Google to review adverts for Myanmar military-backed telecoms firm
Google said on Wednesday it is reviewing recent advertisements run by a Myanmar military-backed telecommunications firm and has disabled some army-linked accounts on its services in the wake of the country’s coup.
The move comes as activists called on the U.S. technology giant to restrict access to its services after dozens of deaths following weeks of protests...
“We have taken action against accounts on our platforms... including disabling accounts on Google services and taking down a number of YouTube channels and videos related to the Myanmar military,” a Google spokeswoman said in a response to a Reuters question.
... The disabled accounts connected to the military included those on Gmail, the publishing platform Blogger and the Google Play store, according to Google.
A spokesman for the army did not respond to a request for comment.
... YouTube said last week it had taken down five channels run by the state network MRTV as well as the military-owned Myawaddy Media. YouTube is owned by Alphabet Inc, the parent company of Google. Justice for Myanmar, an advocacy group looking at the army’s business interests, said on Wednesday it had found that Google and Rakuten-owned messaging app Viber were running new advertisements for Mytel, a Myanmar telecoms partially owned by the army, following a ban by Facebook.
Mytel, Viber and Rakuten did not respond to requests for comment.