Many pro-democracy activists in Myanmar face life-threatening situations as pro-military social media pages expose their personal information via Facebook, Telegram and other social media platforms. Social media monitoring groups in Myanmar say there has been increasing hate speech targeting Human Rights Defenders over social media, especially after the February 1, 2021 coup in the country.
The military factor
Although hate speech and propaganda campaigns by the Myanmar military and its supporters have not made the international news circuit very much lately, more and more such events have occurred, says Ko Zaw (name withheld), a 27-year-old social media analyst based in Yangon: “Most of the victims were ordinary people… those who are against the military, and they got arrested, or tortured… [they] can be even killed just for a Facebook post against the junta.”
Pro-military accounts generated hate speech on different social media platforms such as Facebook, VK, Viber, and especially Telegram. Supporters of the military regime exposed the personal information of anyone against the regime and urged the military to arrest them. Later, soldiers raided the house, arrested and even tortured or killed those whose information was exposed.
Facebook is the most popular and widely used social media platform in Myanmar. According to NapoleonCat, an online marketing company, there are more than 21 million Facebook users in Myanmar which is 37.5 per cent of the entire national population. In December 2018, Facebook banned military-owned and affiliated accounts, together with some ultranationalist and pro-military supporters accounts; they then migrated to VKontakte, a Russian social media platform.
Resistance in Myanmar
Three months after the landslide victory of the NLD, the National League for Democracy party led by Aung San Suu Kyi during the general election held in November 2020, the military organized the coup d’etat on February 1, 2021. In the process, the military threw in jail presidents, the state counselor, cabinet members, and many politicians and activists. Within a week after the coup, almost the entire Myanmar population took to the streets to protest against the junta and to demand the freedom of political prisoners and democracy.
Several thousand doctors, nurses, teachers, and government staff left their workplaces to join the Civil Disobedience Movement to show their disagreement with the coup and the regime. The military had organized lethal crackdown campaigns against the anti-coup protests, which resulted in more than 15,000 people being killed and over 2,000 people arrested — according to the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners of Myanmar (AAPP Burma).
Many protesters later decided to join the armed resistance movement that began in the border areas of Myanmar controlled by armed ethnic groups. The protests in urban areas were almost impossible to organize as every town and city has been under heavy surveillance by the military. But some courageous protesters still organized peaceful flashmob-style protests in Yangon and many other cities amid the heavy military surveillance. With the rise of the revolutionary renaissance, the military regime started to see citizens as their enemies and put them in jail or tortured or killed them not only for being part of the protests or the armed resistance but also for merely supporting any pro-democracy campaigns.
Hate via Telegram
Hate speech campaigns against activists happened mostly on Telegram, a cloud-based instant messaging app with end-to-end encryption that also allows users to have channels where people can follow to receive information. This social media platform has become a widely used app by military supporters to spread hate speech and misinformation.
According to local monitoring groups, there were around 100 Telegram channels allied with the military regime that exposed the safety information of individuals and urged the regime to arrest those individuals.
Maung Win (name withheld), a 31-year-old-businessman was one of those victims. In May 2022, his real name and address were exposed on many pro-military Telegram channels. He was accused of speaking out against the military on Facebook. The Telegram post said that he was a “Kalar” (a derogatory term for Muslims) who supported the NUG-National Unity Government, a rival government formed two months after the coup in 2021.
Within a couple of hours, soldiers arrived at the apartment of Maung Win, in downtown Yangon, raided his place and he was taken to interrogation.
Maung Win says: “This experience was like hell to me and my family.” He was tortured for two days during the interrogation. His phone was checked and later he was released as the military officials couldn’t find any recent proof to show that Maung Win was supporting the NUG. But they told him to be careful and that they would have to arrest him again if he made any pro-military Telegram channels again.
Maung Win and his family had been supporting the protesters in their neighborhoods during the initial anti-coup protests in February and March 2021. And they had posted some photos on their Facebook accounts. Han Nyein Oo, a pro-military Telegram channel found out about Win’s photos with his family, addresses, and business and later exposed these details on the channel and urged the military to arrest him.
