Myanmar Coup Moscow/Sputnik: Myanmar went into its second nationwide internet shutdown in a week’s time on Saturday after the military seized power and arrested the Southeast Asian country’s civilian leaders.
NetBlocks, which monitors internet traffic, said the blackout began at 10 a.m. local time (3:30 GMT).
"Myanmar is now in the midst of a second nation-scale internet blackout… real-time network data show national connectivity falling to 54% of ordinary levels as users report difficultly getting online," it said.
The military blocked Twitter, Instagram and Facebook until further notice after accusing social media of spreading fake news. Telenor, a major internet provider, said on Friday it was concerned by this development.
A Twitter spokesperson told the TechCrunch news website that the outage undermined the rights of people to make their voices heard and promised to advocate for an end to government-led shutdowns.
"We understand some people across the Asia-Pacific region may also be having trouble accessing Twitter, and we’re working to fix it," they added.
Social media users from Myanmar posted photos from protests against the military rule that broke out in Myanmar’s largest city of Yangon on Saturday morning.
The army overthrew the democratically elected government on Monday after accusing the party of its de facto leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, of rigging the November elections.
Support Our Journalism
We cannot do without you.. your contribution supports unbiased journalism
IBNS is not driven by any ism- not wokeism, not racism, not skewed secularism, not hyper right-wing or left liberal ideals, nor by any hardline religious beliefs or hyper nationalism. We want to serve you good old objective news, as they are. We do not judge or preach. We let people decide for themselves. We only try to present factual and well-sourced news.
