status as gay was unfortunate rather than, for example, an example of bullying or systemic antiLGBTQ discrimination. Thus pity reinforced the assumption that being LGBTQ is bad, saying “nobody wants a life like this” (ဟိုတ်ပါတယ် ဘယ်သူမှ ဒီလို ဘဝမျ ်း လိုချင်မှ မဟိုတ်ဘူ်း) and thus helped to justify the death and distract focus from addressing more systematic causes. We also noted a distinct lack of comments asking for justice in terms of protection from bullying or protection of marginalized identities in contrast to the overwhelming number of comments expressing pity for the victim and his surviving family. Implications In designing campaigns for diversity and inclusion, word choices and translation should take care to avoid vocabularies of pity. If the discourse of pity such as သန ်းပါတယ်, which is common in Myanmar language and can superficially seem a first step to building a positive vocabulary by showing sympathy to difference, is taken wrongly, it can assume the position of superiority of the speaker. This may also be relevant for NGOs where they translate English words like “vulnerable” or “protected”: if not done with care, translations may also convey the presumed position of superiority and pity. 4.7 – Whataboutism Observation Sometimes there were also types of negative speech that do not constitute hate-speech but could derail counter-speech by bringing in other issues not in question. We found such examples commonly under positive posts and news reports about marginalized people . Such comments did not criticize the desired positivity in the original speech directly but blamed a different group else for lacking such qualities or not behaving similarly. This was found in three common ways: the first was to distort the request for positive things for someone by saying “what about the others?”; the second was to distort the issue by saying there are other worse things when someone points out a bad thing; and the third was to distort the issue or sometimes a positive thing at hand by blaming someone else25. Interpretation Even though this type of speech may not constitute hate-speech, this mechanism of saying “what about...” can weaken any counter speech or potential positive campaign messages or distract from speaking about the actual experiences of marginalised populations. 25 See Annex 14 for examples 21