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profile of individuals such as these and their autonomy from an established organisation makes them almost impossible to monitor and control. In the past, people who did not have the means to be heard through politics or the newspapers would take to the streets handing out leaflets and speaking to people to promote their beliefs. Today, the internet allows free access to an audience of millions. Consequently, hate can be spread faster than ever through websites and social media platforms. This study’s focus is hate towards Islam; one of the most targeted groups in both Myanmar and across the world. The presence of anti-Islam rhetoric has a grown significantly since 9/11. It does not take long to find anti-Islam Facebook pages such as World Against Islam, Stop Islamization of the World, and Anti-Islam Alliance which seek to vilify the religion and its adherents, all of which have thousands of followers liking posts and sharing anti-Islamic content.61 Founded in 2004, Facebook is currently the biggest social networking service based on global reach and total active users with 2015 seeing 1.49 billion monthly active users.62 The social media platform sees thousands of groups and pages where people come together based on similar interests. While this can healthily contribute to society through pages that promote education, positive activism, and support pages, it can also be used as a tool to spread lies and target groups or individual members of society. A noteworthy example of the popularity a hate movement can achieve through Facebook is the British movement Britain First. With over one million followers on Facebook (which saw a significant rise after the ISIS attacks in Paris), Britain First are one of England’s most controversial and vocal far-right movements. The group have surpassed the English Defence League (EDL) and the British Nationalist 61 These pages can be found here: World Against Islam, available at: https://www.facebook.com/worldagainstislamofficial/?fref=ts [November 2015]; Stop Islamization of the World, available at: https://www.facebook.com/SIOTW/?fref=nf [November 2015]; Anti-Islam Alliance, available at: https://www.facebook.com/Anti-Islam-Alliance-104201582969970/?fref=ts [November 2015]. 62 Number of monthly active Facebook users worldwide as of 2nd quarter 2015 (in millions), statista.com, available at: http://www.statista.com/statistics/264810/number-of-monthly-activefacebook-users-worldwide/ [November 2015]. - 31 -

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Religion, hate speech and social media in Myanmar: Analysing methods of intervention

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Language

English

Topic

Hate Speech
Rohingya Crisis

Author(s)

Bethany Davis

Date Published: Dec 1, 2015

Abstract: Myanmar is home to one of the longest running intrastate conflicts in the world, involving a series of ethnic and religious clashes that have caused harm to all parties involved. The ideology of a homogeneity based on Buddhism and the Bamar ethnicity has marginalized minority groups, which make up a third of the population, and has particularly affected the Rakhine state’s Buddhist and Muslim communities, the latter of which are subject to what international human rights organizations are calling an ethnic cleansing. Since the government relaxed restrictions to the access of foreign websites, the social media site Facebook has become a popular means to disseminate misinformation and rumours, and this has created mistrust and hatred against Muslims across the country, heightening the polarization between Buddhist and Muslim groups. This study will combine conflict analysis with the assessment of different approaches of countering hate speech to propose which methods of intervention are most suitable for this situation in Myanmar. Lederach argues that to counter hatred and avoid reoccurrence of violence, deep alterations of the parties’ relationships is needed. This idea forms the basis for chapter three which examines educational methods, interfaith projects and social media campaigns to both prevent and change negative attitudes towards the religious ‘Other’. It argues that education and awareness campaigns are more effective than the implementation of legal regulation as we need to combat the underlying issue. In addition to secondary sources, this study involved field research to collect information about how the youth are influence by hate speech and counter hate campaigns in Myanmar.

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Myanmar Internet Project

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Religion, hate speech and social media in Myanmar: Analysing methods of intervention

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