{
  "id": "2021-02-facebook-platform-block",
  "title": "Facebook blocked following the February 2021 coup",
  "class": "national",
  "type": "platform_block",
  "status": "unresolved",
  "date_start": "2021-02-03T00:00:00.000Z",
  "resolution_note": "Maintainer research (internal research notes, 2026-07): reclassified from ended/date_end=2021-02-07 to unresolved. No independent source confirms Facebook access was actually restored on Feb 7 as the junta's letter announced. BBC (Feb 3, 2021) reports Facebook was \"still reported to be accessible sporadically\" then \"stopped working completely\" hours later — already unstable before the announced Feb 7 date, not a clean scheduled cutoff. ARTICLE 19's 2022 retrospective repeats the \"until Feb 7\" order without documenting a restoration on that date either; instead the block became part of a broader, longer-running platform-blocking campaign. No date_end set — even Feb 7 itself isn't evidenced as an actual restoration, only as the government's announced intent, so it would be misleading to encode it as an estimated end date the way the nationwide-cut and nightly-curfew events use their own (source-derived, not announcement-derived) proxy dates.\n",
  "scope": {
    "regions": [],
    "townships": [],
    "asns": [],
    "operators": []
  },
  "confidence": "verified_ground",
  "detection_sequence": [
    {
      "layer": "media",
      "at": "2021-02-04T00:00:00.000Z",
      "summary": "Committee to Protect Journalists reports Myanmar's Ministry of Communications ordered Facebook blocked 'until February 7', citing an official letter, on stability grounds following the Feb 1 coup.",
      "signal_ids": []
    }
  ],
  "verified_by": [
    "media"
  ],
  "narrative": "DRAFT — needs an editor rewrite. Distinct from the broader nationwide connectivity cut on Feb 6 (see 2021-02-nationwide-connectivity-cut) — this is specifically the Facebook platform block, officially dated by the junta's own letter (per CPJ) as running Feb 3 to Feb 7. Whether service was actually restored on schedule on Feb 7 is not confirmed by any source in our current archive — the \"until February 7\" framing is the government's own announced intent, not an independently verified restoration date. Flag this distinction for an editor rather than presenting Feb 7 as a confirmed end.\n",
  "sources": [
    {
      "label": "Committee to Protect Journalists",
      "url": "https://cpj.org/2021/02/myanmars-military-should-lift-facebook-whatsapp-censorship-enable-news-broadcasts-following-coup/"
    },
    {
      "label": "The Guardian",
      "url": "https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2021/feb/04/myanmar-coup-army-blocks-facebook-access-as-civil-disobedience-grows"
    },
    {
      "label": "BBC: Myanmar coup - Facebook blocked by military",
      "url": "https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-55923486"
    },
    {
      "label": "ARTICLE 19: Myanmar military's targeting of Facebook (2022 retrospective)",
      "url": "https://www.article19.org/resources/myanmar-militarys-targeting-of-facebook-ratchets-up-post-coup-assault-on-freedom-of-expression/"
    }
  ],
  "data_links": {
    "csv": "/data/events/2021-02-facebook-platform-block.csv",
    "json": "/data/events/2021-02-facebook-platform-block.json"
  }
}