Transcript: Episode #279: Cracking the Code
Below is the complete transcript for this podcast episode. This transcript was generated using an AI transcription service and has not been reviewed by a human editor. As a result, certain words in the text may not accurately reflect the speaker's actual words. This is especially noticeable when speakers have strong accents, as AI transcription may introduce more errors in interpreting and transcribing their speech. Therefore, it is advisable not to reference this transcript in any article or document without cross-referencing the timestamp to ensure the accuracy of the guest's precise words.
Bradley 0:15
Uh, in our villages, like only one or two household has telephone, and it was really expensive. It was about 5000 US dollars for for a SIM card. And also in the middle part of the memo, likes a guy, you had no communication at all. And when people don't have communication in one part, the isolation is creating different realities for them, like they don't know how other parts of the world is evolving. Right now, everybody's aware of BPN like before, nobody is using like only the tech people, like the techie persons, are using VPN, but because of the censorship after the coup, we had to use the VPNs. Do
Host 1:20
During the current crisis unfolding in Myanmar, events are happening so fast it can feel challenging just to keep up with them, and we're working to increase our podcast production to stay abreast of this ever changing crisis. And besides our podcast, we encourage you to check out the blogs on our website, insightmyanmar.org where you can also sign up for our regular newsletter, and you can follow our social media sites. Just look for insight Myanmar on your preferred social Media platform. With that, let's head into our show you.
Brad, welcome from Chiang Mai to this episode of insight Myanmar podcast, and we're going to be spending the next amount of time delving deep into internet issues in Myanmar, past, present and future, and our guest today is Bradley from Myanmar internet. We're going to learn a lot more about his specific work, as well as the work of his organization, which is really just doing incredible stuff, and how they're tracking internet shutdowns and the way that internet is being used and abused by the regime, as well as how the resistance is trying to get around that. First, we're going to begin by talking about the relatively recent history of the internet in Myanmar. But before we do that, Bradley, I want to thank you so much for taking the time to talk about yourself and your work and invite you to give any introduction to yourself and your background.
Bradley 3:57
Sure. thank you very much for inviting me here, and thank you very much for giving me the opportunity to talk here.
Host 4:05
So let's get into, first, the relatively recent history of the internet. Can you tell us how and when the internet came to Myanmar? Because, as we know, this was after it arrived in many other countries around the world, and also arrived in a somewhat different way?
Bradley 4:23
Yes, that's a good question to start with. So you have been in Myanmar, like, for a long time, so you are not a amateur of Myanmar stuff. So in Myanmar, like when we are in high school, when we are in middle school, telephone is very luxurious things. And if you as a household, if you have a telephone at your house, it shows like power, like it shows a. This household is rich. This household is some kind of, like government staff or like high level of living standard. So if in our villages, like only one or two household has telephone, and it was really expensive, and it is. It was about 5000 US dollars for for a SIM card, and nobody that is not related to the government can afford unless you're very, very rich. And from that it became like the prices of The Sims became reduced. And in 2012 there is a, what we call like Telecom, telecom revolution, or telecom markets open up, and the International tele telecoms came in, and we got to, we got the taste of, we got a taste of the mobile internet first in in 2012
Host 6:19
so before we Get into the SIM card revolution, which we definitely want to explore in the transition period. Can you tell us what was the state of the internet, of what was available with surfing the web, and any anything else we know about access to internet before 2012 to what degrees was it possible and controlled?
Bradley 6:39
It's so it was all internet to face. Like, if you want to use internet cafes first, there are like at the Ministry of Information, like, they have outlets in townships, and we have to go there and use the internet. I think one hour 1000 is 1000 1000 checks is little bit in affordable for us, like is our pocket money is like only 500 at that time. So to use one hour of internet for me, me and my brother have to team up to use one hour of internet. So it's, it's the era of Gmail and visa or chats, and it's, it's the flow is like, you go to the bulletin boards like mIRC, and there you are anonymous. You have to you can talk to anybody. And you talk there, if you're like, become friends and and you give those person your Gmail. And that's how the internet is back then around like 28 22,008 2007 those errors. So it's, it was all internet cafe,
Host 8:17
right, right. And I want to, I want to tell a story about my first trip there. When I went in 2003 I went to a cyber cafe. And it cyber cafes were just sprouting up around that time. They were maybe less than a year old, and these the experience I had was not like a cyber cafe anywhere in the world or Southeast Asia at that time, they were called cyber cafes, but you couldn't use the internet. You couldn't log on to your email. The only thing that you could do when I visited was to use the officially licensed email of the cyber cafe itself. And so I wanted to I arrived in Myanmar, my first time ever. I wanted to write my mom and tell her I arrived safely. I went to the cyber cafe. Luckily, I knew my mom's email address by heart and said I wanted to write an email. They looked at me with a lot of fear in their eyes and told me it couldn't be anything political. And I said, No, no, no, I just want to write my mom. So I wrote the letter, and they then I wrote the letter from the email address of the cafe itself, saying, you know, this is, this is Joah. It's a different address, but, but I just want to let you know I arrive safely. They looked at the length of the the email I sent and charged me an amount based on how long the email was, which was I couldn't comprehend how that how you charge based on that. I then paid $1 to send the message, and then I left. The next day, I get a knock on the door and a delivery person from the cyber cafe is at my door in the guest house, and I don't know how they knew where I was staying, but they're at my door and they give me a printed email reply from my mother, who had responded. Yeah, and I felt like this was like an 18th century telegram. You know that in email form that I was that they had showed up with a printed email from my mother, that they had printed and found me and said, This is the reply. It was like a telegram coming. They said, this is $1 as well. So I paid them $1 for the reply. And that was my internet experience for one month in Myanmar. So that was, that was one part of it. And then also, before the transition, I spent a lot of time at monasteries, and I would find that if I, if I happen to bring a coffee table book or picture book or Atlas to a monastery, the fascination was just overwhelming, because they didn't have access to just pictures of animals in different countries, or foods or clothing, and human curiosity was so great to want to that curiosity which the internet can provide, was then accessible and inaccessible. And so being able to show a picture book of items that you would never seen before, this was something that just wasn't available around and I I set this up because I think when we talk about these developments that you're just about to get into in 2012 it's really hard to explain to people who weren't there what it meant to go from nothing, I mean Really nothing, to everything, and I mean really everything. And as much as we think Tech has advanced at these warped lightning speeds in the West, in Myanmar, it was really, it really was a night and day kind of feeling. It really was like your whole lifetime of generations where you didn't you, you didn't have any access to anything at all, the suddenly you have this device in your hand that's affordable with a SIM card that's affordable, and this can take you everywhere, and that even at the time when I saw that change taking place in front of me, and I should also say, I was in Myanmar when the smartphone revolution started around the world, I didn't know what smartphones were for years, because I was living in Myanmar, I was reading New York Times article about what a smartphone was, and I didn't understand it because I, I was in Myanmar, and I didn't get one for many years later, and and so, you know, I think that that in understanding this, this rapid transition in 2012 which opened up all kinds of very important opportunities, but Also just what a shock to the system it was to go from really having nothing to really having everything, and what that must do to the human psychology and society. So take us from there, about in tracking the growth of the Internet, what happened when the SIM cards became affordable and available?
Bradley 12:36
Yeah, like you mentioned, like it was a shock to the society, and we, we're still seeing like the effects of it, from nothing to everything. By the way, you are more senior of the Myanmar internet than me, because in 2003 like you mentioned, like when you go to the cyber cafe, this thing happened. So in 2003 I'm only 11.
Host 13:05
Yeah, I'm dating myself.
