Myanmar Tweet: Twitter Hashtag Hijack and Social Media Disinformation

Posted on by filgoeb25

The first tweet shows a series of peaceful protests against military rule in the Dawei district as mentioned, as we see through the video that there are hundreds of people on mopeds as well as a march of people flying flags and posing the three-fingered salute associated with the pro-democracy movement against the military junta. The tweet uses the hashtag #Myanmar. The tweet associates these peaceful protestors with PDF, a pro-democracy organization made up of youths who are known to also be armed. The video was tweeted by Professor Myint, a Burmese native teaching political science at Carleton College, Minnesota.

The second tweet features a snapshot of a news article showing pictures of injured and hospitalized children, accusing PDF terrorists of the attack on a school bus in Ayardaw township. The tweet comes from a Twitter account associated with the ‘Myanmar ASEAN Defense Minister Meeting-Plus Myanmar Expert Working Group on Counter Terrorism’, a government-affiliated organization that seeks to inform ASEAN, of “terrorist” operations within the country.

The third tweet reports an incident in Kayah State whereby a mother and an elderly man were killed in after a shelling, and the tweet accuses the junta as the perpetrator. The tweet was posted by an independent news platform reporting on Myanmar based in Thailand, the Irrawaddy. The tweet uses the hashtag #WhatsHappeninginMyanmar.

The two different approaches of the pro-democracy movement are highlighted by two different sides of the conflict, and the reporting of these approaches are highlighted more by one news source than the other. Anyone who comes upon the hashtag, #WhatsHappeninginMyanmar or #Myanmar will come across either one article or the other. Assuming that a great majority of social media users are unaware of the civil war occurring in Myanmar, a simple search of these hashtags would bring the user to a flow of information that are seemingly contradictory and mostly involves conflicting news that finger-point at each other. It can be assumed that news media such as the Irrawady which is based in Thailand may be too far from the conflict to attain first-hand accounts and sources to support their claims and reports. While the government-affiliated reporting sites have access to first-hand accounts and sources but have the means and motive to highlight or even spread disinformation about the true perpetrators. This may be a case of a regime attempting to hijack social media tactics employed by pro-democracy protesters to spread their disinformation.

 

 

HR: Links Cited

 

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