As a result of threats during the interrogation, Maung Zaw and his family had to flee to (redacted country name), a neighboring country. The family was scared to continue living in Myanmar, although they had been released later by the military.
Target: the Muslim
Religious-based hate speeches generated by pro-military accounts were found on different social media platforms in Myanmar. Based on the reports and findings of a social media monitoring group currently based in Yangon and whose name cannot be disclosed due to security reasons, the majority of the hate speech targeted the Muslim community.
Activists, celebrities, students, and even ordinary people were targeted in these hate speech campaigns, but many Muslims were portrayed on those Telegram channels and pro-military accounts as funders of the armed resistance against the military or portrayed as the main perpetrators of the explosions.
Ko Zaw, who is also part of the monitoring organization, says that the military has been using the same tactics of propaganda repetitively. “They have always used the same tactics as before.” Muslims were portrayed as a danger to Buddhism or as funders of armed groups even before the coup in February 2021.
According to the report issued by the monitoring group in April 2022, the amount of hate speech towards the Muslim community increased in April. Per the monitoring group, “Hate speeches made propaganda about Muslims in relation to those revolutionaries against the junta as if they are threats to the culture or the religion.”
On April 21, 2021 an announcement called ‘Red Operation’ issued by Thway Thank (meaning ‘Comrade’ in Burmese) warned the family members of those against the military regime. The warning letter was spread on Facebook and Telegram by nationalist and promilitary accounts.
A member of the NLD party and five of their family members in Mandalay got arrested by the group on April 24; later three of them were killed — their dead bodies abandoned on the street of Mandalay. According to different reports from local media, the same killing method was applied to all the victims and the red logo of the Thway Thauk group was hung on the neck of the dead bodies.
Sofia aka Honey Oo, a 21-year-old university student was shot by the Thway Thauk group in Yangon while she was at her home in Yangon. Local media organizations reported that the Thway Thauk group wanted to kill Sofia’s uncle, known as Ko Ye, who printed and sold the election campaign T-shirts of the NLD party.
Ko Ye and Sofia are both Muslims, running their T-shirt printing services for many years. Initially, the gunman wanted only Ko Ye. They barged into the house, shot at Ko Ye, and then headed back outside; there they saw Sofia at the front of the house and shot her in her head closely. She died on the spot. Her mother was also shot in the chest.
Per reports, the remaining family is now afraid to continue staying in their house as Thway Thauk might come back as they had warned.
Hate speech against the Muslim community in the country has existed for a long time. Says Ko Zaw: “they [have] repetitively made propaganda about Muslims that the OIC (Organization of Islamic Countries) has been funding the Muslim community in Myanmar, and they [Muslims] are planning to conquer the whole country [and] Buddhism will be diminished [sic] soon.”
Traditionally, the word ‘Kalar’ is used to discriminate against Muslims on social media and elsewhere. But after Facebook started using Artificial Intelligence (AI) to detect the ‘K’ word, nationalists and military supporters have been getting creative. They have used ‘Watt Ma Sarr’, which in English means ‘those who don’t eat pork’. Although they changed their word on Facebook, they are still using the same ‘K’ word on other social media platforms such as Telegram and VK.
Reaching out to the sites
Among the 15,000 pro-democracy activists who are now in jail by the military regime, around 1,000 people were put in detention because their information was exposed on Telegram channels and military supporters urged soldiers to arrest them.
That has motivated civil society members and activists to reach out to Telegram. Nay San Lwin, a 45-year-old Rohingya activist based in Europe is one of them. He collected a list of pro-military Telegram channels, a total of 65 channels. Then, he emailed the CEO and the complaint department of Telegram, asking them to take action to stop the hate speech against pro-democracy activists – especially as these Telegram channels revealed personal information such as names, photos, and addresses, and also urged the military to arrest those being targeted.
Lwin says: “I emailed them because these channels generate propaganda and hate speech. And, I believe these are run by military intelligence.”
But he never got a response from Telegram.
