It likened the internet to a “virtual battlefield" where the military is struggling to gain an edge because it lacks technological capacity, while social media companies like Facebook have banned military officials and many government agencies.
The report released Tuesday noted a narrowing of the leeway for online dissent and abuses of social media to spread hatred toward minority Muslim people in western
International telecoms companies such as
The coup interrupted a faltering, decade-long move toward a civilian, democratically elected government after decades of military rule that began soon after the country, also known as
It incensed a generation of young
The junta has ordered mobile operators and internet service providers to restrict access to certain websites and virtual private networks, or VPNs, that can skirt internet filtering. It is gradually ramping up shutdowns, limiting access to only fiber data connections which are available to only a fraction of the population.
Many tech-savvy young people are involved in the civil disobedience movement against the coup and the military lacks the sort of capabilities that
So instead the military, also known as the Tatmadaw, is developing an “intranet" for inside the country that allows mobile access only to approved, or “whitelisted" applications, it says. Those might include online banking, for example.
That “inevitably limits its ability to offer anything more than the most basic services, with a major impact on the economy," the report says.
Last week,
“Myanmar’s superior connectivity was built on the combined experience of almost all other countries: Open internet access fuels growth. Whitelisting is a practice that will not give the same benefits – and should be abandoned,"
It noted an estimate by
Governments should meanwhile step up arms embargoes to prevent supplying dual civilian-military use of technologies that can be used to suppress political dissent, it said.
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