The State of Internet Censorship in Myanmar

Out of 1,927 sites that were tested for censorship in six local vantage points in Myanmar, only five sites presented signs of TCP/IP and HTTP blocking, including the sites of the U.S. embassy in Myanmar and of the Organization of American States (OAS). The motivation and justification behind the potential blocking of these sites remains unclear. No block pages were detected as part of this study that can confirm cases of censorship.

Similarly, no middle boxes were detected as part of this study. Blue Coat software (some types of which can potentially be used for internet censorship and surveillance) was previously detected in Myanmar by OONI in late 2012. Extensive tests though performed across six different networks in Myanmar show that Blue Coat software didn’t appear to be present during the testing period (25th October 2016 to 28th February 2017), indicating that it may have been removed.

WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, and the Tor network appeared to be accessible across all six networks in Myanmar where OONI tests were run.

Read the full report here.

Publisher: Open Observatory of Network Interference (OONI), Sinar Project, Myanmar ICT for Development Organization (MIDO)

Publication date: 29th March 2017

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published.