Matt Schissler particularly the rise of social media, will contribute to dynamics that have the potential to strengthen the ideological justifications necessary for mass violence. Ultimately, the purpose of this paper is not to make morbid predictions as to if or when Myanmar may reach a tragic tipping point. Whilst observations about dynamics in the American political context are applicable in Myanmar, this alone is insufficient to illuminate the potential for future violence. Echo chambers have encouraged group polarization in the United States, but this has not meant an automatic slide into an ideological justification for mass violence. Such ideological justifications are necessary, but it is only when they combine with other factors that violence occurs. Nonetheless, this paper does highlight ways that the dynamics touched off by the introduction of social media may reverberate powerfully in Myanmar. That this conclusion is drawn based upon lessons from the American context indicates that these reverberations are not likely to fade with economic development, education, or time and the passage of key ‘trigger moments’ such as Myanmar’s 2015 elections or national census.61 The analysis in this paper also points to a new kind of opportunity: if the ways that the justifications for mass violence may be produced are better understood in Myanmar, it may be possible to disrupt them. Recognizing the negative effects of selective sharing of information and ideas within cocoons of likeminded people would indicate, for example, the limitations of exclusively relying on the law to regulate “hate speech” or pressing Facebook to remove objectionable material. Hate speech or speech that incites violence is dangerous, but to stretch the boundaries of these concepts so as to attach legal sanction to selective sharing of news and information would do harm.62 Each individual piece of information is not objectionable and becomes problematic in aggregate; more and more diverse information is needed, not less. Myanmar needs broader conversations about all the discourses that contribute to justifying mass violence, so that these discourses can be delimited as outside the bounds of what is acceptable – not as a matter of law, but of societal norm and personal commitment. To the degree that social media does become the dominant platform for mass communication of information and ideas, it may then be a powerful platform for challenging these discourses, and promoting alternate visions for the future. 61 International Crisis Group, Myanmar Conflict Alert: A Risky Census - International Crisis Group, February 12, 2014, http://www.crisisgroup.org/en/publication-type/alerts/2014/myanmar-conflict-alert-a-risky-census.aspx. 62 For a discussion of the limitations of these existing legal categories, see Susan Benesch, “Vile Crime or Inalienable Right: Defining Incitement to Genocide,” Virginia Journal of International Law Vol. 48, no. No. 3 (2008), http://papers.ssrn.com/abstract=1121926. 13/13