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though came up in a meeting hosted by the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University and the Institute for Strategic Dialogue.122 Not only does it teach the youth how to approach content they find online, but media training can also give the necessary tools to people who want to make a change. Regulation Regulating Hate Speech Versus Freedom of Speech One option that is regularly discussed by scholars, particularly Waldron, is the implementation of laws that regulate hate speech. A particular form of hate speech that is currently recognised as a serious crime under international law is incitement to genocide. This crime saw Julius Streicher, editor of the anti-Semitic newspaper Der Stürmer, tried and executed during the Nuremberg Tribunal and has been one of the key charges against defendants of the Rwandan Genocide, which saw almost a million Tutsis killed.123 Defining speech as ‘incitement to genocide’, however, can be a complex process, and great care is needed. It is particularly difficult to do across different culture where one mode of speech may be perceived as directly encouraging aggressive action in one culture, but not in the other. The reason it is important to reflect on what incitement to genocide is when discussing hate speech, is precisely because of this fine line between the two. Arguably, this could make a case for the legal regulation of hate speech, but as Foxman and Wolf believe, legal restrictions are the least effective way to deal with the problem.124 Discussing the prohibition of incitement to hatred, Kyung-wha Kang, Deputy High Commissioner for Human Rights, describes how ‘the fine line between freedom of 122 Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University and the Institute for Strategic Dialogue, (2015) ‘Working Meeting on Youth-Oriented Online Hate Speech: Summary’, avialble at: http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/youthandmediaalpha/files/2015/06/HS_WorkingMeeting_Report__Final_15-04-21-EM.pdf [November 2015]. 123 More information on both these cases can be found here: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, ‘Incitement to Genocide in International Law’, available at: http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10007839 [October 2015]. 124 Foxman and Wolf, (2013) p.60. - 53 -

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

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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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