The WSJ reports today on the role new media is playing in the uprising in Myanmar:
In the age of YouTube, cellphone cameras and text messaging, technology is playing a critical role in helping news organizations and international groups follow Myanmar's biggest protests in nearly two decades. Citizen witnesses are using cellphones and the Internet to beam out images of bloodied monks and street fires, subverting the Myanmar government's effort to control media coverage and present a sanitized version of the uprising.
...A shaky video, now on YouTube, shows a sea of chanting and clapping monks draped in red robes marching down a street, past Buddhist monuments. One blog features a photo showing two abandoned, bloodstained sandals. Another blog was updated at 3 p.m. Myanmar time yesterday with a few English lines: "Right now they're using fire engines and hitting people and dragging them onto E2000 trucks and most of them are girls and people are shouting." Below the post is a blurry photo of trucks with the caption, "This is how they come out and try to kill people."
The crackdown over the past few days has been brutal — tear gas, clubbing people in the streets, spiriting people away in trucks at night, shooting into crowds, sealing monasteries, even using slingshots on crowds. Japanese photographer Kenji Nagai was shot and killed yesterday by soldiers as he documented the scene. His shooting itself was captured by an unknown photographer and distributed by Reuters. Despite an attempt by the government to control information flow, thanks to YouTube videos, cellphones, blogs and photos on Flickr, the story is getting out. Or at least, was getting out — the AP is reporting that "the government cut Internet access, raising fears that a deadly crackdown was set to intensify."
Over at the Daily Nightly, NBC Nightly News producer Subrata De has been posting emails from a friend in Yangon (formerly Rangoon) with updates on the situation. On Wednesday, she posted the first email, which detailed how friends were communicating:
My Burmese friends are sending me messages on GoogleTalk; their status messages reflect their states of mind. "Freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed." Martin Luther King,Jr "Buddha + Suu Kyi + Students + People - Army = Democracy under Suu Kyi"
"Status updates" on Gchat and Facebook and the like are a relatively new phenomenon, but this is the first time I have seen a reference to a Gchat status updates being used as bulletin board/broadcast system. It must have been a useful and efficient shorthand mechanism during the upheaval when information was jumbled an scarce — the thing about Gchat status messages, though, is that they only beam out when the person is online. On Wednesday De noted, "It seems everyone there is clinging to the lifeline that technology has given them"; today she writes "This e-mail came in late last night. With the government shutting down public access to the internet, it'll probably be the last note we see for a while."
On Facebook, the Myanmar network page has posted articles and links to 178 groups, including the "Myanmar (Burma) Uprising Worldwide Support" group, which has posted YouTube videos and links, plus information about wearing red today in support of Burma. Another group, "Support The Monks Protest In Burma" has this message:
*--URGENT UPDATE--*
We still have live contacts in Burma. We are getting reports of a massacre at a temple last night, around 200 monks killed. We will try to confirm this as soon as possible.They are arresting and imprisoning monks- so far over 700 have been arrested.
They have raided dozens of monasteries
While the regime is stating only 9 have been killed the number is far closer to 200
They have snipers on tops of buildings to pick of the leaders
They are trying to suppress the violence.
We MUST protest!
Who knows how accurate all this information is — Facebook, Gchat, blogs and the like are only as reliable as those posting to them — but as the scene unfolds these citizens are in a sense the first responders, and theirs is the best information we've got.
For as long as they've got — here's one more note from the WSJ:
One blogger dubbed "Moezack," whose photos and descriptions of the protests -- sometimes posted minutes after events occurred -- were picked up by the international press, had stopped blogging. His "Today Burma" blog is currently empty, and his whereabouts are unknown to several international groups, though he might be blogging under another name.
Myanmar Breaks Up Rallies, Cuts Internet [AP via HuffPo]
Citizen Journalists Evade Blackouts On Myanmar News [WSJ]
On The Ground In Myanmar [Daily Nightly]
On The Ground In Myanmar (II) [Daily Nightly]