speaking on behalf of a specific person rather than the group in general. This approach can be inclusive, without blaming anyone, while also countering to animal analogies made by hatespeech speakers. Expressions such as “လူကိုလူလိုမမင်စပ်းပါ” (please see human as a human) or “လ���သ ်းအချင််းချင််း / လူလူချင််း” (between humans) were common among counter speakers. They were also less often involved in conversations that escalated and more often involved a plea for moral consideration on the part of the hate-speech speaker. Interpretations The harmfulness of dehumanizing language is usually understood in two ways. Firstly, the dehumanizing language is understood as harmful because it is insulting because it says a person or group should be seen as equal to a low-status thing, such as a dog, even though they are actually persons. In this interpretation the negative consequences of hate speech are limited to the psychological effects on the target person or group. Secondly, dehumanizing language is understood as harmful because it establishes a standard for how the target person or group should be treated; it says that they should be treated like animals, not people. In this interpretation the negative consequences relate to later acts towards members of the target group. This relies on establishing a causal connection between acts of hate speech and these later acts. But in analyzing comment threads we noted a third way that dehumanizing language may be harmful. In contrast to the above two standard views, which focus on the effect such speech has on the target group, this interpretation highlights the effect it has on the speaker and others who identify with them: uttering hate speech says that the speaker can say whatever they want about the other person or group. It is verbal proof that there is no accountability, which can be contrasted against the consequences if such speech were aimed at another, more powerful, group. Every successful act of hate speech is thus also a form of social impunity; the more extreme the hate speech the clearer the demonstration of impunity. For example: We observed the way hate speech acts as verbal proof of impunity in comment threads under posts relating to the recent “Don’t call me ‘kalar’ campaign.” The campaign was a request (“don’t call me ‘kalar’"), which was then rejected by many people. In addition to various excuses for why the word is acceptable, some campaigners’ posts making the request were responded to by people simply calling them “kalar,” over and over. These comments highlighted the way uttering hate speech is also a demonstration that the target of the speech can do nothing to stop the speaker; that the one who utters hate speech can treat members of marginalized groups however they please. The marginalized group can request or demand that they stop (“don’t call me kalar”), but the continuation of the hate speech confirms to everyone that such requests or demands can be ignored without any social, legal, or other consequences. Additionally, in a slight departure from using being human as a moral plea, when a counter speaker says the original speaker of the hate speech violated a cultural norm that all humans 15