need to focus on the youth demographic and implement educational initiatives (as will be discussed in chapter three). The Impact of Hate Speech on Myanmar’s Muslim Community In the previous section we have seen how Facebook plays a vital role in the dissemination of misinformation in Myanmar, and discussed how factors such as religion or lack of education influence people to accept this information as truth and share it among their friends. I will now expand on how hate speech affects Myanmar’s Muslim community and their ability to live as equal citizens, and argue that the wide spread anti-Muslim rhetoric on social media has become a source of polarization between religious groups. As discussed in section The Consequences of Online Hate Speech, hate speech can have a significant impact on both the individuals who may be susceptible to believing hateful ideologies, and those who are being targeted. In Myanmar, the Muslim community are increasingly becoming the subjects of hate speech and hateful narratives. Aung San Suu Kyi told the BBC that tensions have been heightened as a result of a worldwide perception that ‘global Muslim power was very great.’90 AntiMuslims rhetoric from Wirathu and his followers plays on this global fear in an attempt to Other the community and outcast them from society. The process of othering and excluding one particular group can be enhanced by the promotion of a sense of national identity that the group does not fit into. Ervin Staub (1989) has suggested that the ‘cultural self-concept of a people greatly influences the need to protect the collective psychological self.’91 Nationalism arises from the pride of this collective cultural identity and the desire to maintain it, thus members of the community who are not part of the dominant identity group are perceived as inferior and a threat to the cultural identity. Subsequently, the ‘us’ and ‘them’ differentiation begins and can become engrained in the culture, which in turn makes it easier to 90 BBC, (2013) ‘Suu Kyi blames Burma violence on 'climate of fear'’, available at: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-24651359 [November 2015]. 91 Staub, E., (1989) The Roots of Evil: The Origins of Genocide and Other Group Violence, Cambidge Uniersity Press, p.18. - 41 -