Bradley 13:08
So yeah and yes, that was true. I want to take a little bit back to the this era of SS denied. Like when you go to the cyber cafe and you go to YouTube, you it will say, SS denied. You can go to the bbc.com, you can, you can go to cnn.com everything is SS denied, like only a few, like a few websites which are allowed to be explored. Yahoo is alright, but any other things like everything is like SS denied like for a very long time. And also, internet cafes have to report which user uses which services. That's why I think they know what email that you used in your case, and they have to, like report about everything. So it's a time of uzagala Pune. Those people are, like, very early bloggers. They write blogs on the blog spot and and they got charged. They got arrested for like, having emails, like for sending emails and writing blocks, like, since 2008 2007 so just give you, just to give you a little bit of sense of early digital repression, yeah, you know. So to go to the from that, to go to the 2012 of having everything in your hand, I. Up is like, it's, it's quite shocking, and we, we didn't face the evolution of the devices like in other countries, people sent SMSs with keypad phones. They're very quick and and then when the internet came, they sent through the the VoIP messengers. And we didn't have this kind of evolution. We went straight from nothing to smartphones. So what? How it affected the society is, right now, people don't want to use any kind of text based communication anymore, like people just want to send Vice Mayor vice message, or people just want to like do video call, and people want to see only audio visual kind of content, and it affects the fact that the society became very unfamiliar with the text based communication and also it also affects the fact that they think Facebook is the internet, like most of the people like, Not literally thinking Facebook is internet, but when you pick up your phone and turn on your mobile data, where do you go? The first thing you go to Facebook. And that's how it affects the society, the first thing. And so when we got the internet in 2012 like people, it's it was the start of our previous organization, like 2012 when the policy windows open up and we built up organization, and I drive that organization in 2015 so when what we started to do is digital literacy, because we have to, we have to start with this, because people have internet right now, like you said, Nothing for everything, but people don't know what to do, and they became like passive consumers rather than producers. So we went in and we taught people about how to use emails, how to be productive by using these kind of ICD tools. So that was the start of everything, like performing my Internet Project, our organization was with anatomy, so we had to, like, get rid of this name because of the sensitivity out to the pool, right?
Host 18:27
So I imagine that as you're tracking the early days of the Internet in Myanmar, and you're not just looking at the digital literacy, how to be active and not passive, probably fake information, also fake news, how to discern that, which is a huge topic we'll get into later. But then I think with access, comes prohibition, comes spying, and the military trying to find out who's doing what. These things go hand in hand, and this is something that has become a very important topic in these last years of the coup, can you take us back to the earliest instances that you've tracked? Let's start with internet shutdowns. And if we could look at when and where did the first internet shutdown occur, and how do internet how were internet shutdowns used by the regime?
Bradley 19:17
So the most obvious is the Rakai internet shutdown. I I don't remember exact dates and numbers of days itself about the internet shutdown, but it was at that time the longest internet shutdown was Kashmir's internet shutdown, but the raka internet shutdown was longer than the cashmere in internet shut down, and it became the longest internet shutdown in the world. Wow, really, yes, and at that time we also we our approach was to. Do the protest, and we collaborated with other civil society organization and activists and and do the protest, and also policy advocacy that this is not good. This is affecting everyone's life. And we also did researches around these that internet shut down. And one thing that is very, very unsettling is one of, one of the respondents in Rakhine State, told me that they became like they became left out from the from the society, and they don't know any trends or anything that happening in in the country, and they don't have access to the education, and It was very hard for the people to sympathize at that time, because you have internet, and also there are very little literacy about how the ethnic people are struggling and facing this atrocity of the military junta, only, only like after the coup, the people in the urban areas and people the mostly the majority Burmese people became understand about the troubles of the ethnic people. So it was very hard to convince people that this is a very bad thing to do. We talk with, with the ministers, and they their their justification is, it's not true. They got to G that's that's not a good justification. That's not a good reason. While you can give every like internet is nothing like you can only read text, you cannot send anything, and it equals to no internet and the justification of the Ministry of Transport and communication is that we give them to G so it's it's oppression right from the start, And it was the when we talk about the digital repression of the military junta, that was not the first cases like the internet shutdown. There was the prior cases of bloggers being arrested and people being arrested for like for, for sending emails and writing blogs. It was, it was the first regression in this internet shutdowns became as a second wave of the digital repression. So it was right from the start of the tech of the internet. It became internet was born with the repression.
Host 23:24
Now, as I understand it, the very first internet shutdown was the 2007 Saffron Revolution. Is that correct? Yes, yes. And can you describe from the military regime's rationale, what are they hoping to accomplish with the military shutdown? Why are they doing
Bradley 23:42
it even international? Or they have this strategy when there is going to be a battle, they cut four main they call this pie is cutting. They cut down the they cut down the like, how can I say it, the logistics of the food and supplies, and they cut down the communication and so to say, in this category, four categories of cutting down communications is one of the one of the one of the categories. So internet, I think, falls under the communication category.
Host 24:37
So, but the internet they're cutting is not just the internet that the resistance is using. They're obviously cutting off the internet for entire civil society for days, weeks, even longer at a time. Yes, it's
Bradley 24:51
a the problem of internet shutdown from the dictators play. Is, is like it is very hard to shut down just just the specific area, because internet is interconnected, like every nodes, that all the computers are nodes, and we are all connected, that's a good thing, good resilience of the internet. So if you shut down the internet, you have to shut down like almost everything, like almost every services that is depending on the internet. So it is called dictators digital dilemma by the Internet researchers. So, yes, it's one of the difficulties. But right now they are becoming very good at it, like they have been practicing for, like, very long time. And in 2020 2223 they became very good at it.
Host 25:59
I'm thinking about the effect on the people living under an internet shutdown, and trying to describe what how life is transformed in that way. And I would just like to invite listeners for a moment to think about how you all live your life on internet now, everything from your banking to communication about your child's education or health, doctor's appointments, or, obviously, reading the news, sharing socially, all the different things that we just do automatically every five seconds, how we're all addicted to our phones in the modern age, and checking the latest this or that, or making the arrangements or and what it would be like to have that all stripped away at a moment's notice and not know when it was coming back. And so can you describe if you, yourself have lived under these conditions, or the research that you've done has gained that, I want to put the human element to this. What is it? What is it like to be living your life on a daily basis and suddenly find yourself completely stripped of any internet ability for an undetermined amount of time?
Bradley 27:01
That was that what we should like in 2012 like, kind of shut down one year and for one year anniversary, anniversary, we did this. Like, no phone, no communication thing, like a simulation of internet shutdown at our office, and we couldn't, like, last 30 minutes before freaking out, yeah, you know, and people became like, the situation became so awkward, and we were talking, talking, talking, and eventually we don't have anything to talk about at all. And what do we do? We walking around in the office and we don't know what to do. Have a cup of tea downstairs. And that, that day was very long, you know, and the time frame that, like, we went into a different time machine, and there we can sympathize we are living in Yangon at that time in very decent condition of living like we have our office, we have air conditioned rooms, we have like, nice meeting rooms, And we have vehicles to travel. But the same situation of internet, but very different context. In Rakhine state, they don't have any like aircon room, aircon meeting room. They don't have very fancy vehicles to move around. They don't have cars. They have, they only have, maybe motorbikes or like bicycles. And with that kind of situation, they have to face a very long, you know, days like it's not one day two days, it's for years. So it's likewise right now people, for example, from Yeah, Rakai again, right now Rakai is in a very intensive battle zone, so most of the areas are cut down. The internet is cut down in most of the areas, and also in the middle part of the Myanmar like zagai, it is very hard to communicate like you have no communication at all. And. And when people don't have communication like we are seeing like in one part, the isolation is creating different realities from for them, like they don't know how other parts of the world is evolving. What is happening in other parts of the world? The bad things happening in the internet shutdown areas are better in desert areas, mostly, and they are only seeing these killings and fightings and guns and bombs and airstrikes, and it becomes their reality. And people become very angry, very sensitive and very some, some of the people, our friends from the jungle, like, came to the came to chinmay sometimes, and Our chinmay house is like near the airport when the when the airplanes come, they goes in under the bed, like while you were, like drinking beer, and we're you are talking. And in chimay is there is a tradition when there are funerals, they, they've, they, they do fire firecrackers, like, and these people freaked out like, so it, it creates, like, different reality. And when, when they communicate with other people from from another reality, it is very hard for them to adjust.
