42 Brooten, McElhone and Venkiteswaran security. Local and foreign journalists who report critically about the military’s operations in Rakhine State face accusations from their peers for exaggerating or false reporting. In her chapter in this volume, Eaint Thiri Thu reflects on how military rule has affected reporting of the plight of the Rohingya and the difficulties journalists face in accessing the truth. Social media platforms, especially Facebook, have been used to spread rumours and hate speech, provoking violent reactions. The spread of hateful messages and their consequences for the safety of journalists and civilians are especially evident in the violence in Rakhine State, where most of the messages tend to be anti-Muslim or anti-Rohingya (Davis 2017; Wade 2017). Evidence now demonstrates that Facebook was used in a systematic campaign by military personnel (Mozur 2018). Wade (2017) documents the use of seminars and local media to propagandize against the Rohingya, and assesses how the propaganda, “not just in leaflets and statements [by Ma Ba Tha and other nationalist monks], but in domestic media of all stripes, state-owned and private — left little mental space within the Buddhist communities of Rakhine State to consider the Rohingya as anything but menacing” (p. 118). Journalists who use Facebook or Twitter to provide live reports from an incident or press briefing have been subject to online harassment and attacks by those who think the content is sympathetic to the Rohingya. Even journalists from Rakhine working with local media have encountered hostile responses and death threats from the public when covering the conflict on the ground, as they are perceived to be biased (Mratt Kyaw Thu 2017). Sarah Oh writes in this volume about individuals and campaigns that emerged in response to the communal conflict and the surge in hate speech. Facebook’s role in the violence has been much critiqued. During an interview in April 2018, the platform’s founder, Mark Zuckerberg, acknowledged that he was concerned about the potential dangers of Facebook misuse in Myanmar (Klein 2018). The interview shed light on his lack of awareness of the situation on the ground. He referenced an attempt to thwart an incitement of communal violence between Buddhists and Muslims in Myanmar, and praised the effectiveness of Facebook’s systems (he specifically used the phrase “our systems”) for monitoring such attempts to incite violence. In fact, this particular case was identified and reported by civil society in Myanmar, and it took 01 ch1-MyanmarMediaIT-5P.indd 42 8/4/19 10:29 am