Social media is a powerful tool, for both good and ill. In Myanmar, social media and Facebook in particular has been put to cruel and dangerous use. In Myanmar, as in other countries, before the most recent episode of genocide against the Rohingya Muslims, racists and bigots took to Facebook to spread their ideas. Celebrity Buddhist monks, most notably Ashin Wirathu, used
Su Thit has a table in a corner by the window in her home. She no longer sits there at night. “You never know when the bullets will fly,” she says.
She fears the Myanmar military might shoot at random. At 8 pm, when people still bang pots and pans in protest, security forces will sometimes fire at the sounds with slingshots, stones, bullets.
Su Thit, a pseudonym she is using for her safety, lives in Yangon, Myanmar’s largest city. She began protesting in early February, when demonstrators swarmed the streets in defiance of a military coup that toppled the country’s quasi-democratic government and detained its civilian leader, Aung San Suu Kyi.