Host 32:09
That also makes me think that the people that are living in places where that violence isn't happening can can disassociate from the reality of something happening very close, because they're not informed about the violence that's taking place very near to them, and so some places in Myanmar might have a sense of a sheltered feel of what's actually happening.
Bradley 32:31
It's life and death. You know, having internet or having information, it's life and death. In those areas, like you cannot run away. There are, like, Scout channels, and also there are, if you have internet, you can, like, at least know if the if the airplanes are coming, if the battles are becoming intensive in in the areas that you that you live, but without that you don't know anything. Like you cannot run away from a airstrike. Like you cannot run away like if the airplane is over your head like it is very little chance that you survive.
Host 33:30
I think it also goes without saying that having access to information, internet or any other form, is telling you, it's giving you updates and news as to what's happening in your community, in your country, and famously, in 1988 there are stories of of killings of students and protesters that happened that Burmese people didn't know about for, not just days or weeks, but in some cases, years, because it was so much easier to be able to to keep that news away. And one of the most horrific stories I heard when I was at a monastery in the sagain Hills. I which, which, obviously the is in the sagain Hills is separated by the river and and where they they go to get the water for the monks and whatnot. And have done so historically for centuries. And hearing that after some event in 1988 the villagers woke up and went down to get the waters they usually did, and the bloody bodies of students were corpses were floating down the stream, and they had no idea what happened. But just seeing one corpse after another, this was the way that news of some atrocity took place back then and so with and we, we certainly saw that in the early days after 2021 when the when, when the crackdown started against the protesters, and how internet was a sudden vehicle for alerting communities in the world as to what was happening and what was about to happen. And also became. Tool of the regime to quickly move to using internet to spy and to shut it off altogether when there was a when, when a particularly vicious crackdown or arrests or straight out murder on the streets was to take place.
Bradley 35:17
Yes, so the first thing they did after the 2021 coup was the internet shutdown, like total blackout. That's right, yeah, so my experience of that time is we had a as a, as a organization which teaches like digital security and everything related to security. We had a we had like, very odd contingency plans, like, since the election, we had, like this kind of contingency plan. If there is total blackout, we have to exchange information manually, like we mapped out our team members in townships like South okla damway And we we have this plane mapped out. And we never thought we had to do this portable like it is just for the like, it's just for like, thinking out thinking out loud. But on that day, like February 1, we had to do it like, Really, dude, I I can cannot connect to any member of my, my team. And as the protocol, I went to the this park, and there they are, like, so we cannot connect to anyone. So what do we do? What happened in your Township? What happened in your township that way? We exchanged information like manually. Otherwise we wouldn't know, and like you mentioned, if there is no internet or like in the 1988 the atrocities might not be no and right now, it's the same thing, like we can say we have 330 cities in Myanmar, and about 80 cities are in total. Internet shut down like we cannot know what what is happening in Myanmar. So the 1988 scenario is still happening. So 80 out of 300 is a big number. Like it's like 1/3 of the total cities in Myanmar. So right now, there are a lot of news about the places where internet is okay, but inside these internet inaccessible areas, it's very hard to know the truth. It is still very hard.
Host 38:33
We also saw the value of when the internet was on. There was that moment, I don't know if you remember, I think, three weeks or four weeks after the coup, where a number of students and protesters came to be surrounded in Sanchez, and as this was happening, there were live reports and updates as to what was happening, and those that were paying attention, everyone was on the edge of their seats with terror as the scene is unfolding. I was later told behind the scenes that the various embassies, international organizations were also following just as closely, using all of their connections to try to stop a mass atrocity from taking place before our eyes, which did happen. Yes,
Bradley 39:12
even my colleagues and ourselves, like when there were protests. We were there at the protest every day, and one of our colleagues, like he was running away from the police, and that was the time after they shot me at the car in the head, so it is sure that they are going to shoot if they got if he got caught. But while he is running away, as he has internet, he is calling live a. Are in the group, so we can know the situation, like he is in the market, and the market people were hiding, but the police went into the market and he was about to get caught, and when he was got caught, we were there already, and we talked to the police and with, with, with, like, senior people like, if senior people like, talk to them. This is not the guy that were that was protesting. He is just simple guy from the from in the village and stuff, and he was released so so that the instant communication, like instant transmission of this condition to us saved his life. So there are a lot of examples of that, like having internet is has saved the lives of the protesters. Now
Host 41:21
I want to, I also want to ask about the regime's policies towards the internet since the coup, and we saw that, as you said, when the coup was launched, obviously the internet was cut. It then came back on. Then it went through a period where for the first several months, there were strict shutdowns from, I think it was something like 11pm to 7am or something. And that was it was always a terrible time for me, because I'd be talking to all my Myanmar friends up until 1055 and then the lights just went out in the middle of all these conversations, and it was daytime in the US, and I'd just kind of say a prayer and put it in the back of my mind, get to work on the other parts of what we were doing on our platform, and then suddenly, when the internet was on, boom, boom, boom, boom, all the messages come from all the different areas, and just hope that everyone I know was all right and having no idea what. And sometimes, and as the internet is shut down, I remember we would hear whiffs and hints of, Oh, someone saying, you know, people outside of Myanmar saying, I hear something's happening in this area. I got I heard that there might be a crackdown in this district of Yangon and but no one knew how to check because the internet was completely off. And then after some time, the regime ended that policy. And then there was internet 24 hours a day, albeit with these, these shutdowns taking place in various quarters. But my question has always been, you know, first of all, why? Why have the internet at all is, What reasons do you think the regime has for leaving this internet access in some form, accessible to the people in the country, in some areas, and having some form of Internet access access available, but then why not continue the limited style that it was? Because right now in Myanmar's there's many internet shutdowns, and we'll get to those. But outside of those internet shutdowns, there are places where it's routinely available and continues to be accessible, and this continues to be used by the resistance in all kinds of ways, from counter attacks to to getting news out to the outside world to document war crimes, so many things the regime would not want. So why? So even though the internet has been taken away in so many places before we get there, I want to ask, why is it left in the places and the amount and the access where it still continues to function?
Bradley 43:43
Yeah, that's a good question. So I think it is there. It is interesting to to look at their patterns, like you mentioned, their periodical like internet shutdowns, their geographical internet shutdowns and and they're practically, like literally practicing every types of internet shutdown. So there are internet there are types of internet shutdown like periodical, geographical and bandwidth throttling. So they are practicing every types of internet shutdown and see how how that works, like how each types of the internet shutdowns works. So in some area, they do bandwidth throttling, like they throttle the bandwidth and and and decrease the bandwidth. Bandwidth, it's not shut down, it's just decreased. So to do the total internet shutdown, the loss, the commercial loss, is, is great, like the revenues, like right now. They own like, basically every telecoms is their profit like, so they are telecoms, or the telecoms that owned by their associates. And it was if you shut down, completely shut down. One like, let's say, a township. It is the revenue that is creating that the telecom revenue is big, so they are losing that money. So it is the digital dictator dilemma is so the also have to, like, see what is the optimum amount of shutdowns. That's why they are like, practicing and seeing how to strategy, strategically, like, shut down the internet, not very much of the loss, but not very much of the freedom. So they are they also have to have a good strategy like, what is, what is their most optimal like, level of internet shutdown. That's why some places are left accessible and the critical areas got shut down.
Host 46:26
Now, as you're talking, I'm having this image in my mind of one little man inside a booth of mass technological devices who's swirling knobs and testing figures, kind of a 1980s cartoon of a little man just fooling around with all these knobs and levers. Can you, can you describe, what does it take to shut internet off? What? What does it look like? How does that process happen to technically shut off or decrease or or change the bandwidth of a reach of a certain part of the country?
