Myanmar junta drops propaganda on people from helicopters
Spreading false and alarming news and fomenting dissent against the army are the outlandish charges under which a Japanese journalist has been held in Myanmar. He was detained while covering an anti-junta protest in Yangon last weekend. He is one of over 140 journalists, including at least five foreign journalists, who have been arrested since February, 2021, when the military, known as Tatmadaw, seized power.
If arresting journalists might seem like a standard maneuver from the authoritarian playbook, the Myanmar military has already shown itself to be adept at navigating social media. Despite Facebook specifically banning the Myanmar military from its platform and setting up rules to ban Tatmadaw-linked business, various journalistic investigations have shown that its algorithms cannot prevent the deliberate spread of misinformation and harmful propaganda.
Rohingya refugees have sued Facebook for $150 billion for enabling the spread of hate speech by Myanmar’s military rulers, and even years after Facebook admitted to negligence it continues to allow vicious propaganda to proliferate through the site.
Platforms like Telegram and TikTok offer popular alternatives to get the message out. And if the Myanmar military’s message needs further amplification–well, it’s easy enough to just shower pamphlets from helicopters like so much poisonous confetti.