Costs indeed limit access significantly: even
households that can afford a PC and long-distance connection fees outside the capital Yangon
(Rangoon) and Mandalay cannot pay
USD35/month 19 for a broadband account. Dialup
access leaves them with state-monitored e-mail
(free services are blocked) 20 and a small collection of pre-approved sites on the country’s
intranet, known as the Myanmar Wide Web. 21 As
for cybercafés, promoted since 2002 by a “Public
Access Centers” (PAC) program for e-mail and
gaming purposes, 22 the government has been
urging business owners to legally register as
PACs. This requires them to log user identities
and Web sites visited and send the information
back to the state-owned Myanmar Info-tech. 23
There are reports, however, that many tech-savvy
users risk connecting to proxy servers abroad
and thereby access the entire Web undetected. 24
ONI testing results
Testing was conducted on the two ISPs in
Myanmar, Myanmar Teleport (MMT) and
Myanmar Posts and Telecom (MPT). Both MMT
and MPT filtered extensively and focused overwhelmingly on independent media, political
reform, and human rights sites relating to
Myanmar, as well as free Web-based e-mail services and circumvention tools.
Both ISPs blocked roughly the same number of circumvention tools, including Proxify,
Guardster, and Anonymizer (although only MPT
blocked www.anonymizer.com).
In June 2006 Gmail and Gtalk were made
inaccessible and Skype was banned 25 —a reported attempt not only to censor communications
but also to preserve the government’s monopoly
over telephone and e-mail services as MPT’s revenues dipped. 26 ONI testing confirmed that
although no search engines (MSN, Google, and
so on) were blocked, Yahoo! Mail, Gmail,
Hushmail, and mail2web were blocked by both
ISPs, while MPT took the precaution of blocking
thirteen additional e-mail sites, including Hotmail
and Fastmail. Only MPT blocked Skype.
In addition to filtering Radio Free Asia
(www.rfa.org) and OhmyNews (www.ohmynews.
com), both MMT and MPT blocked many major
independent news sites reporting on Myanmar.
This included English language publications
such as the Irawaddy, Mizzima News, and
BurmaNet News (www.burmanet.org), as well as
sites in the national language (www.burma
today.net). Only MPT blocked the Voice of
America Web sites (www.voanews.com) in
English and Burmese, while MMT targeted
regional news sites such as the Times of India
and Asia Observer.
Sites containing content on human rights
advocacy and democratic reform continued
to be a priority for blocking. A number of
nongovernmental organization (NGO) sites with
different levels of involvement in Myanmar human
rights issues were blocked (Open Society
Institute at www.soros.org; www.burmacampaign.
org.uk). Within this group were Web sites documenting the persecution of ethnic minorities and
the personal Web site of Daw Aung San Suu Kyi.
Other continuities in blocking included coalitions
for democratic change in Myanmar, such as the
Web site of the coalition government of the Union
of Burma (www.ncgub.net), opposition movements (www.chinforum.org), and rights groups
(www.womenofburma.org).
There were significant differences in filtering
between the two ISPs. Of the sites found to be
blocked in Myanmar, less than a third were
blocked on both ISPs. The remaining blocked
sites were blocked on one ISP or the other, but
not both. MMT blocked almost exclusively sites
with ties to Myanmar, where the term “Burma” in
the URL was one of the common threads among
the filtered sites, from human rights groups
(www.burmawatch.org; www.hrw.org) critical of
the government to peripheral personal sites
(such as a site with photographs of Myanmar).
MPT filtered many more sites from the global list,
340
Country Summaries
households that can afford a PC and long-distance connection fees outside the capital Yangon
(Rangoon) and Mandalay cannot pay
USD35/month 19 for a broadband account. Dialup
access leaves them with state-monitored e-mail
(free services are blocked) 20 and a small collection of pre-approved sites on the country’s
intranet, known as the Myanmar Wide Web. 21 As
for cybercafés, promoted since 2002 by a “Public
Access Centers” (PAC) program for e-mail and
gaming purposes, 22 the government has been
urging business owners to legally register as
PACs. This requires them to log user identities
and Web sites visited and send the information
back to the state-owned Myanmar Info-tech. 23
There are reports, however, that many tech-savvy
users risk connecting to proxy servers abroad
and thereby access the entire Web undetected. 24
ONI testing results
Testing was conducted on the two ISPs in
Myanmar, Myanmar Teleport (MMT) and
Myanmar Posts and Telecom (MPT). Both MMT
and MPT filtered extensively and focused overwhelmingly on independent media, political
reform, and human rights sites relating to
Myanmar, as well as free Web-based e-mail services and circumvention tools.
Both ISPs blocked roughly the same number of circumvention tools, including Proxify,
Guardster, and Anonymizer (although only MPT
blocked www.anonymizer.com).
In June 2006 Gmail and Gtalk were made
inaccessible and Skype was banned 25 —a reported attempt not only to censor communications
but also to preserve the government’s monopoly
over telephone and e-mail services as MPT’s revenues dipped. 26 ONI testing confirmed that
although no search engines (MSN, Google, and
so on) were blocked, Yahoo! Mail, Gmail,
Hushmail, and mail2web were blocked by both
ISPs, while MPT took the precaution of blocking
thirteen additional e-mail sites, including Hotmail
and Fastmail. Only MPT blocked Skype.
In addition to filtering Radio Free Asia
(www.rfa.org) and OhmyNews (www.ohmynews.
com), both MMT and MPT blocked many major
independent news sites reporting on Myanmar.
This included English language publications
such as the Irawaddy, Mizzima News, and
BurmaNet News (www.burmanet.org), as well as
sites in the national language (www.burma
today.net). Only MPT blocked the Voice of
America Web sites (www.voanews.com) in
English and Burmese, while MMT targeted
regional news sites such as the Times of India
and Asia Observer.
Sites containing content on human rights
advocacy and democratic reform continued
to be a priority for blocking. A number of
nongovernmental organization (NGO) sites with
different levels of involvement in Myanmar human
rights issues were blocked (Open Society
Institute at www.soros.org; www.burmacampaign.
org.uk). Within this group were Web sites documenting the persecution of ethnic minorities and
the personal Web site of Daw Aung San Suu Kyi.
Other continuities in blocking included coalitions
for democratic change in Myanmar, such as the
Web site of the coalition government of the Union
of Burma (www.ncgub.net), opposition movements (www.chinforum.org), and rights groups
(www.womenofburma.org).
There were significant differences in filtering
between the two ISPs. Of the sites found to be
blocked in Myanmar, less than a third were
blocked on both ISPs. The remaining blocked
sites were blocked on one ISP or the other, but
not both. MMT blocked almost exclusively sites
with ties to Myanmar, where the term “Burma” in
the URL was one of the common threads among
the filtered sites, from human rights groups
(www.burmawatch.org; www.hrw.org) critical of
the government to peripheral personal sites
(such as a site with photographs of Myanmar).
MPT filtered many more sites from the global list,
340
Country Summaries