being human is a traditional Burmese concept, with which international human rights norms happen to have caught up. For example, as seen from the comments, there are expressions and concepts from Myanmar culture that can be elaborated upon. Expressions such as လူလူချင််း/လူသ ်းချင််း are a widely accepted form of starting a discussion on how others should be treated as equal, with kindness, and without discrimination16. Efforts to bolster the idea that a good person is one who treats humans with basic respect and dignity might bear additional indirect benefits, as the more this concept is strengthened, the stronger a basis there is for criticizing those who dehumanize others. But care must be taken, because in some cases counterspeech devolved into attacks on hate speech posters, calling them less than human. 4.2 – Positivity and Positive Human Qualities Observation Under interfaith posts with positive comments, many users praised different qualities that they regarded are part of being human (လူသ ်းဆန်မခင််း). In particular, comments under positive anchor posts about interfaith relationships reverberated the positivity of the original post by emphasizing qualities such as generosity, kindness, compassion, and sympathy17. In many comments, these were stated to be good values shared by both Muslims and Buddhists. Comments also urged people to look beyond labels such as religious or ethnic status, as actions and values are the ones by which individuals should be judged rather than defined based upon the whole group. As mentioned in Observation 1, the positive anchor posts also provided space for users to share their positive experience of interfaith interaction18. Sometimes, speakers suggested that treating other people with kindness in recognition of others as human is a desired outcome for building a peaceful society19. Interpretation Positivity is a theme that can be used to respond to hate speech, without having to directly reject the claims made in the hate speech. Interviews also suggested that Myanmar Facebook users are growing fed up with the general negativity on the platform and they welcome any form of positive feeling; this could be a basis for countering without directly engaging hate speech. It could also be that people are emphasizing being human (လူသ ်းဆန်မခင််း) as an indirect reference to counter the common dehumanization language found on social media (as mentioned in 4.1). 16 See Annex 8.5 for example expressions Annex 9.1 18 Annex 9.2 19 Annex 9.3 17 17