require a basic standard of treatment, the counter speaker implies to the hate-speech speaker that ‘you do not treat weaker people as human, and therefore, you are actually the one who deserves to be not treated like a human’. Affirming the human status of the target of hate speech may thus also be a way to say something about the one who posted the hate speech. At the same time, just as hate speech may have effects that relate more to the speaker (impunity), posting counterspeech may suggest that the counter-speaker is more humane, moral, etc., while the original poster is an uncivilized or lesser human. There is thus a risk that the counter-speech can be drawn into a further legitimizing the idea that some people do not deserve to be treated as human, and thus it could be less conducive to discussions on genuine inclusion. Implications Our research began from the perspective that an approach to hate speech that begins by establishing definitional criterion via semantic formulas, such as “all speech that equates humans to animals is dehumanizing,” is likely to generate false positives. This observation in turn suggests that this problem may be avoided if researchers focus attention on the effect speech has on both the various audiences (target, victim, etc.) and the speaker. For example, “Military dog” and “Muslim dog” both satisfy the same definitional criterion, because they are both an insult and a suggestion of how the standard of treatment should be low. However, consideration for the effect on a speaker would help specify the difference between these two examples. To accomplish the former is to show that the military does not have dominant power; to accomplish the latter is to show that a religious minority does not have power. It is important to consider the multiple effects of hate speech in addition to the psychological harm it may cause targets. If hate speech has the effect of affirming or demonstrating the impunity of speakers, it may also contribute to increasing discrimination and violence against the target group over time. In addition to causing mental harm on the targets and setting low standards of treatment, in other words, hate speech may thus also be a trial run and testing of boundaries that assists with violence later. Importantly, this impunity is not just legal but also social. Even where hate speech does not violate a law, instances of hate speech that result in no social consequences—whether they take the form of direct counter-speech or other effects such as reputational damage to the speaker—can serve to confirm impunity. Affirming status as human is also a way to propose a better standard of treatment and open up discussions for equality. If the existence of this discourse in the comment threads we analyzed means that the value of being human is already established in Myanmar, it may be a worthwhile message to promote, or to link other messaging. But further research would be needed to decide how established this value is. Our research does suggest that messages related to being human do not necessarily need to be connected to international human rights. And indeed, connecting such counter-speech to international human rights may assist those who seek to redefine such claims as foreign, as not ‘naturally’ Myanmar, etc. (See 4.8 below). It may be better to emphasize that 16