Internet in Myanmar

Service providers, Internet cafés

Myanmar Teleport (formerly Bagan Cybertech), Yatanarpon Teleport, Information Technology Central Services (ITCS), Red Link Communications, satellite internet provider Skynet, Frontiir, the state-owned Myanmar Post and Telecommunication (MPT) and Kinetic Myanmar Technology are the Internet service providers in Myanmar. Before the democratization in 2011, Internet cafés were common access center for internet users in the country and most use different pieces of software to bypass the government's proxy servers. The popularity of Internet cafés declined with the emergence of cheap mobile internet with the improvement in telecommunication infrastructure following the liberalization. However, they are still widely present, especially in Yangon and Mandalay and are used extensively for blogging and other activities that are difficult or impossible to conduct over mobile devices.

Internet penetration

Myanmar has a very low Internet penetration rate due to government restrictions on pricing and deliberate lack of facilities and infrastructure. According to World Internet Stats statistics as of June 2012, the country had over 534,930 Internet users (1.0% of the population) with the vast majority of the users hailing from the two largest cities, Yangon and Mandalay. Although 42 cities across the country have access to the Internet, the number of users outside Yangon and Mandalay is just over 10,000. In 2012, most of the country's 40,000 Internet connections were ADSL circuits, followed by dial-up, satellite terminal, and WiMax. MPT is also undertaking a trial of fibre-to-the-home in Mandalay, and plans to roll out a similar trial in Yangon. On 22 July 2015 the CEO of Telenor Myanmar announced that 55% of Telenor's 10 million mobile subscribers were data users, increasing the low estimate of internet users in Myanmar to at least 5.5 million. Internet World Statistics reported in Nov 2015 that penetration was 12.6%

Blogging

An October 2010 survey found that blogging is the fastest growing type of Internet use in Myanmar, with a 25 percent increase from 2009. A non-scientific survey taken in 2009 found that:

Censorship

Recent reforms

Following decades of military rule, Burma has undergone a series of significant political and economic reforms since elections in November 2010. March 2011 saw the end of formal military rule in the country, with reformist Thein Sein becoming the country’s first civilian president in half a century. While by-elections held in April 2012 included numerous reports of fraud, the opposition National League for Democracy, including leader and Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, won seats after contesting their first elections since 1991. In 2011-2012 hundreds of political prisoners were released and legislative changes re-establishing labour rights in the country.

Reforms have also extended to the country’s strict information control regime. Beginning in September 2011, the historically pervasive levels of Internet censorship were significantly reduced. International news sites, including Voice of America, BBC, and Radio Free Asia, long blocked by Burmese censors, had become accessible overnight. A number of previously censored independent Burma-focused news sites which had been highly critical of Burma’s ruling regime, such as the Democratic Voice of Burma and Irrawaddy, were suddenly accessible. Following the reduction in online censorship, the head of Burma’s press censorship department described such censorship as “not in harmony with democratic practices” and a practice that “should be abolished in the near future.”

In August 2012, the Burmese Press Scrutiny and Registration Department announced that all pre-publication censorship of the press was to be discontinued, such that articles dealing with religion and politics would no longer require review by the government before publication. Restrictions on content deemed harmful to state security, however, remained in place. Pornography was still widely blocked, as were content relatings to alcohol and drugs, gambling websites, online dating sites, sex education, gay and lesbian content, and web censorship circumvention tools. In 2012 almost all of the previously blocked websites of opposition political parties, critical political content, and independent news sites were accessible, with only 5 of 541 tested URLs categorised as political content blocked.

In a September 2012 speech to the United Nations General Assembly, Burmese President Thein Sein described the country as having taken “irreversible steps” towards democracy, a speech broadcast on state television for the first time.

As significant as they are, the impact of these reforms may be less might be expected because only 0.3 percent of Burma's population has Web access, outside of Burma's largest city, Yangon, and few can read English.