Lwin says this made him even more frustrated. He feels he would have received a response if he reached out to Facebook, Twitter, or any other social media company, instead of Telegram. He says: “I think they (Telegram) disrespected [their] users. These threats are not just aimed at individuals, but can impact the lives of thousands of people.”
Straight from the mouth
Hate speech and propaganda was not only generated on social media platforms but also in military-owned newspapers as well as statements by the military leaders of the ‘State Administration Council’, which was newly founded after the coup in February.
In a speech on National Army Day on March 27, 2021 Min Aung Hlaing, the leader of the SAC, and the ‘self-declared’ prime minister of Myanmar, praised his soldiers for combating Rohingya insurgents in Rakhine State: “Our army had defeated different insurgent groups… defeated the Kumington invaders, and also we were able to defeat ‘Bad Kalars’ that are stationed in Rakhine State.” By ‘bad Kalars’ he meant the Rohingya insurgents in Rakhine State, along the border of Myanmar and Bangladesh.
In a speech on August 1, 2021 Hlaing said that: “Our country is a Buddhist country. The followers of Buddhism faced depressive moments in the last five years.”
According to data by Burma Human Rights Network (BHRN), in the year 2021, Muslims were the most targeted group for hate speech and fake news, the Rohingya following closely after the larger Muslim group. The BHRN is monitoring hate speech and propaganda not only on different social media platforms, but also in print newspapers, radio, and other websites.
Kyaw Win, the executive director of the BHRN says that the military is putting out more anti-Muslim narrative, failing to gain popularity among the public. He says: “they [the military] were successful in getting public support during the Rohingya genocide.”
During the brutal military operations against the Rohingya community in Rakhine State, the military spread the propaganda that the Rohingya were invaders and were going to conquer Rakhine State. And that they got support from the general public and even the NLD administration in 2017. That led the military to commit genocide on the Rohingya community.
Kyaw Win explains: “They got support from the people by creating anti-Muslim narratives. And now they want to use the same tactics again.”
On Facebook, Telegram, VK, and even newspapers, the military spread anti-Muslim propaganda — such as: the OIC is funding the National Unity Government and the People Defense Forces in Myanmar. After the US withdrawal from Afghanistan, military supporters portrayed members of the People’s Defense Forces as they got back up from the Taliban fighters, according to monitoring by the BHRN.
The military-owned newspaper ‘Myanmar Alinn’ published an article on September 23, 2021 that said that: “MK 12 Special Purpose Rifle left out by the US troops in Afghanistan is now inside Myanmar, and the local PDF group in Bago region is using that rifle”.
While Muslims were portrayed as supporters of PDF groups in the country, military supporters made a campaign on Facebook in June 2021 demanding the military to raid mosques in Myanmar, accusing mosques of having underground rooms where resistance members were hiding with ammunition.
As a result, some mosques in the Sagaing and Magway region were raided and destroyed, and later the adjacent Muslim villages were burnt too. In fact, in 2021 and 2022, Muslim villages and religious buildings were destroyed and burnt.
Kyaw Win says that: “They [the military] treated everyone brutally, but they would be crueler against Muslims.” He believes the military is using the same anti-Muslim narratives to defeat the Spring Revolution 2021, and the resistance movement as well. “They are trying to apply the same anti-Muslim narratives to combat against the protests and the armed resistance. They will keep using it, and I think they will come up with more cruel strategies if they fail this time.”
Resist the cruelty
The Myanmar military and its supporters are using hate speech and propaganda on all available channels to gain back power, especially using social media. After Facebook banned the military and its affiliated accounts, they migrated to VK, where they stimulate nationalists and military supporters to conduct violent campaigns against NLD supporters and Muslims. But some of their accounts are still active on Facebook, and they can still spread hate speech and propaganda.
Maung Win, who fled Myanmar after he was tortured at the interrogation centre as a pro-military Telegram channel exposed his information and accused him of supporting anti-military groups, says the military is unbelievably cruel. He said, “The military is crueler than you would expect. Pressure them continuously, and support Myanmar pro-democracy groups as much as you can.”
This report is part of DRM’s exclusive journalism series exploring Big Tech’s failure to contain hate speech and lack of corporate accountability across Asia.
