The footage, published at the end of 2025, goes largely unreported by international media, but rapidly gains traction on X and Telegram.
This is what war looks like in Myanmar, today. A conflict documented not by news crews, but by fighters themselves, as global attention lies elsewhere. Volunteer fighters – some veteran combatants, some university students – film shaky videos on their phones and upload them with emoji-filled captions across platforms like Telegram, X, and YouTube, beyond the immediate reach of the junta’s propaganda machine. What appears as raw spectacle, is, for many inside the country, the only way to prove they are still alive.
Scenes from the video of fighting in the Dawei District in November, 2025.
A rebel from the People’s Defence Force aims his weapon.
Since a 2021 military coup ended Myanmar’s fragile democracy and plunged the country into nationwide uprising, social media has become one of the resistance’s most reliable tools. A loose network of People’s Defence Forces and ethnic armed groups document ambushes, airstrike aftermaths, burned villages, and funerals held in jungle clearings.
Dr Luke Corbin, who holds a master’s degree in Asia-Pacific Studies and Diplomacy from the Australian National University, says most people learned about the coup through social media.
Coup forces move in as an influencer livestreams her workout.
“Its very act was memeified, when a convoy of military vehicles en route to detain MPs was unwittingly caught on camera during a personal trainer’s live-streamed exercise routine outdoors in Naypyitaw,” he adds.
“Since then social media has been used by all groups in Myanmar to access information and to communicate and organise. It’s a central bridge between the diaspora and communities inside the country and it is a battlefield between pro-military and anti-military groups and individuals.”
Channels such as PVTV Myanmar, Khit Thit Media, and Mizzima, amongst many others, have become central to Myanmar’s digital resistance ecosystem. They are made up of small teams of editors and journalists working from safehouses inside Myanmar or in exile abroad, producing stories that would otherwise be completely suppressed by the military junta.
Videos of fighting are disseminated across social media and encrypted messenger apps.
A social media post shows PDF fighters firing at junta soldiers.
Mizzima, one of Myanmar’s longest-running independent media organisations, operates largely from exile. It was founded by student protesters following the 1988 uprising, broadcasting through television, radio, and social media outlets such as Facebook and Youtube.
Beyond major outlets, ethnic minority media networks have also become essential to the digital resistance infrastructure. Organisations such as the Karen Information Center, Shan Herald Agency for News, Than Lwin Times, and Kantarawaddy Times document fighting in regions inaccessible to foreign reporters, often becoming the first to publish evidence of airstrikes or mass displacement.
However, this footage rarely reaches news feeds outside the country, largely due to the significant risks of journalists being tortured, jailed, or murdered. Despite condemnations from the UN’s Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, journalistic coverage and access remains problematic.
Many editors and contributors use pseudonyms and encrypted messaging platforms, as a single post carries the risk of arrest, torture or disappearance.
A growing number of verification and archival projects, such as Myanmar Witness, run by the Centre for Informational Resilience, an open source NGO, now systematically geolocate and preserve videos from social media. These groups archive footage which has been used by international war crimes investigators and human rights organisations.
These networks form the backbone of Myanmar’s digital civil society, spreading real-time information, maintaining morale, coordinating campaigns, and cultivating a historical record of state violence.
Many editors and contributors use pseudonyms and encrypted messaging platforms, as a single post carries the risk of arrest, torture or disappearance.
“Anyone accused by the military of liking, sharing, or creating content that is not suitably pro-military in its orientation is likely to be detained, interrogated, tortured, and charged with incitement,” Dr Corbin says.
However, the digital battlefield is not one-sided. The military junta has also weaponised these platforms, relying on state-run social media and disinformation campaigns to “harass and incite violence against pro-democracy activists and human rights defenders”, according to UN experts in 2023.
For Myanmar humanitarian and activist Hnin Thet Hmu Khin, the conflict is a daily reality. Through her work with Frontline Ethics and Sisters 2 Sisters – organisations that operate largely through social media – she has witnessed how digital spaces work for and against the revolution.
Activist Hnin Thet Hmu Khin. Photo supplied.
“Basically, without social media there wouldn’t be these two organisations, because both focus on social media and awareness raising,” she says.
Hnin adds she has experienced the militarisation of social media herself, for speaking out against the junta in Myanmar.
“The military has also been using Telegram channels to spread disinformation and misinformation about politically active people, especially women, like me,” she says.
“That’s basically the reality, I get a lot of rape threats and death threats all the time.
“Every time I post on social media, I have to think about what backlash I am going to receive if I post this. So, every time, I’m censoring myself.”
However, despite the dangers, she believes in the necessity of the work being done.
“We did peaceful protests initially, that’s what we started with,” Hnin says.
“They [the military] literally kill you, even though you’re not holding any guns, no weapons, they kill you. So, we have to take up guns, we don’t have any other options.
“Violence chose us.”
Myanmar’s media restrictions date back to British colonial rule in the 1800s, when authorities limited pamphlets, books, and theatre to suppress political dissent. This came as part of the Four Cut Strategy, which specifically targeted food, funds, intelligence, and recruits, to stifle resistance.
After independence in 1948, a brief window of press freedom emerged — more than 30 daily newspapers operated, political debate flourished, and journalists reported with an autonomy the country had never seen.
In this modern day and age, the way to cut intelligence is to cut off the internet.
That changed abruptly following the 1962 military coup. The new junta adopted similar colonial strategies to combat armed resistance, dismantling the independent press and replacing it with a system of strict licensing, surveillance, and pre-publication censorship. Newsrooms were brought under state control, editors faced arrest for “subversive” reporting, and the press became an extension of the military message machine.
“In this modern day and age, the way to cut intelligence is to cut off the internet,” says Hnin.
“So, that’s what the military has been using. In 2017-2018, they shut down the internet as well, in the Rakhine state… when the Rohingya crisis happened, people had no idea, because the news doesn’t come out easily to the mainstream media.”
She adds: “In 2021, when the coup happened, literally on the day, the internet shut down.
“People couldn’t communicate, the internet and phone lines completely shut down… and that’s what they wanted, that’s what they did. So, it has always been used as a tactic.”
Although some reforms in the 2010s eased restrictions and allowed private newspapers, critical reporting, and foreign investment in media, these gains were short-lived.
The 2021 coup reversed nearly all progress, restoring harsh censorship, shutting down independent outlets, forcing many journalists into hiding or exile. Since then, authorities have restricted access to platforms such as WhatsApp, X, Instagram, and numerous independent news sites.
Myanmar now ranks near the bottom of global press freedom indexes, with Reporters Without Borders and the Press Freedom Index ranking the country 169 out of 180 countries.
Main image of PDF soldier point of view by @War_Noir on X.
