"First came a bloody massacre. Then came digital snitches, arrests and prison — for those who mourned the deaths. On the morning of April 11, in a rural village in central Myanmar, a crowd gathered to celebrate the opening of a new administration building, built by the armed resistance to the military junta ruling the country. Suddenly, a military jet dropped two 500-pound bombs, one of them directly onto the villagers. When rescuers came to help the wounded, a combat helicopter sprayed the area with gunfire. In the evening, a military jet fighter conducted another airstrike. More than 175 civilians were killed, including more than 40 children, in the massacre at Pazi Gyi, the bloodiest day in the war between the military junta that seized power more than two years ago and the resistance. Word of the massacre spread rapidly on social media. On the same day, a young man, Willi Phyo, who lived in Mandalay and was a supporter of the resistance, changed his Facebook photo to black in sympathy for the victims. His protest was noticed by a channel on the social media platform Telegram. The channel is run by Han Nyein Oo, a pro-military social media figure, who acts as a spotter of dissent. It posted photos of Mr. Phyo, and pointed out to the authorities how to find him: “He lives on the ground floor of an apartment in front of elementary school, No. 17, 14th Street, 86th Street,” the Telegram channel reported. The Telegram channel also called out a television actress, Myat Thu Thu, who announced on Facebook that she would no longer live stream, out of grief for the villagers. Similarly, it called out a pop singer, May La Thanzin, who goes by “May Melody” and had posted a message of sorrow on a black background after the bombing. The next day, Ko Phyo was arrested. Then the actress and the pop singer were arrested. The pattern was repeated and again, all over the country, according to Radio Free Asia, which has compiled cases and provided details to The Post. The Telegram channel was a snitch line, tattling to the military junta about people who speak their minds online. The crackdown in Myanmar, or Burma, shows once again how authoritarian regimes are turning the digital revolution to their own ends. Once there was hope the internet would become a global force for freedom and openness. In some ways, it has. But it also has shown a dark underside as a tool of dictatorship. Follow Editorial Board's opinions Follow The Burmese generals seized power on Feb. 1, 2021, from a democratic government led by Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi, whose party had won a resounding victory in parliamentary elections the previous November. After months of peaceful protests, democratic forces coalesced into armed resistance. The ragtag resistance has been fighting an intense war with the military ever since, shoulder to shoulder with ethnic militias also fighting the army. The junta has responded with unremitting force to put down protest and resistance, attacking civilians from the air, burning down villages and killing thousands of innocent people. Some 24,005 people have been arrested for opposition to the junta, and 19,618 are still detained. The military has turned Myanmar back into a dictatorship, cutting short a brief and incomplete flowering of democracy. In a previous editorial in this series, we detailed how young people around the world were imprisoned by authoritarian regimes for merely posting freely on social media. This editorial adds a grim case study from Myanmar, where a digital war is being fought on top of a shooting war. The young pop singer, Ms. Thanzin, on July 7 posted a new profile picture, a real photo, her first post since April, to the relief of her fans. “Missing you,” she wrote to her 7.5 million followers. Telegram is widely used around the world to avoid snooping by authoritarian regimes. The founder, Pavel Durov, a reclusive Russian entrepreneur, had first created Vkontakte, a hugely popular Russian social media platform that looked like Facebook. It was subsequently taken over by oligarchs close to the Kremlin when Mr. Durov resisted taking down pages of opposition leader Alexei Navalny. Mr. Durov and his brother Nikolai then created Telegram in 2013 to be a secure, ad-free messaging app, and its popularity soared. Mr. Durov fled Russia in 2014. He now lives in Dubai. In 2018, the Russian authorities demanded that Mr. Durov turn over encryption keys to Telegram, seeking information about Ukrainian users. He refused. Russia’s internet censor, Roskomnadzor, launched a two-year effort to block the platform online, but failed. Mr. Durov’s defiance enhanced the platform’s reputation as a haven against dictatorship. Telegram now has more than 800 million active users and is second in popularity only to WhatsApp in online messenger apps. Mr. Durov wrote in a blog post in 2021, “Telegram is the first app to stand up to and, if necessary, pick a fight with a government.” He added in April, “Telegram’s mission is to preserve privacy and freedom of speech around the world.” The company says Telegram “played a prominent role in pro-democracy movements around the world, including in Iran, Russia, Belarus, Myanmar and Hong Kong.” Telegram says communications between users are completely private, but channels — such as the one in Myanmar — are public. In these channels, Telegram says it will take down content that is deemed illegal, such as pornography or advocacy of violence and terrorism. However, it will not remove material that reflects free speech. Telegram declares on its website: “For example, if criticizing the government is illegal in some country, Telegram won’t be a part of such politically motivated censorship. This goes against our founders’ principles. While we do block terrorist (e.g. ISIS-related) bots and channels, we will not block anybody who peacefully expresses alternative opinions.” Mr. Durov posted about Telegram’s mission on his channel, “In the past, countries like China, Iran and Russia have banned Telegram due to our principled stance on the matter of human rights. Such events, while unfortunate, are still preferable to the betrayal of our users and the beliefs we were founded on.” In Myanmar, though, the snitch channel is using Telegram to suppress free speech — by alerting the authorities to criticism. We asked Telegram whether this is consistent with Mr. Durov’s lofty principles. They replied that Telegram would remove “doxing” content when notified by users. Telegram is a magnet for users — Mr. Durov says more than 2.5 million users sign up every day — because it combines private messaging to individuals and groups, including a popular “secret chats” function, with public channels that can reach huge numbers of users all at once. It is also fast. This makes it appealing not only to those fighting for democracy but also to authoritarian regimes and their allies. Russian officials, including Russian President Vladimir Putin’s spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, use Telegram, the app they once tried to shut down. When the Russian invasion of Ukraine began, Telegram became the main channel for pro-Kremlin military bloggers to support the war. When the mercenary chieftain Yevgeniy Prigozhin began to complain in public about shortcomings of the Russian military, he broadcast his tirades in audio messages posted to Telegram and heard by millions. He also broadcast about his short-lived mutiny in June on the platform. Dictators constantly fear they will be overthrown. The digital age has brought them plenty of tools to cling to power. They can use online means to propagandize, to flood the zone of information, and they can pressure or change ownership of platforms to control the message. Dictators can also use force to coerce and block objectionable platforms or sites, or to erect barriers, such as China’s Great Firewall. They have the power to muster cyberwarriors to infiltrate the devices of their opponents, spy on them and to attack or destroy them. They can erect elaborate surveillance mechanisms to track people’s movements at the grocery store — or at a protest. They can reach beyond their own borders. But one of the most valuable tools an autocrat can have is the ability to zoom down to a granular level to locate individuals at odds with the regime. That is what the Myanmar Telegram channel is doing — picking out opponents one by one. Facebook has some 20 million users in Myanmar, a country of 53.8 million people. For many, Facebook is the whole internet, a source of news and information as well as social posting. The material gathered by Radio Free Asia shows that many of those who spoke out against the government did so on Facebook accounts. It is an enduring risk in dictatorships; those who are brave enough to speak out on social media also expose themselves — they put a target on their own back. The Telegram snitch line in Myanmar today has 54,500 subscribers. Informers are instructed where to send their report, and to “please make sure the address is accurate.” In war-torn Myanmar, details about arrests are sparse. But according to Radio Free Asia, in most high-profile cases, the charge leveled is based on Section 505-A of the penal code, alleging state defamation, sedition, incitement of public unrest and aiding “terrorism” by supporting pro-democracy groups, which were outlawed by the military junta as “terrorist organizations.” Some of the high-profile arrests are made public by the regime to instill fear in the population. After the massacre at Pazi Gyi, on April 19 a Burmese woman, Nilar Win, wrote in a Facebook post that she felt sorry for the victims of the massacre. The Han Nyein Oo Telegram channel soon posted screenshots of her lament — and asked the police for her arrest. She was arrested that day. The next day, Moe Htet, who owns a photography studio in Yangon, shared pictures of the airstrike victims online. She also changed her Facebook profile to black in mourning. The Han Hyein Oo Telegram channel urged the police to arrest her, providing screenshots of her post and providing her address. She was arrested. Also in Yangon, Cho Wint Mar Zaw spoke out in a Facebook post, expressing sympathy to families of the survivors of the massacre. The Telegram channel spotted her — and put her photo on the channel and asked authorities to detain her. She was arrested the next day, April 23. In May, the hunt snared a popular hip-hop singer, Byu Har, the son of a prominent musician, Naing Myanmar, who is best known for his pro-democracy anthem “Kabar Ma Kyay Bu,” written during a 1988 uprising against military rule. Based on the melody of “Dust in the Wind,” by American rock band Kansas, it was widely sung at anti-coup protests in recent years. According to Radio Free Asia, on May 23, Byu Har posted a video on Facebook, complaining about electricity shortages. Yangon has been stricken by power outages, lasting about five hours in the morning, and five hours in the afternoon or evening. “I want to tell the minister of electricity who is wearing that elegant uniform, and the employees under the ministry of electricity that you guys are all stupid fools,” the artist said in the video. Under the government of the deposed Aung San Suu Kyi, he added, “not only did we have enough electricity without any power outage, her government even lowered the rate of electricity bills.” He also lashed out at the junta leader, Gen. Min Aung Hlaing. “The guy who is governing the country is also a stupid incompetent fool himself,” he said. “You guys have no … skill at all. Even