Norwegian telecom operator Telenor on Monday said that concerns for its employees' safety had stopped it listing forced internet outages in Myanmar.

While the State Administration Council has asked internet providers to shut down or restrict access, Telenor attempted transparency by listing the ordered outages on its website.

But it posted on Sunday that "it is currently not possible for Telenor to disclose the directives we receive from the authorities" in Myanmar, adding that "we deeply regret that the list on this site will no longer be updated".

Spokeswoman Hanne Langeland Knudsen told AFP Monday that "our overall judgement of the situation now means that we can't communicate about the directives", saying that the situation in Myanmar is "confused and unclear" and that "our employees' security has had top priority from the start".

Telenor has been active in Myanmar since 2014 and last year employed 747 people there.

At present, telecoms services are heavily disrupted, with UK-based monitoring group NetBlocks tweeting on Monday evening that the country was under a "near-total internet shutdown" for the second night in a row.

© AFP