Myanmar’s new era of digital oppression

Wai Phyo Myint is a Myanmar digital rights advocate and Asia Pacific Policy Analyst at Access Now.

The Myanmar military’s digital oppression is no longer a local or isolated crisis. It is reaching an unprecedented level of tyranny that may now rank among the world’s most extreme forms of digital authoritarianism.

The military has announced plans to hold a general election on December 28, which has been widely regarded as a sham to keep the military in power.

A combination of legal reforms, expansive surveillance infrastructure, and increasingly restrictive digital controls signals that Myanmar is entering a new phase of digital darkness, in which oppression is more automated through advanced technologies, more severe, and far harder to resist.

Planting the seed of global internet shutdown tactics

The Myanmar military was one of the world’s earliest adopters of deliberate, politically motivated internet shutdowns, planting the early seeds of today’s global internet blackout tactics, with its first shutdown in 2007.

Since then, the Myanmar military has ranked among the world’s worst offenders of internet shutdowns for the last five years with at least 420 shutdowns - which cloaked at least 645 airstrikes in civilian areas.

These measures have isolated people in conflict areas, cutting them off from the rest of the world and denying them access to aid and basic needs such as food, education, and funds.

The military’s approach has evolved from an initial digital coup marked by blanket nationwide internet shutdowns at the beginning of the government overthrow in February 2021 into systematic, highly technical, and targeted digital censorship and oppression.

Today, the junta deploys sophisticated surveillance technologies, including national firewalls, e-ID and biometric databases, and AI-embedded facial recognition CCTV systems. These tools enabled real-time and targeted monitoring, censorship, oppression against journalists, activists, and any anti-junta activities and speech.

A pioneer of a new, exportable authoritarian playbook

The military’s expanding digital control has been enabled by foreign allies including China, Russia and India, according to human rights reports.

These partnerships have provided the junta with advanced technology, funding, and technical know-how and surveillance tools used for sophisticated systems of censorship, monitoring, and mass profiling activities.

This model risks spreading to other countries facing political crises, further normalising digital authoritarianism worldwide. This represents a new chapter in the authoritarian playbook, which is more brutal, and highly exportable.

Early this year, the military adopted a new Cyber Security Law that strips away even minimal safeguards, granting sweeping powers of surveillance, censorship, and data access to “authorities” without meaningful oversight, due process, or protections for privacy and free expression. It also criminalised use of VPNs.

In July, the military enacted a new electoral law which can punish up to the death penalty for anyone “opposing or disturbing” the election.

Combined with firewall systems, digital ID initiatives, biometric databases, and criminalisation of online speech, the law transforms Myanmar digital infrastructure into an integrated system of surveillance and oppression.

Sharing the burden: Why the world must act

Myanmar shows what happens when digital infrastructure becomes a weapon; connectivity is no longer just a communications issue, it is a tool for survival, safety, and access to truth.

If the world ignores this digital oppression now it will see this same oppression replicated elsewhere.

The Myanmar junta’s digital missteps have helped fuel the rise of a cyber scam industry whose effects are reverberating not just across Southeast Asia, but the entire world.

The Myanmar people are standing at the frontline of the global struggle for digital freedom. However, responsibility for addressing this unprecedented level of digital repression does not rest solely on the shoulders of those people who are enduring it.

The rest of the world must take clear and immediate action by refusing to recognise or endorse the junta’s sham elections, investigating the sources of funding and technology that benefit the military, including revenues from online scamming centres operating in the country, and using all available diplomatic and economic leverage to cut off the military’s access to funding for its weapons and digital technologies.

We need all eyes on Myanmar — what happens at the polls on 28 December cannot go unseen or unacknowledged by global powers. Millions in Myanmar deserve better.