Hate Speech: Splitting us apart?

As most young people in Myanmar, Linn, a 18 years old Buddhist, starts her day by scrolling through her Facebook newsfeed. On her feed, various issues are spreading endlessly. Such as anti-Muslim and anti-Buddhist sentiments, derogatory comments about minorities or gender discrimination.

Copyright: Panzagar Facebook Page

“There are both good people and bad people [in all religions and races]. It is inappropriate to say that all people of one religion or race are bad,” says Linn.

Ei is a young Muslim girl and close friend of Linn. ”As we are living in Myanmar, we should act like Burmese. I don’t feel hate for anybody. Everyone is significant, no matter from which religion”, she says.
Various kinds of hate speech are spreading every minute, every hour and every day in Myanmar’s social networks. These are being spread intentionally by extremist groups to cause religious and racial conflicts in the country.

Online hate speech fuels extremism
Facebook users become emotional by these posts and start commenting and sharing. In doing so, they’re making the situation worse by helping the fire to spread all over the social networks. As a result, tensions online turn into real conflicts in our society.

According to a report released in November 2016 by “Ah Mone Mae Sagar” (No-Hate-Speech Project), online hate-speech in Myanmar occurs mainly on social media accounts from print media, broadcast media and from Ma Ba Tha (Association for the Protection of Race and Religion).

“When I see hate speech online, I neither comment nor share. But, I end up talking about these online hate speeches with my friends”, says Linn. “Hate speech just starts online but ends in the society. It leads to many conflicts in our society.”

Whenever the team from “Ah Mone Mae Sagar” encounters hate speech online, they answer with a respectful comment and try, carefully, to engage with the authors of the posts. In a view to encourage more tolerance in how we communicate with each other online.

​Curbing hate speech at the local level
 “Panzagar” is a local campaign in Myanmar which tries to prevent hate speech both online and offline by using “Panzagar stickers”, which in Burmese means “Flower-Speech-stickers”. It is one of the most successful campaigns combating hate speech in the country.

More than 3.6 million people downloaded the “Panzagar” sticker packs and the stickers have been sent more than 18 million times, according to “Phan Dee Yar”, an ICT Hub where the tech community for change and development come together in Myanmar, “Our country can be better if there are many campaigns like Panzagar,” says Aung Ko Myint, a 21 years old Muslim boy.

“Panzagar” also organizes trainings on online safety as well as workshops on media literacy and on how to promote peace through a responsible use of online spaces.

 “Anti-hate speech message is a kind of humanity value message and aims to change the deep-rooted set of values of people. So, the process might be long. But we need to consistently send those messages because changing a mind-set can take at least a generation,” says Zwe Pyae, a former campaign coordinator who works for the Myanmar ICT for Development Organization.

Panzagar continues to campaign to promote wisdom when it comes to contentious content online and to remind the community that online hate speech aims to transform tensions into real conflicts and terrorism.  

 “As social media is a place where a variety of people talk about plenty of things, perspectives can be different. We are different. But, as I am good to them, they are always good to me,” says Ei.

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MIDO: a local resource organization to combat hate speech online in Myanmar
 “The project “Online Peace Mobilization”focuses on monitoring online hate speech and supporting civil society organizations and media in a view to encourage prevention”, said Phyu Phyu Thi, co-founder, Research and Development Manager of Myanmar ICT Development Organization (MIDO), at the Case4Space Conference in Bangkok.

The project started in September 2015 targeting online and mobile phone users, youth, CSOs and media. It monitored cases of online hate speech on popular Facebook pages and groups, both fake and real accounts of famous people, Ma Ba Tha (Extremist Buddhists Group) and online media. The Project team from MIDO and Panzagar Network – a branch of MIDO – used an informal Facebook group to conduct the monitoring.

To categorize the different contents of hate speech, MIDO used a framework developed in collaboration with the Oxford University. The project registered a total of 552 hate speech issues found on Facebook with following content: guilts (181), virtue (104), bullying and harassments (80), threats (73), dehumanization (58), and encouraging violence (56).

“Countering Messaging is the most sensitive step”, said Phyu Phyu Thi. So the project also created a media platform for counter messages: social media posts on information literacy, to expose rumors and hoax news. They also organized a series of Safe Online Space (SOS) Trainings focusing on media and digital literacy, digital security, strategies to respond to dangerous posts and on how to promote peace through responsible use of online media.
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In doing this, MIDO faced many challenges – limited capacities, technology challenges and risks in dealing with Ma Ba Tha or some public authorities. But the project managed to train around 180 people accross Myanmar and to become a focal point and resource organization for online hate speech cases in the country.

(Copyright: UNESCO/Hnin Eizali – this content was first published as part of the Youth Newsroom of the Regional Roundtable “Youth at the Heart of the Agenda 2030: The Case for Space” here: http://www.case4space.org/newsroom)

Recently, Panzagar was awarded the Myanmar Rice Bowl Award for the Campaign of the Year at the “2016 Rice Bowl Awards.”