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Myanmar's New Military Government is Now Blocking Twitter and Instagram (techcrunch.com) 65

Posted by msmash from the breaking-news dept.
Myanmar's new military government has ordered local telecom operators, internet gateways, and other internet service providers to block Twitter and Instagram in the South Asian country days after imposing a similar blackout on Facebook to ensure "stability" in the Southeast Asian nation. From a report: Norwegian telecom giant Telenor, which is one of the largest telecos in Myanmar, said the government has ordered ISPs to block Twitter and Instagram "until further notice." The directive has "legal basis in Myanmar's telecommunications law," Telenor said, but it is challenging the "necessity and proportionality of the directive in its response to Myanmar Ministry of Transport and Communications, and highlighted the directive's contradiction with international human rights law."

[...] In a statement, a Twitter spokesperson told TechCrunch: "We're deeply concerned about the order to block Internet services in Myanmar. It undermines the public conversation and the rights of people to make their voices heard. The Open Internet is increasingly under threat around the world. We will continue to advocate to end destructive government-led shutdowns. We understand some people across the Asia-Pacific region may also be having trouble accessing Twitter, and we're working to fix it."
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Myanmar's New Military Government is Now Blocking Twitter and Instagram More

Myanmar's New Military Government is Now Blocking Twitter and Instagram

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  • On a completely unrelated news... (Score:3)

    by MarcoPon ( 689115 ) on Friday February 05, 2021 @04:46PM (#61032222) Homepage
    VPN usage surge in Myanmar!
    • No. More users for Telegram.

      Telega has honed its "bombproof" evasion techniques versus regimes with much more technical capabilities and acumen. The Myanmar rubbernecks stand no chance.

    • 10 illegally imported walkie-talkies?

    • Bandwidth Diversity Rules. There are overhead satellites. https://www.amateur-radio-wiki... [amateur-radio-wiki.net]. There is no need to 'Hurry' information out, and new dumbed down military will not know some of these obsolete modes. It would be possible for a joker to broadcast an sms to all phones Thankfully few people know how. No one remembers the Russian woodpecker interference nowadays.

  • Re: (Score:2, Funny)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 )
    Comment removed based on user account deletion

    • Yeah, Twitter is definitely not pro-open Internet.

      • It turns out that not enforcing rules turns your site into a haven for racists, incels and pedophiles.

        Oddly enough, there is no money in catering to the dregs of society.

        If you can't even pretend to be a decent person, you will be ostracized. Online or in meat space.

        Shocking!

  • ..like this is a bad thing.

    • Re:Everyone is acting... (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Arthur, KBE ( 6444066 ) on Friday February 05, 2021 @05:10PM (#61032292)
      I think blocking Twitter and social media, in general, *is* a bad thing, regardless of my personal distaste for these services.

    • It is dangerous for the military junta: weaning people off social media stops their exposure to mind-numbing idiocy, and also gives them more time to think about what their country could be without a military junta.

      • Social media is the modern-day moral panic. It was communism, then comic books, then heavy metal (and by extension Satanism), then Dungeons and Dragons, etc. Old people aren't happy unless they have something to complain about.

        • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

          by Arthur, KBE ( 6444066 )
          And what's unique about the social media moral panic, is that it's coming from the political left this time. Historically, it's been right-leaning Christians that prop this stuff up.
          • I think both cases are about panic containment (justified or not). If the military takes over, even ours, the last thing they'll want is Twitter and Facebook getting people all freaked out about it. Even in stable countries these services are serving 24 hour click-bait outrage. We worried about 24 hour news before, but at least you used to have to sit down in front of a TV to be radicalized. Now we carry it with us, it has no editorial standards to speak of, and it sends us notifications to get our attentio

          • Re:Everyone is acting... (Score:5, Interesting)

            by MBGMorden ( 803437 ) on Friday February 05, 2021 @05:57PM (#61032470)

            It is indeed strange, and is why it feels weird to be right leaning these days. 20 years ago I favored mostly Democrat positions because I've always favored personal liberties, and back then the Republicans and the Christian nanny-state were trying to control everything.

