7 August 2020
August 7, 2020
- The secret block list includes not only fake news but legitimate media.
- The operator Telenor Myanmar redirects blocked users to an anonymous foreign server
- Qurium circumvents the blocking of In-Depth News Mandalay, a local news site in the Mandalay region, by means of Bifrost
In March 2020, the Myanmar Ministry of Telecommunications (MoTC) and Communication issued a directive to all operators in Myanmar with a secret list of 230 sites to be blocked because of their content: adult content and fake news. The directive stipulated that the list of blocked sites could not be made public, and the MoTC did not provide a complaint or appeal mechanism.
The block list includes many sites that do not fall under the categories of adult content or fake news and that, five months later, remain blocked in Myanmar by all operators. Several legitimate media outlets related to minority ethnic groups and news focusing on the Rakhine state are on the list. Qurium has chosen to mirror one of these media, “In-Depth News Mandalay”, a local news site focusing on the Mandalay region, in order to circumvent the blocking.
Qurium’s report focus on the blocking mechanism implemented by Telenor Myanmar, which redirects users attempting to access a blocked domain to a VPS outside Telenor’s infrastructure and under a non-Telenor domain. Telenor says they do it for privacy considerations although Qurium considers that it puts the readers in greater risk as the traffic leaves Telenor’s control.
Read more:
Qurium’s forensics report: Internet blocking in Myanmar – Secret block list and no means to appeal.
Contacts:
Digital forensics: Tord Lundström, Qurium Media Foundation <t@virtualroad.org>
Media: Clara Zid, Qurium Media Foundation <info@virtualroad.org>