if a fool like me were to govern this country, I promise that we would have enough electricity with no power outages. … I am cursing at you because I don’t have the electricity. Got it? If you want to arrest me, just come.” The day after the video was posted, the Telegram channel urged the police to arrest the singer, calling him a “low class dog.” He was arrested the same day. Even mentioning the birthday of Aung San Suu Kyi is reason for being called out — and arrested. She is sentenced to 33 years after a trial on specious charges of corruption. On June 19, Kaung Khant Lwin, who lives in Yangon and works in a drugstore, posted a message on Facebook to celebrate Aung San Suu Kyi’s 78th birthday. He called her “our leader” and tucked a flower behind one ear, joining a “flower strike” that day to show solidarity with the jailed democracy icon. Flowers tucked into a bun have long been her signature look; on the protest day, many shops sold all their flowers. On Facebook, he included quotes from her famous 1990 “Freedom from Fear” speech, and he wrote his own testament: “Not being scared is not bravery. Doing the right thing despite being scared is bravery. I am also scared (as a human). But keeping in my mind that I have to do the right thing and then face it.” He was singled out the same day by the Telegram channel. It referred to him as a dog, and pointed to the address of the drugstore. About 130 people who participated in the “flower strike” were arrested that day, including Mr. Khant Lwin, and the Telegram channel cheered his detention. “A dog who supported the thieves by celebrating ‘The Dog Strike’ is now seized within an hour and had no time to run. [The police] were fast and reliable, we respect and salute.” Skip to end of carousel Also on the Editorial Board’s agenda arrow leftarrow right D.C. Council reverses itself on school resource officers. Good. Virginia makes a mistake by pulling out of an election fraud detection group. Vietnam sentences another democracy activist. Biden has a new border plan. The D.C. Council voted on Tuesday to stop pulling police officers out of schools, a big win for student safety. Parents and principals overwhelmingly support keeping school resource officers around because they help de-escalate violent situations. D.C. joins a growing number of jurisdictions, from Montgomery County, Md., to Denver, in reversing course after withdrawing officers from school grounds following George Floyd’s murder. Read our recent editorial on why D.C. needs SROs. Gov. Glenn Youngkin (R) just withdrew Virginia from a data-sharing consortium, ERIC, that made the commonwealth’s elections more secure, following Republicans in seven other states in falling prey to disinformation peddled by election deniers. Former GOP governor Robert F. McDonnell made Virginia a founding member of ERIC in 2012, and until recently conservatives touted the group as a tool to combat voter fraud. D.C. and Maryland plan to remain. Read our recent editorial on ERIC. In Vietnam, a one-party state, democracy activist Tran Van Bang was sentenced on Friday to eight years in prison and three years probation for writing 39 Facebook posts. The court claimed he had defamed the state in his writings, according to Radio Free Asia. In the past six years, at least 60 bloggers and activists have been sentenced to between 4 and 15 years in prison under the law, Human Rights Watch found. Read more of the Editorial Board’s coverage on autocracy and Vietnam. The Department of Homeland Security has provided details of a plan to prevent a migrant surge along the southern border. The administration would presumptively deny asylum to migrants who failed to seek it in a third country en route — unless they face “an extreme and imminent threat” of rape, kidnapping, torture or murder. Critics allege that this is akin to an illegal Trump-era policy. In fact, President Biden is acting lawfully in response to what was fast becoming an unmanageable flow at the border. Read our most recent editorial on the U.S. asylum system. 1/5 End of carousel Just before the birthday and protest, actress Poe Kyar Phyu Khin posted a video entitled “Daw Aung San Suu Kyi (Our True Leader)” to TikTok. She was arrested at her home in Yangon on the night of Aung San Suu Kyi’s birthday. Radio Free Asia reported that Telegram — Mr. Durov’s dream of defending free speech — has become a “form of military intelligence,” in the words of Yangon-based protest leader Nang Lin. “It may look like ordinary citizens are reporting people who oppose the military, but that’s not true,” he said. “It’s the work of their informers. It’s one of the junta’s intelligence mechanisms. In other words, it’s just one of many attempts designed to instill fear in the people.” In open societies, there are methods to counter the double-edged sword of social media. Disinformation and misinformation can be rebutted by rapidly leveraging openness and free expression. It is hard enough when the enemies of free expression use the right to free expression to spread their own misbegotten dictatorial message. But in Myanmar, once a nascent democracy now ruled by a ruthless military junta, the options are doubly hard. A lively independent digital news media is struggling and deserves support. Although Facebook has been criticized for allowing hate speech to be posted against the Muslim Rohingya minority in Myanmar, its continued presence also empowers people who want to resist the generals. The internet can be a force for democracy. The Telegram snitch channel is doing the junta’s work, and Telegram is complicit. Mr. Durov, a multibillionaire, has said that he stands for free expression and backs Telegram users against the state “no matter what.” It’s time for him to step up and defend these principles..."