JOURNAL OF GENOCIDE RESEARCH
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Figure 7. Circa 2015 & 2016. Source: Author’s files.
Organization (MIDO), for example, found that 58 per cent of all female respondents had
experienced online abuse in the previous 12 months.85 “The vast majority of both adults
and young people believed that young people are not safe online, given the prevalence of
online threats such as scams, hacking and harassment,” concluded another study, jointly
conducted by Save the Children and the University of Sydney, which also found that
sexual harassment of girls was the single most common concern for young people.86
Both studies noted that one of the most prevalent forms of harassment was the use of
personal images to shame or coerce, often via images already posted to Facebook or
photographs taken surreptitiously.87
A final example illustrates how Facebook could be used in concert with other strat
egies, as well as how it could transform these strategies into warnings for larger audi
ences. In 2015, three peace activists, two Muslim and one Hindu, were arrested for
85
86
87
LIRNE Asia and MIDO, “Online Abuse in Myanmar,” 2018, 3.
Ridout et al., Mobile Myanmar, 7, 96; see also Phandeeyar, Hate Speech Lexicon Research, 22–3; Phyu Phyu Kyaw, “The
Rise of Online Censorship and Surveillance in Myanmar: A Quantitative and Qualitative Study” (Open Technology
Fund, November 2020), 23–5; Thant Sin Oo, Ye Min Thant, and McKay, Exploring Digital & Mobile Cultures in
Myanmar 2019, 39–41.
Ridout et al., Mobile Myanmar, 71; LIRNE Asia and MIDO, “Online Abuse in Myanmar,” 5; see also Ei Cherry Aung, “As
Tech Spreads, Myanmar Women Become Victims of ‘Revenge Porn’,” Myanmar Times, 5 October 2016.