The military of Myanmar has conducted a coup against the elected victory of State Counsellor Aung Sang Suu Kyi and has taken her as well as high ranking officials of her party, the National League for Democracy (NLD).
In their most recent effort to quash any chances of the population coming together, the military on Wednesday banned Facebook Inc until at least Sunday after the regime’s opponents began using it to organize. A new civil disobedience page had gained nearly 200,000 followers and the support of Burmese celebrities in the days after the coup, while a related hashtag was used millions of times.
“The Tatmadaw sees Facebook as their internet nemesis because it’s the dominant communication channel in the country, and has been hostile to the military,” Human Rights Watch Asia Deputy Director Phil Robertson told Reuters, referring to the country’s army.
It is not up to Facebook and how it wants to play. The balance of protecting the democratic politicians and activists versus cooperating with the new regime to get services restored is important, and a tricky one for the company to accomplish.
In Myanmar, Facebook in recent years has engaged with civil rights activists and democratic political parties and pushed back against the military after coming under heavy international criticism for failing to contain online hate campaigns.
In 2018, it banned army chief Min Aung Hlaing – now Myanmar’s military ruler – and 19 other senior officers and organizations, and took down hundreds of pages and accounts run by military members for coordinated inauthentic behaviour.
Facebook has also played an important part in garnering international attention to the Rohingya refugee crisis.