            These days the left has become the nanny-state. They are nanny-stating over different issues, but the end result is the same: control for the sake of imposing their idealology.

            It reminds me of a description of why Gandalf couldn't wield "The One Ring". Though he would have used the ring's power to enforce "goodness", he would have become a tyrant, and would have mercilessly enforced his righteous views upon the land using the power of the ring.

            And so the left as they gained power from rebelling against the right have become the oppressors. In another couple decades the tables will likely turn as people rebel against the left (and then back again, etc), as at the base of it the simple fact is people don't like others telling them how they should act and/or think.

            • “Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.” --C. S. Lewis

            • Gandalf couldn't be the one to carry the one ring because he was basically a demigod, and if he were to become twisted by it then he would make Sauron look like a little bitch.

              However, the left isn't trying to stop speech that isn't inciting violence. Frodo could carry the ring for a while because he wasn't greedy, and he had Sam to help keep him on track.

              • Re: (Score:2)

                by jlar ( 584848 )

                However, the left isn't trying to stop speech that isn't inciting violence. Frodo could carry the ring for a while because he wasn't greedy, and he had Sam to help keep him on track.

                I don't agree. They are trying to stop speech that they consider unacceptable which is much broader than speech which is already illegal.

                You may dislike Fox News but they are not inciting violence. And a CNN anchor is arguing that they should be deplatformed. This may not succeed but I find it appalling that main stream journalists have so little respect for the freedom of the press and for freedom of speech. There are many other examples of speech that is not inciting violence which is being censored with

                • Re: (Score:2)

                  by jlar ( 584848 )

                  "I may be wrong since I am not a native English speaker but it does not seem to me that his talk is incitement to violence in a legal sense."

                  should of course be:

                  "I may be wrong since I am not a native English speaker but it does not seem to me that his talk is not incitement to violence in a legal sense."

              • Gandalf couldn't be the one to carry the one ring because he was basically a demigod, and if he were to become twisted by it then he would make Sauron look like a little bitch.

                Gandalf and Sauron were both Maia - the same type of being.

        • Jaysus! Until I saw your list of moral panics over the last 60 or so years, I had forgotten how many of them I did.

          And still do, mostly.

      • Generally speaking, if all of the international mass media is for something, you as an average citizen is fucked.

        If they are against something, you should really make an effort to learn about what they're attacking and support it.

        Which is why, even though I'm no expert on what's happening in Myanmar, I fully support what their military junta is doing. Especially considering who that 'pro democracy' woman is married to and why they keep promoting her as some kind of saint. Even rotten fish doesn't stink this

    • Internet censorship? Route around it!

      Slashdot today.
      I really dislike facebook/twitter/instagram why can't the government shut them down?

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by jlar ( 584848 )

        Internet censorship? Route around it!

        Slashdot today.
        I really dislike facebook/twitter/instagram why can't the government shut them down?

        How is this censorship? The Myanmar authorities are just blocking Twitter. People in Myanmar and abroad can still say what they want. Nobody has a right to a platform to speak from. The dissidents in Myanmar can just stand on the street corner and talk to people or build their own Twitter-like platform. ...

        Or at least that was one of the arguments I heard why the deplatforming of conservatives and even the takedown of Parler had nothing to do with censorship.

        • How is this censorship? The Myanmar authorities are just blocking Twitter. People in Myanmar and abroad can still say what they want. Nobody has a right to a platform to speak from. [...] Or at least that was one of the arguments I heard why the deplatforming of conservatives and even the takedown of Parler had nothing to do with censorship.

          You didn't understand what you heard.

          Taking Parler off AWS was censorship, but it wasn't about deplatforming people with merely bad or unpopular ideas. It was about deplatforming people with violent ideas, who were specifically immediately promoting violence. And it was about Parler demonstrating the ability to moderate, but then not spending their moderation efforts on those calls to violence.

          Was removing Parler censorship? Sure. But it wasn't government censorship, and it was with good reason, with loads

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by jlar ( 584848 )

            You didn't understand what you heard.

