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BANGKOK: As Myanmar plunges into chaos, smartphone warriors in the anti-coup movement seek revenge online against the junta, harassing people with family ties to the military as a form of “social punishment.”
The country has been in crisis since the army toppled civilian leader Aung San Suu Kyi in February and the death toll from the violence has risen to more than 500 as the junta struggles to quell dissent.
Anger and pain over the repression is being funneled into an online campaign, with about 170 people with family members on the board listed on a website as “traitors.”
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The site and the corresponding Facebook page, which had 67,000 followers before its closure, detail the personal information of these people, such as workplaces, universities and links to their social media accounts, a practice known as doxxing.
“We are here to punish the families of the military or the people who support the military. Never forgive, never forget!” the Facebook page said.
Facebook closed the page for violating community standards, but there are still other pages with a smaller number of followers.
“We will continue to closely monitor the situation on the ground in Myanmar,” said a Facebook spokeswoman.
People with ties to the Myanmar military are being targeted by an online doxxing campaign by anti-coup activists. (Photo: AFP / STR)
The consequences of social punishment have caused some victims to be forced to close their online businesses and a Myanmar university student in Japan to drop out of school, according to local media reports.
The campaign is broader in scope than those with family ties to the military: people not participating in the civil disobedience strike are also under attack and threats have been made to journalists covering the junta’s press conferences.
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‘CORRUPT SYSTEM’
For Burmese living abroad, handing out “social punishment” to those with connections to the junta helps ease their sense of helplessness as they watch from afar, said Cho Yee Latt, who was born in Yangon and now lives in Singapore.
“People (from Myanmar) in Singapore can’t do anything, so they feel very stressed … they are really angry,” he told AFP.
Cho Yee Latt says she contacted the Singaporean employer of a Myanmar woman who has a soldier boyfriend and was posting pro-coup messages online.
“We must destroy this corrupt system,” he said.
“I am only concerned about the poor people of Myanmar who are being killed and arrested. Military families live in foreign countries abroad, lead upper-class lifestyles, they will not feel stressed at all.”
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Among those attacked is the doctor son of a high-ranking minister, who later went on television to resign his father.
Bryan Paing Myo Oo, based in Brisbane, Australia, suffered a setback on social media over his father Pwint San’s role as Commerce Minister.
“People who apply social punishment to me think they are doing the right thing. I want to add that I am participating in social punishment against my father,” he told the Burmese-language BBC program.
“I texted him: ‘Dad, you should quit right now. If not, you will lose me forever as your son.’
Despite being the target, he sympathizes with the goals of social punishment as a way to further pressure the regime.
“I don’t blame people for resorting to social punishment because people are being brutally shot dead in the streets, and this is the only weapon civilians have,” he said.
Attacks on people with ties to the junta are also spreading on Twitter.
“We will do social punishment to the whole family. We will punish them to the point that they want to commit suicide,” wrote a Twitter user, posting photos of a lieutenant general and his daughter.
Twitter said it was acting on abusive tweets, but experts say social media companies don’t have enough Burmese-speaking moderators to keep up with the challenge.
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‘WITH US OR AGAINST US’
The “with us or against us” mentality is also being driven by a group of ousted MPs from Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy (NLD), who have been working clandestinely against the junta.
Pyidaungsu Hluttaw’s Representation Committee warned in a statement that “serious action” would be taken against those who are not part of the protest movement.
The tactic is not unique to Myanmar – during Hong Kong’s political protests in 2019, both sides commonly used doxxing.
Police became a key target for protesters as clashes broke out, especially after officers stopped wearing identification badges, while government loyalists denounced critics of Beijing.
Cyber-hatred expert Ginger Gorman, who wrote a book called “Troll Hunting,” says so-called “digilantism” where people seek revenge on others online can have serious consequences in the real world.
“This type of online hunting and extreme cyber-hate perpetrated against an individual is linked to enormous damages including … incitement to suicide, murder and harassment and assault in real life,” he told AFP.
There have been isolated reports that the social punishment campaign has spread to the physical world, with some people in Myanmar having their eyebrows and hair shaved by anti-coup protesters, according to multiple posts on social media.