Bradley 46:59
So, I talked with the people on the ground about these shutdowns. And in some areas, like, the internet is shut down, but they have boards, like in cell towers and like, look at internet service provider. They have ports. They can close that port. So if they close that port, the even if you have running cell tower, you cannot access to the spectrum, like the internet, to do the backbone of the internet, you can use your infrastructure like intranet, but you cannot go, go up to the internet. So it is not a easy process. And there is no like, switch on and off button. So they have to the process is they have to release, like instructions to the telecom companies first, like the four telecom operators and the four telecom operators, forwarded that instructions to the local ISPs, and the local ISB also further proceed with the instructions so that you got the internet shut down. So in in some areas, it is, it is it is quick. In some areas, it is not very in some areas, the local ISPs, even if the instructions came the local ISB, don't want to, like, shut down, because it's a lot of investment for for them. So if the internet is shut down, they lose money. So in some areas, even if they want to shut down the internet, it is still open.
Host 49:04
So yeah, and Are there cases of so there's you give an example of a local ISP that rejects the shutdown orders slash requests because of profitability. Are there also examples where there are friendly people in these places who don't respect the these requests coming because they want to support the resistance.
Bradley 49:28
Yeah, that's also another way around. But they for the low gas fee, is hard for them to say, because they have to work with the regime in order to access, order to get bandwidth, because only four license, like telecom operation license, everything, every company goes under these four license, so it is monopolized.
Host 49:58
Can you tell. Tell us about these four telecom companies. Tell us who they are and their relationship to the regime.
Bradley 50:07
So as you might know that after 2012 telecom revolution, there are two privates. There were two private international telecoms. One is Telenor from Norway and oridu from kata, and another two operators are maintel and NPT. So NPT is Myanmar post and telecommunication. So it is owned by the government. When the telecom center, the sector is liberalized. The Myanmar person telecommunication collaborated with KDDI, the Japanese company, and became company like public company, rather than it was their role before, was a regulator. So they seem that telecom cannot be a regulator. So regulator has to be an independent body. So they fund public company. So meanings to say those two operators, another one is Minetta. Is owned literally by the military mail and and in collaboration with a Vietnam, I think Vietnamese, Vietnamese company. So meaning to say MPD and minetel is, is the military junta and its associates from the first so 50% of the telecom sector is in the hand of the in the hand of the military junta from the start and after The coup, what happened is they forced these two private telecom companies like Telenor and oridu sono with our civil society. Relationship with Telenor is very good, and Telenor is what we consider as the most like human rights. Respected company. They have their own data protection policies, and they they denied the the government requests of the personal data, and they were very good at these digital rights and but what happened is when the coup happened, and also the military try forced the telecoms to install surveillance equipment at their data centers, and also other things like data requests. They decided to leave the country right away, like and they transferred the data of 15 million users, like, 15 or 30. I don't know the exact number animal, so they transfer the data, personal data, to the military affiliated company, and it is that's the separate case that we can talk about. So teleno left the country and then already do also. They're still running with name of oridu, but they're going to sell their company to also one of the military affiliated organizations. So meaning to say right now, 100% of the telecom sector is owned by the military affiliated entities, so that's where the next new phase of surveillance and digital repression became alive
Host 54:23
I want to go back to that decision that Telenor made when they faced this demand from the military regime to turn over sensitive data, basically to become a spy agency in service of the military. To be in that position as a company, is no easy position as someone, as a digital rights activist such as yourself that was monitoring this, what do you think they could have done and should have done in that instance
Bradley 54:52
so as civil society organizations, i. A teleno leaving the country was very they did this decision very rashly. And also, there are guidelines of OECD. So as a collective body of civil society organizations, we complained OECD to talk to Telenor that this is not good move and they should be responsible for transferring these data before they like, they leave the they leave the country because they have. They are responsible for these data, not to be abused. So we complained at the OECD, and the the response of teleno is like the, I think they sued, or they opened a case in Singapore or something, saying that they they had to leave very rashly, so that they couldn't, like, sell their company with a with a with a good amount of money, and we were complaining, like, you made A lot of revenue. Like, yearly revenue is like 300 million or something. So we demanded so the users are like the users 18 million. So $1 for every users for 80 million so, but Telenor, I don't think telenove is responding to that. So in summary, like telenose, decision was very Raj there, and they didn't think of if they respected these they know the consequences. They know like, what will happen if they hand this vast data, the vast amount of data, to the military junta, they know what will happen. They know what will be the consequences,
Host 57:41
right? I guess what I'm wondering is, if they left the country in a rushed way, sold the company, gave up their assets, why couldn't they do all of that without handing over the data? What benefit or incentive do they have to hand over data that, as you say, we know very well what the result of that will be.
Bradley 58:01
I don't know what will be the consequences. Because if you want to know, you have to I don't know what's the deal with their between their companies, like they sold the company to act on. So I don't know what's the D between them. If, maybe it involves the data, like the price of the company involves the data I see. So if so, either way, like, if it doesn't include the data. They can like, do something like, if it is possible that if you don't transfer these data, it is going to affect the operational aspects of the company, but at least they can do like the minimal amount of data they have, to make sure they only transfer the minimal amount of data. If the deal includes the data, it's not good. It's not a good deal like they are just selling the data to the military affiliated company for money so they have blood on their hands, yes.
Host 59:22
So let's get in now into looking at the history of military propaganda on internet, using the internet, this is something that's been widely covered, and particularly in the Rohingya genocide, and there have been reports issued on how Facebook contributed to the misinformation campaign. This is, of course, no new thing in Myanmar, the military propaganda trying to to fool the people through even in pre internet days in the various. Ways they would try to put out fake news or propagandize news to prop up their rule and to minimize and things that weren't happening well in the country, as well as to criticize those people who were seeing a different vision of the future. Can you tell us briefly about how the Myanmar military, over the years, used the internet as a tool for misinformation and then into the coup, how it has continued to do that.
Bradley 1:00:35
They are also very good at it. They have been using like social media as a weapon, like since the Rohingya genocide in 2012 and also they're becoming very coordinated, systematic and right now, if you were a pro revolution person in Myanmar, and if you got doxed by one of the propaganda channels, like, there are a lot of like, famous propaganda channels like hanging Banyan and those kind of channels. If you got dumps by those people, you are physically in danger, like you can your house can be raided, your you will be arrested, you will be tortured to death is possible. So it becomes real threat, like not just the propaganda on the, you know, on the air, it becomes affected to the to the real life, to the real danger. So right now, they are using multiple platforms, rather than Facebook. They become very active on the telegram channels and Telegram, the thing with telegram is the channels like, even if you your channel is reported or being deleted, you can create another one very quickly if you have the list of your subscriber so, so They're not going away. And we have known that they are not just like volunteer volunteer propagandists of the pro military population. No, they are coordinated like they have mechanisms like, which one deals with what kind of content they have very systematic mechanism. And according to Article like, I think it's on mizuma or something, yes, mi that the people from graduated from Russia, like they are like, managing these kind of propaganda mechanisms, and right now they are, like, very filthy jobs. They do like, even they are also but why they are very powerful is they also have like forces, like, apart from the military, they have like, Have you heard about pusoty? Like, like, they they're gonna kill. They're gonna, like, beheaded everybody, like, they don't have any kind of sympathy or their their killers on the ground. So they're connected with these propaganda mechanisms. So if the propaganda channels demand to burn and burn village, or to kill a man or to kill like 10s of hundreds of men, they have the mechanism on the ground. That's why it is very, very terrifying like and it is right now policy wise, it is very hard to prevent or it is very hard to like, tackle this problem because a. Are, for example, Telegram, you cannot we were trying to, like communicate with telegram. It's not my specialized part. Our colleagues work specifically on the this part of job. But there is no accountable like actions like from telegram to date, like not yet, and the policy advocacy to the to telegram is very much harder than other social media platforms. What
Host 1:05:41
do you think that is?
Bradley 1:05:44
I don't know, because they are they. I think they are the companies was born in Russia, but they moved out of Russia, and the developer team is in Doha. And I don't know the, for example, when we do policy advocacy to Facebook, Facebook has a Facebook replied. And I'm not, I'm not saying Facebook is a perfect company, but they did give attention and action like they followed with action. Now Facebook has a monetary team. Facebook has a like policy team for specifically for Myanmar, so that it is it is easy and it is effective to do the policy platform advocacy, but when it comes to Telegram, we still don't know the ultimate policy communication channel yet.
