4/5/22, 3:23 PM Hate speech, atrocities and fake news: the crisis in Myanmar | Financial Times Unlike many other Asian countries, Myanmar does not censor the internet. Citizens searching for news increasingly turn to the unregulated online shallows, where calls for violence spread with apparent impunity. Facebook takes down content flagged as abusive or racist, but users here commonly cut and paste these posts before they are removed, meaning incitement continues to be disseminated. “Most of the hate speech here is based on what nationalists say happened under British colonialism: Muslims from India came here to help the British administration and married Burmese women, occupying the land,” Ye Myint Win, a pro-Rohingya Muslim activist who goes by the name Nickey Diamond, told me. “These stories are revived and poorly interpreted.” Incitement to violence against minorities was common during the days of the military dictatorship, when pamphleteers wrote printed screeds that were circulated by hand. But the arrival of the internet allows threats, rumours and libels to spread on an unprecedented scale. “The fact that Facebook is the internet for many digital users, combined with low levels of digital literacy, makes fake news and online hate speech particularly dangerous in Myanmar,” said Victoire Rio of Phandeeyar, the Yangon-based tech group that she says is working to promote “safe” internet usage. One widely read propaganda page on Low levels of digital literacy make online hate speech particularly dangerous Victoire Rio, Phandeeyar Facebook is Lwin Pyin (The Field). It has more than three million followers and publishes fake news reports alongside lifestyle features. Recently, it published a counterfeit post claiming that Yangon’s chief minister wanted to destroy two stupas (shrines) at Shwedagon Pagoda, news that would anger any Burmese Buddhist. The story went viral. It was false. https://www.ft.com/content/2003d54e-169a-11e8-9376-4a6390addb44 15/19