Myanmar: American tech firms urged to cut ties with Burmese military telco
"American Tech Firms Must Cut Ties to Sanctioned Burmese Military Firm Mytel", 14 January 2025
Google, Apple, YouTube (owned by Google), and LinkedIn (owned by Microsoft) are hosting Burmese military company Mytel Apps and channels, despite the company being sanctioned by the American government last week.
Mytel may also be using technologies directly or indirectly supplied by Oracle, TensorFlow (owned by Google), PyTorch (Linux Foundation), Cisco, Juniper Networks, Fortinet, and Microsoft, according to past job advertisements from Mytel.
Mytel, a mobile/cellular telecoms company, is a joint venture between the Burmese military and Vietnamese telecoms company Viettel, which is owned by the Vietnamese military.
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On 6th January 2025 Mytel owner, Telecom International Myanmar Company Limited, was sanctioned by the United States “for providing surveillance services and financial support to Burma’s military regime, enabling the regime to carry out human rights abuses through the tracking and identification of target individuals and groups.”
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Burma Campaign UK and International Campaign for the Rohingya are calling on American technology companies still hosting Mytel apps, channels, and pages to immediately close them down, as Facebook did more than three years ago. Apple hosts around nine apps for Mytel. Google hosts around eight.
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