Host 1:06:57
So during the Rohingya crisis, famously, as I referenced, before, the military had very sophisticated campaigns to use this, this newfound internet, as we spoke of this sudden change and shift of the going from nothing to everything, and taking advantage of this new device that people had in their Hands to flood it with the anti Muslim propaganda that helped to fuel that crisis, and that has there have been much in the way of reports and analysis of what exactly how that propaganda took place during those years. Also, as we know we look at like the new light of Myanmar, some of the terrible propaganda magazines, before newspapers, before the internet, the headlines were something of a laughing stock. Of you know, generals visiting some dam or giving donations to some monastery or something. And you know that, I think that that certainly there were many people that were not fooled by the ridiculousness of the headlines, but probably others living in rural areas that would take this as a new source. But I feel like there is a maturity and sophistication that's taken place among the Myanmar people in these years to to have learned from these past lessons, and as we all know, a tremendous mistrust and hatred of the military and many people not prone to believe anything that they're saying. So I'm wondering, you've talked about Telegram, but I'm wondering on the other so the more traditional social media channels of like Facebook, Twitter, even Instagram, let's say, have there been evidence of different kinds of propaganda the military has been putting out. Maybe they're putting out the same they have in the past. I can't imagine it really working. I can't imagine, when I look at social media feeds, there's a whole genre of Burmese sharing the latest crazy thing that the military is trying to make us believe, and everyone kind of laughing at how ridiculous it is and being able to see right through it. So I know that those that there's some level of propaganda attempts that the military has not learned from and doesn't realize this isn't working anymore, because they've just become a commonly shared joke of how stupid it is that. Do you really think that we're going to believe this headline anymore? But I'm wondering, on top of those, the tried and true that they've that they've done in the past, and that, I think, really by and large, are not working now. Are there more sophisticated forms of propaganda and messing around on these social media platforms that you've seen since the coup?
Bradley 1:09:37
It's, it's a whole scene, you know, like you mentioned, people are prone to these propaganda contents, but the propaganda, like social media, weaponization capability of the military is increasing. They are also. Are expanding their including the channels, including the content. They're on Tiktok, they are on every possible social media. They're on VK, they're even on Spotify. So that's the expanding of the outreach channels. And also there are a like increasing different types of content from from those channels. And on the other hand, there are also civilian, like the civilian initiated channels to tackle these contents. It's very, also very creative, you know, tackling these propaganda of these propaganda, propaganda channels. So right now you can both. You can see both repression and resistance at the same time. So the military's propaganda mechanism, yes, suddenly becomes more sophisticated, and they also have like, dedicated teams to create contents in. I think they learn from like, very famous and sophisticated, sophisticated campaigns like Cambridge, analytical like they target, they don't need to target the pro military people. They and they cannot target the pro revolution people. They target the gray area people in the gray area. They don't know very much about it. They don't know can
Host 1:11:58
you give some examples of how they target them, some of the more innovative, sophisticated ways that are showing their their development and their increased innovation, of how they're trying to target these, this gray area in ways that we haven't seen before.
Bradley 1:12:15
Oh, one is like, in terms of strategy, like, it's it's not just one specific thing that they invaded. The whole strategy is the invasion. Like the whole strategy of before there are, like, there are military pro military supporters, like they are doing this propaganda out of like voluntarily doing right now, it seems that they have hired these persons, like from foreign dedicated positions. And also they are expanding, like the team. And also, according to the mizima article, they have, like, very educated people on the background, like think tanks, I think. And also they have like advisors that who are advising these kind of military propaganda mechanisms. So it's not just the content, it's the whole strategy. Can
Host 1:13:36
you give us an example of how of what you've seen, of one way this strategy has been playing out that is perhaps surprising or something new that we haven't seen before.
Bradley 1:13:58
So right now, I will say the the the most effective from their side are the Tiktok videos, like the military guys who are in the battlefront are going live and talking, or like, Dancing with the pro military songs and talking like, okay, Aragami, we are coming. We are going to kill you. We are going to do this and that and these kind of things and saying, like, we are protecting this country and these revolution the rebel guys must die, that kind of things like those things are like, just examples. There are a lot of. Like contents, but it's the Tiktok videos are like, I think, in my opinion, like, I'm not an ace, but in this area, but the Tiktok videos are like, right now, very effective.
Host 1:15:19
And as with the question with Telegram, as we talked about with Facebook, has there been outreach to Tiktok to try to ban these murderous videos from Arian freely?
Bradley 1:15:33
Tiktok advocacy? I think some of Tiktok also has community moderation. I think like they hired a team or something, but I haven't really heard anything progressing on Tiktok. Also, they are trying to do like, advocacy, but I think still no like, still no significant improvement on that.
Host 1:16:04
So when we look at how the regime is developing these strategies, as well as how they've the teams that have been assembled, you've referenced a couple of times the support they're getting from other countries. You've mentioned you've mentioned Russia. We haven't talked about China yet. Maybe there are other countries still there to name. But what do you know of foreign influence that is supporting the regime to do better at this propaganda, this dock scene, this using the internet as a tool for spying? What support are they getting from outside their borders?
Bradley 1:16:41
Oh, yeah, that's a good question. So this surveillance like the most visible is the surveillance like right now they are doing like they are doing e ID registrations, and there are changing from physical card to smart card, and They are forcing the people to register the SIM cards. So these are the their preparation of the centers of calculations, and they are reorganizing the centers of calculations in terms of to be able to do triangulation to know where you are and who you are, like to get, like, very specific and accurate data of the people for the sake of surveillance. And also there's increasing their surveillance capability, and you might hard. Like in these days, they are banning the VPNs, I think. And to ban VPNs, it's a lot of work. Yeah, yeah, it's a lot of collection of IP addresses. It's a lot of work. So it's clear that they have capacity to do, to do that, and these kind of models of surveillance, is a there, there is a theory of surveillance which is called panopticon. Panopticon is a jail where it's a circular jail, where the cells of the prisoners have no doors, so it is transparent, and in the middle there is a God tower. So inside that there is a God or not, the prisoner cannot know, but everything that the prisoners are doing is transparent to the God. So there is a thought in the prisoner's mind that we are washed all the time. So whether there is a God in the wash tower or not, they are not they don't want anything to do wrong because they are being watched all the time. That's the traditional surveillance theory, like panopticon, but, according to the surveillance researchers, the countries like China, Russia are going to the post panoptical surveillance systems, saying that they are not sent the. Watching the role of the guard right now in post panoptical Is there, like decentralized, it's not watched from one center. And also they there are collaboration with business owners and private sectors. So we are seeing that pattern in Myanmar surveillance like evolution right now. You might heard about these surveillance over like mobile transactions, there are mobile money, like mobile money, apps like kBz, pay, wave pay and CB pay, etc. So there are a lot of people who got arrested via their accounts, like mobile money accounts. And we recently did a research on that, and we found out that the banks are collaborating with the military. Of course, almost all of them are tycoons, like cronies, and they have dedicated team like it is sure, because we asked one of the victims, and she said she mentioned that because she transfer the money, and in the description, she writes, this is for the donation. So they have teams at the banks who are manually monitoring these descriptions, and also, if you are suspected, the consequences are so dire, like your house can be raided, and there are also victims whose houses got raided, got arrested. IDs confisc confiscated. So if the ID is confiscated, you cannot do anything anymore. You cannot travel. You cannot use the banking services. You can you can do anything, and also the balance in those bank accounts, you will never get get it back so it's freezed. So there we can see the collaboration with the private companies, and it becomes more powerful, like I'm I don't want to say it, but it's truth, so they do that, and then the why they touch this mobile we call it policing mobile money. Why do they police this mobile money is very it's a low hanging fruit for them, like if you monitor the mobile monitoring transactions. From there, you can go to like IDs, why don't you have this correct ID? And they can also go to the mobile phone numbers. So why don't you register with SIM card on your name. Go, go to the SIM card registration and do it under your name. So you you don't have the correct ID, you go to the E ID system and do correct e ID system. So in that way, they can build like systems, centers of calculations in order to surveil systematically. So before that, the surveillance system of the military is a little bit of this, a little bit of that. So just to create it is not the southern system was not very powerful like China. So they have to, they just have had to create the the Panopticon concept in the mind of the citizens that they are watched all the time. So you will remember, right after the coup, they do these drones or something like in the streets of both the town. In the streets of Da mui, there are like persons, like, sometimes like Chinese woman or something. They are with a computer or tablet. They are doing something with the drones or something. So I think it can be a covert operation. Like you don't need to tell the people that they are doing this, but they are showing that they are using these roles, CCTVs and everything, so that they create this chilling effect of they are being washed all the time right now is from that stage the surveillance is going to another stage to post panoptical, like they are really working on it. And it is like we cannot compare, literally with with states very sophisticated in very like expensive state surveillance systems of Russia and China. But the you know, the way of the evolution, the idea, the theory, is very similar. So it is possible that behind this, maybe they learned from the available literature, or they learn from directly from them. Who knows?
