"Myanmar is gearing up for elections this year. The general election, tentatively scheduled for some time in November, will essentially pit Myanmar State Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy (NLD) against the military-aligned Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP), the country’s two major political parties. As the country inches closer to D-Day, one thing political analysts and observers will be keeping a close watch on is social media – especially popular platform, Facebook. According to statistics from global social media agency, We Are Social, Myanmar doesn’t do too shabbily when it comes to social media penetration in the country. While there is certainly room to grow, the numbers are already significant. As of January 2019, Myanmar had 21 million active social media users – a 39 percent penetration rate for its 54.1 million population. This is an increase of three million (17 percent) compared to the same period in 2018. Of that number, Facebook has an audience of 21 million, coming in first place for social media platforms in Myanmar. In comparison, Instagram was second with an audience of just 810,000. We Are Social also noted that Facebook is the third most visited website by Myanmar netizens after Google and YouTube which came in first and second, respectively..."