immigrants.3 As a consequence, most have not been granted citizenship, and have been rendered de facto stateless (Human Rights Council 2018). During the past decade, Buddhist nationalism, anti-Muslim rhetoric and violence between Buddhists and Muslims has intensified. According to the Human Rights Council (2018), the violence is related to an anti-Muslim and anti-Rohingya campaign led by radical Buddhist organizations and the military officials. The campaign has sought to spread fear and hate, calling Muslims and Rohingya illegal immigrants and terrorists. The Rohingya crisis is mostly taking place in the Rakhine state, which is home to most of the Rohingya minority. The violence in Rakhine flared up in 2012 and the conflict has been ongoing since then. Violent conflicts continue between the military and ethnic armed groups also in several other regions of Myanmar, including Chin, Kachin and Shan states. The UN Human Rights Council has accused the government of human rights violations and war crimes due to its unlawful and disproportionate security operations against ethnic and religious minorities. A case against Myanmar has been brought to the International Court of Justice, accusing the government of genocide against the Rohingya. According to a UN Human Rights Council report (Human Rights Council 2018), the security operations have been characterized by attacks against civilians and indiscriminate attacks, arbitrary arrests, torture, sexual violence, looting and destruction of property. One of the motivations for the operations seems to be dissuading civilians from getting involved in the ethnic armed organizations. 3.2. Zero Rated Facebook and Social Media Use I focus on the role of Facebook, which is the dominant social media platform in Myanmar. According to StatCounter, during 2011–2018, Facebook constituted on average almost 95% of all social media use in Myanmar.4 I focus on the zero rated bundle of websites and apps called “Free Basics”, a recent Facebook campaign to gain users in the developing world.5 Free Basics users are required to sign up for Facebook, and they can then browse the websites and apps included in the platform without data charges. The campaign was launched in Myanmar in June 2016, but discontinued in September 2017 (Singh 2018). Although Free Basics gives access to a stripped down versions of a number of sites, Facebook is the main attraction (see e.g. Solon 2017). The number of Facebook users is estimated to have skyrocketed from 2 million in 2014 to 30 million in 2017 (Singh 2018). The prevalence of Facebook was also noted by the UN investigation on Myanmar 3. For example, the government refers to the Rohingya as “Bengali”, claiming that they are immigrants from Bangladesh. 4. StatCounter’s statistics are based on tracking page visits to particular sites. 5. The platform was originally called Internet.org, and rebranded as Free Basics by Facebook in 2015. 6