            Taking Parler off AWS was censorship, but it wasn't about deplatforming people with merely bad or unpopular ideas. It was about deplatforming people with violent ideas, who were specifically immediately promoting violence. And it was about Parler demonstrating the ability to moderate, but then not spending their moderation efforts on those calls to violence.

            Was removing Parler censorship? Sure. But it wasn't government censorship, and it was with good reason, with loads of warning, and only once it was proven that Parler could have policed their own content if they wanted to, and didn't.

            What we're talking about in Myanmar is different in that it is direct government censorship, and reacting not only to calls to violence, but simply to dissent.

            Equating the two is false.

            How do you know what I heard? Please enlighten me. I read numerous proponents of deplatforming argue that it was not censorship.

            Furthermore the Myanmar government is obviously also imposing censorship because they want to prevent being dethroned again ultimately by violence. And why should direct government censorship be worse than direct corporate censorship?

            And I am by the way not equating the two situations. They are obviously different. My point is simply that some people argue that what happened in the

            • How do you know what I heard?

              From what you said.

              My point is simply that some people argue that what happened in the USA was not censorship. And I fundamentally disagree with that assertion.

              Sure, it is fundamentally censorship, because the right to free speech is not absolute. If you're using it to do direct harm, it's already clearly not protected by law in that case.

              • Re: (Score:2)

                by jlar ( 584848 )

                Sure, it is fundamentally censorship, because the right to free speech is not absolute. If you're using it to do direct harm, it's already clearly not protected by law in that case.

                False. Direct harm is not a valid reason for speech to become unprotected. The rules for that are much narrower.

              • Re: (Score:2)

                by jlar ( 584848 )

                How do you know what I heard?

                From what you said.

                Why are you lying? Or are you just too dumb to understand what I wrote?

  • Hey look, actual insurrection. (Score:3, Insightful)

    by SuperKendall ( 25149 ) on Friday February 05, 2021 @05:10PM (#61032294)

    Turns out armed military storming the capital and shutting down communications is what an insurrection looks like, not photo ops with vikings and walking out with door prizes as the police look on, while communications cancels you...

    How kind of the Myanmar military to provide such a timely contrast.

  • From a story by the BBC, after a landslide victory by Suu Kyi's party "The armed forces had backed the opposition, who were demanding a rerun of the vote, claiming widespread fraud." Imagine if something like that were to happen in the United States??
  • Everytime there's a coup somewhere, if the internet is not cut then social media will... first FB, now this.

  • what is our military government going to do about the twitterverse?

  • Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • But when it's the social media platforms that are blocked, they suddenly have an issue.

    Curious.
    • Please explain why internet-based companies should be forced to transmit any and all messages while TV, radio, and print media should not.

      • Please explain why internet-based companies should be forced to transmit any and all messages while TV, radio, and print media should not.

        TV / radio / print media is limited in airtime / paper size. Meanwhile those big social media web sites are with virtually unlimited storage space (unless one spam it with tons of auto-generated garbage of course). I don't think any people are forcing them to transmit illegal messages. But the current trend of demonizing hate / violence is bad to freedom and democracy. Authoritarian tyrannical states won't break down spontaneously. It need a spread of information of their evil-doing (which "incite hate") a

  • Isn't that what page 1 of "The Little Coup Colonel Handbook" says to do first?

    The revised version, the old version mentioned radio and TV-Stations.

    I just don't get the fake surprise.

  • Funny how we dont hear of the dictators the US actively supports doing the human crimes that they do.
  • Myanmar is perfectly within their rights to block Twitter if they want.
    If Twitter doesn't like it then why don't they build their own internet backbone? Nobody is stopping them.
  • A spokesperson from Twitter said: only WE are supposed to do destructive shutdowns. In the name of free speech, of course

  • Apparently they escalated their shutdown: https://www.theguardian.com/wo... [theguardian.com]

    But the people are in the streets using their Mk 1 mouths, eyeballs and pans. Some civil servants are on strike. In short, the military are discovering people could resist a coup before the Internet. And talk to each other for real.

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