Host 1:26:39
This is a terrifying reality that you're painting a very grim picture, but an accurate one, and one that I'm really grateful that you're sharing with us and sharing with our audience. And it also makes me think of how they say throughout human history, war is always in conflict. This is always what makes a society have to innovate in ways that they haven't had to previously. These are all the bad kinds of innovations that we're seeing the Myanmar military having to do and to be forced to make a transition to a truly terrifying apparatus that even in the bad old days of how many informants there were, was nothing at the level that we're seeing that it's leading to now, and it also, I think, highlights this kind of light versus dark, Freedom versus tyranny, that the Myanmar struggle falls into, that it's it's another it's putting in relief this being a Battlefield and very stark contrast between these forces that are trying to promote a freer society with human rights and civil society against a regime that is getting more tyrannical, that is aligning more closely with these bad actors, and that We have this struggle taking place right before our eyes in very clear terms, in terms of what it is they're trying to do in, in the type of rule and type of country that they want to create. This is one of just many, many, many topics that we've covered on this platform of showing, of illustrating what this regime is doing now, what they're pointing to in the future, and were they to have tighter control, what we would see them clenching their fist in trying to create in ways that we haven't seen even in previous regimes. And this is this is really something quite terrifying. We've painted this very grim yet accurate picture of all of these ways that the regime has been innovating to try to have a tighter grip on its people and to force them into into submission with the kind of rule that they'd like to establish. I'd like to balance that with turning over to the side of the people, and maybe balance it with some some some optimistic, yet also accurate information as to how this new generation of youth activists have been using technology and using the internet to fight back in equally, if not more innovative and inspiring ways against the tyranny They have on the other side. And with this question, I also want to highlight and alert listeners that this is your particular area of focus, and so we're really getting into interesting territory here, because up until now, your extensive knowledge of all these questions that I'm throwing at you, even not being your area of expertise, you've been able to give extraordinarily detailed and comprehensive answers of a wide range of subjects, but this is your particular area of expertise and analysis, and so we're really in for a treat, and being able to hear from you all the ways that you've been studying these three and a half years and the years before the coup itself in. The growth of how, how activists have been growing and maturing in their innovative ways to resist this regime, in ways that I think are going to be studied for a long time outside of Myanmar, in terms of what ordinary people can do to resist systems of oppression. So tell us what you've learned in looking at it through that analysis.
Bradley 1:30:23
Yes, that's that's also a very critical subject to talk about. And also, I am like watching studying this phenomena of digital repression as well as the resistance, because to talk about that, we have to like since the beginning, like from We were talking about this arresting of the bloggers and stuff. And also I, I have been working as a digital security trainer back then, from 2015 to before the coup. And also I'm still do some, some doing something, there's some digital security trainings. So before the coup, like 2019 20, like if we give digital security trainings to the activists, to the journalists, the 1/3 of the time is convincing them. This is important, really, this is serious, and you are the rigs. Is there? Like the real risk is there, but it is very hard for you to convince because there are no Huns yet, but after the coup, we don't even need to convince people anymore, like there are a lot of people we we ran out of resources. We ran out of trainers to provide digital security training. Everybody needs it right now, and it's it becomes life and death. If you don't know how to hide your protesting photos out of your phone, you can be arrested in a checkpoint. So that's the end also signal right now we are using signal. Everybody is using signal. But before the coup, it is hell of a job to convince people to use signal. They are always on Messenger. They are always on Bible. And after the cool everybody is on Telegram, everybody is on signal. And from that, we can see technological adaptation, because of the repression, because of the real danger. So innovation often comes from the repression, like from very severe environment, there comes the innovation. So we I, if I aim to talk about the evolution of the resistance, I'm going to start from there, like the technological adaptation of the of the public. You know, right now, everybody's aware of VPN, like before. Nobody is using like, only the tech people like that. Techie persons are using VPN. But because of the censorship after the coup, we had to use the VPNs, and also from the very early stage of the resistance, we see like the campaigns like the clicking campaigns like click to donate, and also YouTube channels and also PDF games, that kind of revenue creating That's so creative that is, it's, it's very unique because of this environment, because of these Kyiv and facts that we are becoming mature in digitalization, and also the power of the youth. You know, they have the. Are digital natives, and they are very creative, and they can, they don't, you don't need to explain Gen Z how to use, how to navigate through a web page, or how to navigate through an app, and this is their thing. And with those giving facts, this kind of creative resistance campaigns came out. And after that, we can also, we also acknowledge that there are a lot of like campaigns from in collaboration with nug the civil societies themselves, and also there are Scout channels on Telegram, like township by Township, there are Scout channels. That's, that's a mass coordination of the civil society. It's it cannot be like. It cannot be assumed as just a simple phenomenon. It's a it's a very you know, when it comes to Myanmar is we are very difficult to collaborate like coordinate in a large scale. But this happened, and the large scale coordination between the people via the digital platforms happened and still happening.
Host 1:36:38
Tell us what these cup channels are.
Bradley 1:36:40
so these Scout channels where people voluntarily provide information of the moves of the military, like, for example, if you are living in a certain place, like, for example, dawi Township, so you saw military tank on this and this street, you tell voluntary to this Scout channel, and the admins of the scout channel verified, and if it is true, they release the information so that you can you you know where the checkpoints are, where the military vehicles are, and also there are even, like airstrikes, Scout channels, like where people who are close to the airports, they're watching, they're watching the airplanes manually, and they provide this information voluntarily. That right now they are doing that for three years. They are now they can, like, they can tell which airplane is which like this model airplane, this one like, took off to this direction, and so that you can know that one of the enemy's air routes are so these kind of collaborations are resilient, like, because it's not centralized. It cannot be rated because so there are so many contributors, like not only one so and also those kind of things, and, and, and how can I say those resistance are also facing with like systemic repression, but people always have like, very creative ways to communicate. For example, these like everything has to have like internet to happen. But in some areas, there are no Internet, and people are using like alternative ways. Right now, some people like, go back to leaflets. Like they produce their magazines in leaflets, and they produce to the community. And some people goes back to transmitting FM radio. They're like, because they cannot be in a in a starting area, because they can be bombed. What they did is very creative, like they have a truck, and on that truck there are generators. An FM transmitter on top of it, and they go up to the mountain twice a day.
Host 1:40:09
They broadcast the news, the revolution news, that's incredible.