Laws

Laws regulating the Internet include the Computer Science Development Law (1996), the Wide Area Network Order (2002), and the Electronic Transactions Law (2004), while the Printers and Publishers Registration Act (1962) regulates the media. These laws and associated regulations are broadly worded and open to arbitrary or selective interpretation and enforcement. The Electronic Transactions Law covers “any act detrimental to”—and specifically “receiving or sending and distributing any information relating to”—state security, law and order, community peace and tranquility, national solidarity, the national economy, or national culture. Violators face fines and prison terms of 7 to 15 years. The importing and use of a modem without official permission is banned, with penalties for violations of up to 15 years in prison. Harsh prison terms and selective enforcement encourages self-censorship. However, expression in online environments such as comment features where posters can remain anonymous remains relatively free.

While these laws are still in place, authorities have promised to adopt a media law that will put an end to censorship in 2012 and they then expect to revise or repeal the Electronic Act and emergency rule. As of January 2013 the new media law was not in place and there is some concern that the country could backslide and return to the repressive tendencies of the past.

Censorship circumvention

The use of Internet censorship circumvention methods was officially banned by the military government; the Myanmar ISPs blocked many bypass and proxy websites, but were unable to block all circumvention methods. With the removal of blocking of web sites after 2012, the need for proxies was reduced and therefore the need to block them was also removed. Cybercafes were required by law to keep records on their customers’ activities and provide police access to the records upon request. However, many cafes do not systematically enforce such monitoring, often assisting their users in circumventing censorship instead. In response the government increased surprise inspections of cybercafes, cafes posted signs warning users not to visit certain websites. Licensing law instructed cybercafes to install CCTV cameras and assign at least four security staff to monitor users.

History

Prior to September 2011 the government used a wide range of methods to restrict Internet freedom, including legal and regulatory barriers, infrastructural and technical constraints, and coercive measures such as intimidation and lengthy prison sentences. Although the authorities lacked the capacity to pervasively enforce all restrictions, the impact of sporadic implementation and the ensuing chilling effect was profound. While information circulating on the Internet is still closely monitored, reforms by the Burmese regime that began in 2011 resulted in information being more freely circulated.

Internet censorship in Myanmar was classified as pervasive in the political area and as substantial in social, conflict/security, and Internet tools areas by the OpenNet Initiative in December 2010. Myanmar is listed as an Internet enemy by Reporters Without Borders in 2012. Myanmar's status is "Not Free" in Freedom House's Freedom on the Net 2011 report. By 2014, the status had been revised to "Partly Free".

Myanmar utilised a network specifically for domestic use that is separate from the rest of the Internet to limit the flow of unwanted information into and out of the country.

The Internet infrastructure was also controlled through total shutdowns and temporary reductions in bandwidth. During the 2007 street protests, the junta completely shut down internet connectivity from 29 September to 4 October. And state-controlled ISPs occasionally applied bandwidth caps to prevent the sharing of video and image files, particularly during politically sensitive events, such as the November 2010 elections.

Prior to September 2011 Myanmar banned the websites and blogs of political opposition groups, sites relating to human rights, and organisations promoting democracy. The term "Myanmar Wide Web (MWW)" is a pejorative name for the portion of the World Wide Web that is accessible from Myanmar. Many sites containing keywords or phrases that were considered suspicious, such as “Burma”, “drugs”, “military government”, “democracy”, “student movement”, “8888” (a reference to the protest movement that began on 8 August 1988), and “human rights” were blocked and a few still are. Access to Yahoo! Mail, MSN Mail, Gmail, the video-sharing site YouTube, the messaging feature of the social-networking site Facebook, Google’s Blogspot, and the microblogging service Twitter were sporadically blocked. However, Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) systems including Skype were and are available. Fortinet, a California-based company, provides the government with software that limits the material citizens can access on-line, especially e-mail service providers and pornographic websites.

Many political prisoners in Myanmar were charged under the laws mentioned above. However, in the second half of 2011 as part of a larger series of amnesties the military regime released a number of journalists and bloggers. For example: