internet censorship in burma
i have visited burma twice. i love the country and i love the people.
when others ask me “isn’t burma dangerous?” i always answer “no, it’s not!”. the situation in burma isn’t what you see on the news. it’s not like the pictures shown on cnn or bbc. the people are peaceful and aside from a violent encounter in 2007, the government’s interference in daily life is minimal. others would disagree with me, and they’d be right. of course the junta (dictatorial military government) are affecting life on a daily basis. but for the most part, people have the ability to get on with living.
i support aung san suu kyi, the imprisoned rightful president and nobel peace prize laureate. i support economic sanctions against burma – even though they’re not working (mostly due to america, france and china).
however i disagree that tourism should be banned. tourists are an important point of contact for burmese people. many argue that tourist money goes to government pockets and funds the junta. evidence suggests otherwise. the junta does make money from tourism, but the amount is almost irrelevant in comparison with the oil and natural gas deals that the junta has with american and french companies. the junta makes billions from oil (despite the sanctions). tourism brings in a few million. consider that burma receives approximately one percent of the tourism that thailand gets. if tourists avoid government owned planes, trains, ferries and expensive hotels, then much of the money brought in can go directly to the pockets of burma’s citizens.
however, the topic i find most interesting – which i’m going to cover here – is censorship in burma. the government has a filter system to prevent unwanted material reaching its citizens. by far, the most censored sites are news and blogs. the government also attempts to censor social media, which is used to spread information during civil unrest. burma is not the first country to do this. iran and other nations also use censorship (particularly focusing on the ban of social media) to control the spread of information. sadly, my own country (australia) is also trying to introduce filters to censor the internet. i’m 100% against it, but i’ll talk about that another time.
this article was written on january 13th, 2010. the list of banned websites was accurate at that time. the junta does change their mind (constantly) and the list of sites which are censored changes often.
for starters, my own website (which has criticised burma in the past) is banned. hahahaha … oh, the irony! but the most interesting point is the complete lack of consistency employed by the government. it seems that some influential social networking sites are blocked (twitter), while others are available (facebook).
here’s a look at what happens when you try to access a banned website in burma. gmail is blocked. here’s what it looks like:
the page itself is generated by the government. no fanfare, no banners or warnings, no government or country logos. a simple ‘access denied’ and end of story. it’s important to note here that the government isn’t admitting (via this page) that the site is banned since there is a link via which a request can be sent to the ‘web moderator’ … i doubt anyone ever clicks the link.
other banned sites:
- flickr
- youtube
- davidsmeaton (me!!)
- explosm.net (a comic site)
- reuters
- abc.net.au (the australian government news network)
- amnesty.org (amnesty international)
- wordpress.com (free online blogs)
- blogger (another free online blog host)
- mizzima.com (anti-govt news site)
- irrawaddy.org (anti-govt website)
these are all sites i tried to get access to, but only received the above ‘access denied’ screen. this is not an exhaustive list, it’s just a sample. i’m sure there are hundreds more sites … these are just some prominent ones. as stated earlier, the most common censored sites are news, blogs and social networks. obviously, a slew of anti-government websites have also been banned.
which sites are available? these are (for now):
- wikipedia
- aljazeera (arabic oriented news)
- bbc (surprisingly)
- reporters without borders (previously blocked)
- unicef
- united nations
- unhcr.org (un’s refugee site)
- amnesty.org.uk (anmesty international’s uk site)
- myanmarsociety.com (anti-govt website)
most interestingly was a blog i found on amnesty international’s uk site, which was strongly anti-government, but visible in burma (http://blogs.amnesty.org.uk/blogs_entry.asp?eid=952) … it seems that while burma’s government blocks amnesty international (due to their criticism of the junta), the government doesn’t block amnesty’s regional sites.
reporters without borders (www.rsf.org) has been known to be blocked in the past, but for now is available.
there’s plenty of information about the junta’s internet censorship. this is just a small collection of links which are blocked (for now). further interesting reading is also available on a pdf (myanmar internet censorship).
i’ll finish with another image of blocked websites. this one is recombinantrecords.net … a political satire cartoonist. his cartoons have discussed orwell and totalitarianism, but i couldn’t find any direct references to burma.
as you can see (looking at the multiple tabs) that the reporters without borders website has loaded, as has the united nations refugee site. the political cartoonist’s site has been blocked.
please leave any comments or add sites which you can confirm are blocked.
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