Bradley 1:40:14
That's incredibly risky, that's incredibly risky, and that's incredibly creative. And also, people are right now using like the education. People like people, there are alternative there are platforms who are providing alternative education. Like the GED like, how can I say that? Like the pre college courses, they offer these kind of courses free for the P for the students who dropped out, but after, after the coup and the CDM students, and also there, there are a lot of people who are inaccessible to education. So there are also these kind of alternative education providers who are also doing incredible jobs, like right now to further internet inaccessible areas, they are creating these Moodle box like raspberry pi, and they put their courses in a Raspberry Pi so that you can access it like off grid. You don't need to connect to any internet at all. So there are also initiatives like that going on. So before we talk about this military's capacity of the surveillance, but when we talk about this creative like resistance initiatives of the people, it is very much appreciated. Like, if there are no initiatives like that, it's done. It's this revolution or resistance, whatever you call is done, because in Yangon right now, only very few people are talking about these political, political revolutionary things. Right now nobody can talk about these things in Yangon. In other areas, there are battles.
Host 1:42:51
Why are they not talking about them in Yangon?
Bradley 1:42:56
Oh, no, because I Yeah, right now, in if you're are living in Yangon, you're you have to aware that there, there are a lot of intelligence like SPS and military intelligence in everywhere. So you have to be careful about you. You're if you are in Yangon and you're in a in you are at a bar, you are at a tea shop and talking about these things. Oh, no, it's not very wise to talk about it. That's why I've heard from the from my friends, like it's not very easy to talk about these things in public. If you are at your home, yes, you can talk about it, but on the streets and in public discourses, nobody is talking about it. So yeah, so the creative campaigns are like, it has to be more coordinated. And also, we in need of solutions and learnings from other countries that have done it, like for example, for alternative communications. Right now, we're using the revolution forces and people in internet, in the cesspool areas like IDB teams, the only viable way right now to access to the internet is Starlink. And right now, Starlink is being seen. As illegal. Yes, it is illegal, like it is not authorized in Thailand or in Myanmar yet, but it is the only way that, like only affordable way, like we can use, like geostationary satellites, like turaya or in mast, but it is incredibly, like expensive and those services are like being used in aviation or marine. Marine industry. It's not made for end users, so it is. It has a lot of interferences and maintenance is difficult, and the prices are expensive, but the Starlink is only 599 it is relatively expensive, still for the people in Myanmar, but it is affordable, accessible, and it is just plug and blade. You don't need any technical assistance to configure that. It's like intermediate level. So right now, it's the only way, but the challenges are, Elon Musk is is talking about Rumi and not very recently, he suspended the rooming service in Africa. And also he is looking at this rooming service to be cut off in some areas. If he cut off rooming service. Myanmar is a lot of people will be in danger in Myanmar. And also, for example, in Thailand, it is the starling is associated with in the news, like associated with the online gambling gangs, and they are criminalizing Starlink. But the sad thing is, we're using the same technology like but the Chinese are using it for gambling. We're using it for life and death situation and the people the government and corporations must know what are the intentions of the application they they just cannot criminalize like overall, like by in January, if you possess a styling you are doing online gabining. That's not a good notion. That's not a that's not a good hypothesis, and it is going to affect so many lives. So we are going to, we are we need to, like, tackle on that kind of things with policy advocacy, and also, there are a lot of technologies in need for off grid communication like we are. I talk with I talk with you, I talk with other friends from other countries around the world, and we talk about this, uh, technology and shit. And we talk about blockchains, we talk about AI, and we talk about like, quantum computing and everything, like digital currency blockchains. But the conversation ends in, in my country, there is no internet. It's like, it's end of the conversation. Yesterday, also, I talked with the Chinese friends. Like, there are web three people, like, Blockchain people, the conversation ends there. Like, so if we are going to create a digital currency based on blockchain, but we have no internet. How should we do no one has answer. And right now, that's the divide, you know, and this is going to be a great divide, like we are talking about, literally, yesterday, I met with people. They're talking about web three. They're talking about the blockchain and how to create smart contracts and how to govern your organization with Dao or something. While, meanwhile, I'm talking about the. Is internet infrastructure. We are still struggling with internet infrastructure. And what are we? What is this society? Society going to be in in 10 years? In 20 years, are we going to like the historian you will say, are we going to become like useless society? Because in the world order, we have not talked about like we are being forgotten, like everybody is talking about this Asian Century, like Asian futures, and the future is Asian, that kind of shit. But nobody talks about the countries like us, the LDC, least developed countries, because the given facts are totally different right now. Like nobody talks about the situation where internet is not accessible, unless you are walking at an offshore oil rig, or unless you are climbing the Mount Everest you don't talk about off grid communication. So we have no solution. So right now, it is in need, like, because it's not only because of the internet shutdown, the infrastructure is damaged, like, heavily damaged. So I always reference this because the cell phone towers in 2021 alone, According to writer, 400 towers are destroyed. Is 180 units, 180,000 US dollars, like generally, for one sale, for dollars. So it's a big money. And who is going to invest in that during this war? Nobody's going to invest in that. And how are we going to restore this infrastructure? It's impossible, like, let's say the revolution is going well, and the ethnic organization has controlled the area.
They don't have technical capacity, they don't have capital investments to restore these infrastructures. So what are the alternative infrastructures that we can deploy cheaply and that we can deploy like as a manner of decentralized like communication infrastructures? So we have to work on that like we have to work on that a lot. We have a lot, still a lot of things to do to research on that areas, because nobody's talking about, like, no internet scenarios, nobody's talking about in, even in this digital kind of subject, people who are working on these digital rights and stuff. And we are, we talk about, we a lot of organizations who track these internet shutdowns, like, where is it? Is happening, including us, we also do that. But the ends, the question is, okay, the internet is shut down, inaccessible. Then what are we going to do? Are we going to, like, sit and pray that the internet is coming back. It's impossible, so we have to walk on this like also, so that the digital resistance campaigns, these creative campaigns, who the forces against these atrocities of the military will survive. Otherwise, it's done, and also, if you are not restoring or if you are not providing alternative infrastructure for the communication, it's a chicken and egg scenario for every development. Thing you know, if you were, let's say you are. You are currently government, and you want to do a currency by yourself. But right now, printing money is not. Not the optimal way. It costs so much money, like, it will cost about two, 2/3 of the value. Like, if you are going to produce a 10,000 chats, and the printing cost will be like, 777, 1000. So it's not optimal. You have to go digital. And if to go digital, you have to have digital infrastructure. Like, without digital infrastructure, your money is it's nothing, so it's chicken and egg. So right now, in this like digitally, digitally, like we are in a symbiosis with digital RAM, like we cannot ask humans, like, what are you without your phone? Like, what are you without your digital equipment? You're nothing. So in this era of like, hybrid humans like you, have to think about it like as you, as humans like for your physical need, you find shelter, you find food, like that. For our digital selves, we need infrastructures as a basic need.
