As the world marks World Press Freedom Day 2025 with the theme “Reporting in the Brave New World: The Impact of Artificial Intelligence on Press Freedom and the Media,” the reality in Myanmar is far more brutal and immediate. Not surprisingly, Myanmar ranks 169th out of 180 countries in Reporters Without Borders (RSF)’s 2025 World Press Freedom Index.
In Myanmar, press freedom is not simply under pressure—it is under attack. The military regime has long declared journalists enemies of the state. Now, amid intensifying crackdowns and the creeping rise of artificial intelligence (AI)-powered surveillance, the very act of reporting the truth has become a life-threatening endeavor. As of December 2024, approximately 55 journalists are currently detained or serving jail sentences in Myanmar.
Since the 2021 coup, Myanmar’s independent journalists have risked everything to document atrocities, expose lies and amplify the voices of those resisting the country’s military dictatorship. From secret hideouts and border areas, these reporters—armed with phones, notepads and conviction—have kept the world informed of the junta’s brutal crackdowns, mass arrests and war crimes. Their commitment has come at a high cost: newsroom raids, revoked licenses, arbitrary detentions and forced exile. And The Irrawaddy has not been not spared: Three of its editors have been sued by the junta for sedition and its ex-publisher has been in jail since 2023 for the same alleged offense—to say nothing of the junta’s order to close the news outlet in 2022.
And yet, Myanmar’s information void has only deepened. The recent suspension of the Burmese-language services of Voice of America (VOA) and Radio Free Asia (RFA), due to US government budget cuts, has dealt a devastating blow, especially for millions of people in rural and resistance-held areas who relied on their shortwave radio services as sources of local and global news. Worse, their disappearance effectively strengthens the regime’s grip on information.
The budget cuts have also severely affected other Myanmar independent media organizations, mostly based in exile, that have, since the coup, been reporting tirelessly on the country’s unfolding crises—from politics and armed conflict to social issues, economic hardship and natural disasters. These outlets have played an essential role in documenting the realities of daily life under military rule and informing not just the people of Myanmar, but also the wider international community.
This erosion of information access coincides with a broader and more insidious threat: the use of artificial intelligence by authoritarian regimes.
While AI opens up opportunities for journalists by, among other things, enhancing content creation through data visualization, providing translation services and allowing efficient interaction with enormous amounts of information, it can also serve to further the junta’s manipulation of information.
As UNESCO rightly warns, AI tools can be harnessed not just for innovation and media development, but also for surveillance, automated censorship and algorithmically amplified disinformation. In Myanmar, where facial recognition systems, spyware and bot-fueled propaganda are already being deployed, AI is not a future risk—it is a current weapon.
At the same time, journalists working in exile or underground lack access to the resources, paid AI tools, or digital protections available to larger outlets. As the global media industry explores the potential of AI-driven reporting, we must confront the reality that many journalists—particularly in countries like Myanmar—are still fighting for the basic right to report without fear of arrest or reprisal.
The international community must act. First, by recognizing Myanmar’s frontline journalists not only as victims, but as key agents in the global struggle for truth. Second, by restoring and sustaining support for independent media—particularly cross-border platforms that offer lifelines in media-hostile environments. And third, by ensuring that global AI governance frameworks explicitly include protections for journalists in authoritarian states and invest in secure, ethical technologies that do not leave vulnerable voices behind. Mostly importantly, dictators could also use AI to disseminate disinformation, launch surveillance and engage in censorship, in order to ensure that people are only exposed to information such regimes want them to learn. To counter this, the role of journalists is more important than ever before.
Such is the case in Myanmar, whose junta and its supporters have a digital footprint that is far larger than those of its predecessor regimes. Myanmar’s journalists continue to report the truth in the face of extreme danger. Their work documents not only the crimes of today but the history of a people’s struggle for freedom. In this “brave new world,” there can be no ethical AI, no meaningful press freedom, and no truly global information space without them.
