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The title is underselling the nuance—there's the entire Myanmar civil war hiding behind the word "allegedly". The group in power claims a group trying to overthrow them is operating scam centers (they deny it); this SpaceX intervention cuts off communications on a large scale, presumably aiding one side or the other in some unclear way.

> "“Maj. Gen. Zaw Min Tun, the spokesperson for the military government, charged in a statement Monday night that the top leaders of the Karen National Union, an armed ethnic organization opposed to army rule, were involved in the scam projects at KK Park,” the AP wrote. The Karen National Union is “part of the larger armed resistance movement in Myanmar’s civil war” and “deny any involvement in the scams.”"

I don't think the nuance you believe exists actually exists.

The scam centers at KK Park and Shwe Kokko employ forced laborers numbering in the thousands - they literally kidnap people from neighboring countries, imprison them, confiscate their passports, and force them to conduct scam operations for 17 hours a day, torturing them if they fail to comply.

The KNU is undoubtedly in on this, allowing it to happen within their area of control and almost certainly profiting financially from it.

The stuff going on there is evil of the highest degree. It's evil on a level that many Hacker News users probably did not even realize exists in the world.

Starlink doesn't even offer service in Myanmar! The operators of the scam centers acquired the terminals through their criminal connections.

Yes the Tatmadaw is also evil. It doesn't really matter though. This is a pretty black and white scenario. What's going on is dark beyond belief and any action which curtails it is positive.

> Starlink doesn't even offer service in Myanmar!

If this is the case, what is the justification for allowing them at all? If the receiver's location is not in an authorized service area, why allow it to connect? In fact, I'm surprised that's not automated. I can't access websites due to geofencing, yet Starlink can't figure out the location of the dish accessing their network? I'm not buying that at all.

Do you have a link/information supporting this? This sounds on the crazy side but considering Dubai and China are reported doing similar things I could believe it.
The truth is more likely that both the junta and local militias have ties to different scam centres. The Myanmar government never does anything for its people, it's motivated by power and money and they were profiting heavily from scam centres until China's patience broke, due to large numbers of Chinese being trafficked and imprisoned at these scam compounds. The junta needs China's support in order to survive. As the junta lost control of the border regions the local militias stepped in to either profit from scams or close them to please China, depending upon what they thought would benefit them most.
i haven’t seen any good evidence tying the Tatmadaw to these large-scale scam operations, while I have seen a fair bit of evidence tying a few of the regional militias.
The nominal group in power should be able to deny/allow communication from the space above their country though.
You think resistance movements should never have telecommunications access?
The precedent seems to be that anyone can broadcast anything without caring what territories can receive your broadcast (see Voice of America broadcasts during the Cold War or GPS jamming in the Baltic nowadays). This seems to be extendable to broadcasting from space. The nominal group in power may ban/jam _receiving_ equipment on their territory though.
It's wild to me how many of these comments are appealing to local law without any thought to what is just.

If the local law was to deny all women or some ethnic group access to communication, the world should do it without question?

There is no single group which has power over all of Myanmar. It is a failed state.
Depends if your country claims to be free or not, or what your own morals and values are - if you believe in "might makes right", then sure, the ones in power get to suppress freedom of information to the rest of the country. If you believe in a free democracy, then information and communication should be free (think freedom of speech, press, information, etc).
The scam centers are real and there has been extensive reporting on them. Look up “Operation Shamrock” and particularly the work by Erin West for some of the work busting them (she even toured a scam center Thea had been recruiting busted and took video and photographic evidence).

Workers from many countries have been lured through Thailand, kidnapped and trafficked across the border forced to work behind bars and under threat of torture.

It's a very well proven fact that the scam centers are operated by Chinese given that before covid they were all Chinese casinos that transitioned to online scams because no Chinese could leave China to spend their money there.
It won't be the first time that Starlink takes a side in a military conflict somewhere in the world. Somewhere they do it openly and boast proudly about it, somewhere they just keep it quiet.
They may well deny it, but there's plenty of international documentation showing it is indeed a thing, and presumably starlink have even more evidence.
>presumably aiding one side or the other in some unclear way

"I'm strongly opposed to one side or the other gaining a possible advantage or disadvantage in some unclear way"

