"At the end of August 2018, as this book was about to go to press,the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) released its report summarizing the main endings and recommendations of its Independent International Fact-Finding Mission on Myanmar. Thereport outlines serious human rights violations and abuses in Kachin,Shan and Rakhine States. It recommends that six senior military agures be investigated for genocide against the Rohingya, including Myanmar’s armed forces commander-in-chief Senior General MinAung Hlaing, and that the case be taken up by the InternationalCriminal Court (ICC), or alternatively that an ad hoc internationalcriminal tribunal be created (Human Rights Council 2018). 1 The report notes that “The role of social media is significant. Facebook has been a useful instrument for those seeking to spread hate, in a contextwhere for most users Facebook is the internet. Although improved inrecent months, Facebook’s response has been slow and ineffective” p. 74). Facebook quickly responded to the report’s release byremoving the accounts of eighteen high-profile army figures in Myanmar, including Senior General Min Aung Hlaing, and fifty-two Facebook pages, which had a combined total following of close totwelve million users (Facebook 2018).A few days later, two Reuters journalists, Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo, were sentenced to seven years in prison under the Official Secrets Act over accusations of holding secret government documentsthat they intended to share with international media and the ethnicarmed group Arakan Army (Sithu Aung Myint 2018). The two werearrested in December 2017 after investigating a massacre of Rohingyamen and boys in the coastal town of Inn Din in northern Rakhine State. After responding to a call from police officers, who met them in a restaurant and handed them documents, the journalists were arrestedfor having the documents in their possession. As they were beingtaken away from the court after the sentencing, Wa Lone was quotedas saying, “We know we did nothing wrong. I have no fear. I believein justice, democracy and freedom” (Shoon Naing and Aye Min Thant2018, 122). The arrest and subsequent sentencing were met with nationaland international condemnation, as was the rejection of their appealin early 2019. At a public protest to call for their release, organizer EiEi Moe, from the pro-democracy youth movement Generation Wave,described their jailing as “blocking the eyes and blinding the ears ofthe public” (Dunant and Su Myat Mon 2018, 115). 2 These events underscore the complexities of Myanmar’s muchlauded “transition”. Celebrated early on for the release of imprisoned journalists and the end of pre-publication censorship, hopes forincreased freedom of expression and media freedom were tempered by the crackdown that followed. Much has happened in the mediasector since the controversial elections in 2010 organized by themilitary junta and boycotted by Aung San Suu Kyi and the NationalLeague for Democracy (NLD), including reforms to laws that hadrepressed the media for decades. Some argue that these changes area continuation of the military government’s Seven Step Roadmap toDisciplined Democracy, announced in 2003 (see the interview withThiha Saw, this volume; Lall 2016; Rogers 2012)..."