the matter have changed, many are still convinced of the legitimacy of some of the claims and support the military’s narrative.

Just like the military, the Myanmar people have learned new skills since the last time the military was in power. After decades of living in a tightly controlled society with limited access to independent information, the Myanmar people experienced a bloom in access to information over the course of very few years. Following the adoption of a new constitution in 2008, the abolishment of pre-publication censorship in 2012 and the adoption of a new media law in 2014, the media environment in Myanmar blossomed and people suddenly had access to a vast variety of independent media on all platforms. A few years later, the possibilities for communication and information gathering were further expanded as the internet, smartphones and social media platforms became accessible and rapidly gained popularity. Political decisions to ensure high accessibility to 3G/4G internet resulted in many people relying primarily on the internet, and particularly the social media platform Facebook, for information in a matter of very few years. As such, the Myanmar people, particularly the younger generations, had adjusted to communicating and accessing information in a completely new manner. However, this giant leap in media access has also proved dangerous as access to unfiltered information combined with low levels of media literacy created optimal conditions for misinformation and disinformation to spread like wildfire and cause societal harm.

In the new, uncharted waters of the post-coup era, there is an even higher risk that misinformation and disinformation, promulgated from both the military and protester’s sides, can cause even more harm than they did in the past. This is especially likely as the post-coup era will be marked by a drastic reduction in the capacity of Myanmar’s independent media; state-run propaganda efforts being ramped back up to the levels of the SPDC years; deeply entrenched polarisation dividing those who oppose the junta and those who support it; and the violence and impunity of the military being retaliated against by the protesters through growing armed resistance.

It was against this backdrop that the people behind the Myanmar Social Media Monitoring Project decided to monitor social media in Myanmar. This report lays out some of the main findings from the first six months following the coup, divided into three sections. The first section looks into the military’s propaganda efforts and systematically goes through some of the military’s main tools and approaches. Through analysis of online pro-military networks, this section documents how the networks are gradually isolating themselves from the rest of the Myanmar population and upholding the military’s narratives. The second section looks into the protest movements and, through case examples, shows how the different movements have used social media to support their efforts and how monitoring their online activities provides evidence of worrying developments as the conflict escalates. The third and last section looks into how the Covid-19 pandemic – and particularly the third wave that hit the country over the summer – has affected the conflict and been utilised strategically by the military in propaganda and oppression efforts.

The Myanmar Social Media Monitoring Project hopes that the report can prove useful for people wanting to understand the current situation in Myanmar in more detail and serve as a starting point for discussions around future engagements in the country in support of the media, civil society and the population in general.