LOL

A scam is a scam right
Not advocating for either side here, but the ability for US gov to control/influence internet access on a global scale is, to me, the main driver behind Starlink. tinfoil hat off
Isn't the percentage of the world population that gets internet via Starlink very low? Also, how was the US government involved in the creation of Starlink?
There are some things that the US does heavily control on a global scale, but internet access is not one of them. It's much easier for countries to create walled internet gardens than to create walled finance gardens. Many of them have been doing it for a long time.
How do Starlink IP addresses work with Geolocation? Does Starlink have access to IP address blocks for all coutnries and issue them out based on registration and/or GPS data? Or do all starlink customers worldwide get issued US IPs?
It will never be cost competitive with terrestrial connections in places where most people live. It’s great for remote areas. It will never be able to control a large portion of global internet traffic.
> Starlink is not licensed to operate in Myanmar

> Myanmar’s military has shut down a major online scam operation near the border with Thailand, detaining more than 2,000 people and seizing dozens of Starlink satellite Internet terminals

So Myanmar seized some terminals and Starlink disabled the accounts?

Yes, seems so - but they shut down a lot more terminals too, not just the seized ones.

And it seems the biggest reason for them shutting down the terminals was pressure from US Senator Maggie Hassan to shut down scam centers, not the government in Myanmar.

About 80 were seized in raids, SpaceX disabled 2500.
Next they need to disable the Starlink terminals being used on narco-subs: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44477601
> An October 2024 report by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime described the use of Starlink in fraud operations. About 80 “Starlink satellite dishes linked to cyber-enabled fraud operations” were seized between April and June 2024 in Myanmar and Thailand, the report said. Starlink is prohibited in both countries.

They knew about it over a year ago.

From a Wired article ("Elon Musk’s Starlink Is Keeping Modern Slavery Compounds Online"):

> Starlink connections appeared to be helping criminals at Tai Chang to “scam Americans” and “fuel their internet needs,” West alleged at the end of July 2024. She offered to share more information to help the company in “disrupting the work of bad actors.” > SpaceX and Starlink never replied, West claims.

The whole article is worth a read.

Of course now there are comments here about how evil Musk is "getting political again" or "aiding one side".

But last time (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45422514), allowing it was "walking all over national and international laws".

Exactly.

> What he does is evil. Why is it evil? Because I resent him. Why do you resent him? Because I am no match for him. - Has anyone ever answered like this?

(Nietzsche)

These scams are getting really really out of hand. I mean the ones out of India were pretty bad, but at least there was no slavery/human trafficking/torture involved. Also, most of the Myanmar ones are "pig butchering", so they even play with the victims emotions for a long long time, and it's much much more difficult to get your life back on track after being scammed by someone you thought was the love of your life.
The ones in Myanmar target the Sinosphere. They kidnap Chinese tourists and enslave them. It's run by Taiwanese and Chinese mafia. It's possible they have native English speakers there.. I haven't heard of it before though.
Musk getting political again? Oh no, what a surprise...
I mean this seems to be tied to the Chinese human trafficking/slave call centers, and the terminals are not legal in the country. I suppose everything is politically complex, but I wouldn't really call this "getting political". The US just confiscated 15 billion in bitcoin from what seems to be the same group (although I think there's some discrepancy between what they're doing and how they're doing it).
American Billionaires interfering in Myanmar is hardly unprecedented given the facebook genocide

They're the new East India company.

Now do the Texan scam center called Tesla, Inc.

(Former Tesla customer here)

A zero effort, dismissive, libelous comment, driven by an emotional reflex befitting the poster’s name.
Oh, the free internet.
The Internet is still free. Access just got regulated for a region :D
I'm appalled that HN seemingly do not care about the human suffering that is going on in these medieval human slavery camps and instead focus on seemingly to regurgitate whatever talking points from their political leanings that were taught.

These "scam" centers kidnap, torture, even harvest organs from victims and have caused extreme violation of human rights but many of you seem more concerned with focusing your hatred towards Elon Musk or how your internet is being censored by this act.

Almost no modern telecom business will allow its customers to engage in terrorism and heinous criminal acts such as this.

This thread is the first time I am disgusted by HN users which in the recent years becomes indistinguishable from Reddit.

i would prefer to go there and visit to find out the truth before i pass judgement
I really don't think you would prefer to do that
Flights start at ~$1500.