Host 1:56:23
That's that's so powerful. Everything you just said, I thank you so much for that wealth of sharing and reflection and and I want to check in of where you're at at this whole thing. We've, we've heard in different parts of these last two hours. I've, I've heard parts of what you said as being hopeful, optimistic, pessimistic, grim, laying and then laying out a wider future beyond this revolution that is really anything but and has some massive concerns, which we all know and are not new you lay out, I think, I think, to summarize and to build towards the last question you you lay a scene of a repressive regime becoming more repressive and using the tools that they are learning from their tyrannical allies To see how to shore up their surveillance abilities and and as well as to limit the access of the civilian population entirely, where they're then carrying out some kind of attack. Yet you thought you've also shown how, just as they're learning from their tyrannical friends, the Burmese are learning from their milk tea Alliance friends and from their grassroots friends, and from what activists have done in other countries that have faced similar brutal and repressive regimes, and that not just learning from those allies, also innovating in such stupendous and incredible and unprecedented ways that the rest of The world is watching, or should be watching, in terms of how they are learning to use these digital tools in ways that we've never seen before. And as you said at Gen Z, you don't have to show them how to use a smartphone, how to go to an app, how to have some kind of crowd sharing in some new way that has never been done before to serve their particular needs on the ground. So you have this, this, this game and this battle taking place with incredible stakes that in you and your position are are monitoring and reporting on quite extensively. But then, as you just went into then you have the wider landscape and you and I think this is a question that we've asked so many people that have come on the podcast, which I don't have to ask you, because you've just answered it. The question being from your field. And we've asked this of energy experts, of education, of infrastructure, of the government itself, and and and local townships, environment. We've asked it to we've asked so many versions of this question to experts in their particular field. If the revolution were to be successful tomorrow, what would we be looking at in Myanmar would what? What has been destroyed, and how long would it take to build up back again? This has been such a common refrain, and looking at not just where are we in this revolution, but if we were to be successful and prevail tomorrow, what is the landscape of this country going forward with how much was lost and how much has to be rebuilt? I don't have to ask you that, because you've just given a extensive answer, a depressing answer of what what is being destroyed, and how hard it is to build back up, not just physically, but the but, but so much that goes into attracting that investment and the and then the stability that's needed to carry that out, and then the ethical ways that it's being used by, hopefully an ethical administration. That is protecting human rights, digital rights included within that and so I guess the concluding question that I'm left with is how we have this mix of hope and optimism and this grim, accurate, grim yet accurate, pessimistic view of the forces, these evil, dark forces that are at play. So where are you left with it? I imagine it's not one answer. I imagine you're holding there's a lot of balls that are that are suspended in the air that you're looking at and and gravitating from one to the other as as as you're also trying to make sense of a very complicated and layered reality in front of you in this landscape, both the landscape of the current revolution and who is actually going to win in small and large ways, and then looking beyond and the ways that Myanmar is being left out of as You described this web 3.0 and these new innovations that your friends are talking about every day that you're barely even at web 1.0 let alone the 3.0 and so what would you like to leave the audience with? What would you how would you like to characterize and summarize and include all these facts and details that you've put together and one concluding message that might be layered in all of the nuances of this battle taking place on the road ahead. Where would you say, how? How are you feeling as you go through your days and as you look at the prognosis of what's what's to come?
Bradley 2:01:36
Yes, so we talked in last two hours, we talked more about the challenges, I think repression, but it is looking at the enemy like laying The the facts, the truths of the challenges is it's just what we need to do. But for me, I have, I have hopes, a lot of hopes, and also I see this, this is a, this is a enormous pressure, but it is also we can turn it into an opportunity, opportunity. Because, honestly, if we are very future oriented, if we are very wise enough, we can become like Asian Wakanda, like we can be right now, we are. We have nothing so right now in terms of political situations, the this is not not only our country. There are a lot of countries in war situation. In a lot a lot of countries there are political like crisis. And the democracies around the walls have problems. The communist countries have problems. Everybody's having problems. So the world that we have known, like the democratic world, like the ideology, the era of ideologies is, this is the end, you know, so in the same time we are the countries who are like rebuilding. That's why revolution 2.0 is not about fighting, not about killing. Of course, we have to win in the military situation, but we also have to think about rebuild. How are you rebuilding this country? Are you rebuilding the old way? No, we have to learn from that, for example, like the nearest example with my life is, are you going to build like this monopolized telecom market with four operators? No, I'm not going to like we have to have decentralized communication strategy in each region, because in each region there are there are bordering countries, are different. The need of the of the communication, Internet access is different. And the infrastructures, who is nearby, the the undersea cables, like see me, we four CME week three, we have four points in Myanmar that the. The sub submarine cables go in. So it is different from region to region. So we cannot be the old system, like we cannot rebuild this old system, like politically communicate income in terms of politically digitally. And also we have to see this. We have to see this events as like, where do they see these events as the opportunity, like, we it is created, like the ground is clear. Like, okay, the ground is clear. We don't have any constraint. We don't have any pulling back from the history, because the worst things happened already, like, right now, if I watched horror movies or thriller movies like The war movies, it's not a like, very horrifying for me anymore, because everything happened real life in my country. So there is no worst case than this anymore. So this time is for like, rebuilding like it is also we have to form from individual level. We this. This was the old problem. This is not a new problem. We had faced this coup like several times. This was the old problem. We were solving that old problem with the same capacity like so we need to upgrade ourselves, like individually, we cannot solve this same problem with same capacity. We have to like, we will get the same result if we do this again. Yeah. So we not do this again, doing this again anymore. So we are and also we need to think about the world order like the world order is not taking us in like I told you about this future research, future studies and in future study literature, literally only one paper about Myanmar. So we're not considered in the future, but we have to tell them, we are here. We are here, and let's go together. And we cannot in in the situation of crisis, it is very hard to look at the future, even for five years, 10 years. Why other people are talking about 100 years ahead? We are very difficult to talk about the 10 years plan. But if we are like just complaining about the situation, and because of the crisis, we cannot talk about the future. If we we are not talking about the future, our futures will be unknown. So we have to explore what are the possible alternative futures of us, like there that can be, like, good things or bad things, like in between things. So it's we need to strategize like, what are the futures, possible futures? What are our preferred futures? Where are we going right now, we are talking about the real revolution is winning. The revolution is going to happen. But okay, what exactly are the scenarios? How are we going? What are the what are the preferred ways to go from here to there, like so and also right now, if we have internet, the playing ground is level, like we can do what other countries are doing like we don't have to do the mistakes of other countries again right now, the governance, the political ideologies, the idea of the digital society, everything is changing. We have as a. To the latest ideas. Why not use the latest ideas? Because our ground is clear. We are building from scratch. So to conclude, I have optimism, like we can become Asian volcano.
Host 2:10:29
I know, for a lot of podcast listeners, as soon as the fundraising requests start up, you just kind of zone out or skip ahead till it's over. But I ask that if you're taking the time to listen to our full podcast, that you also take the time to consider our spiel. Some may assume that producing a two hour episode wouldn't take much more than the conversation itself, but so much more goes into it. In advance of the interview, our content team reviews the biography and relevant works of the upcoming guests, and we discuss the best way to use our limited time together. After the interview is completed, the raw audio file is sent to our sound engineer who shapes it into working order. A single episode can take several full days of solid production work in the studio, which is carefully coordinated with our content team to ensure smooth listening, further edits and post production magic bring the eventual episode into your ears, along with extensive written descriptions of each interview, which we publish on our blog and social media. Many of these steps require an outlay of funds in some way or another. We hope that each episode informs you about the ongoing crisis, and if you find it of value. We also hope that you might consider supporting our mission. If you would like to join in our mission, to support those in Myanmar who are being impacted by the military coup. We welcome your contribution in any form, currency or transfer method, Your donation will go on to support a wide range of humanitarian and media missions, aiding those local communities who need it most. Donations are directed to such causes as the Civil Disobedience movement, CDM, families of deceased victims, internally displaced person IDP camps, food for impoverished communities, military defection campaigns, undercover journalists, refugee camps, monasteries and nunneries, education initiatives, the purchasing of protective equipment and medical supplies, covid relief and more. We also make sure that our donation Fund supports a diverse range of religious and ethnic groups across the country. We invite you to visit our website to learn more about past projects as well as upcoming needs. You can give a general donation or earmark your contribution to a specific activity or project you would like to support, perhaps even something you heard about in this very episode. All of this humanitarian work is carried out by our nonprofit mission, Better Burma. Any donation you give on our Insight Myanmar website is directed towards this fund. Alternatively, you can also visit the Better Burma website, betterburma.org and donate directly there. In either case, your donation goes to the same cause in both websites, except credit card, you can also give via PayPal, by going to paypal.me/betterburma. Additionally, we can take donations through Patreon, Venmo, GoFundMe and Cash App. Simply search Better Burma on each platform, and you'll find our account. You can also visit either website for specific links to these respective accounts, or email us at info@betterburma.org, that's Better Burma, one word spelled B, E T, T, E R, B, U, R, M, A.org. If you would like to give it another way, please contact us. We also invite you to check out our range of handicrafts that are sourced from vulnerable artisan communities across Myanmar, available at alokacrafts.com any purchase will not only support these artisan communities, but also our nonprofit wider mission that's Aloka crafts spelled, A, L, O, K, A, C, R, A, F, T, S, one word, alokacrafts.com thank You so much for your kind consideration and support.