Mobile Myanmar: The Impact of Social Media on Young People Living in Conflict-Affected Regions of Myanmar especially when topics were related specifically to their community or village. However, most participants across all locations were able to differentiate between what was real and what was fake news. Hate speech Some participants were asked to write down, draw or provide screen shots of examples of hate speech they had encountered. Hate speech was described by participants from both the rural and urban locations as the use of inappropriate and offensive language (e.g., curse words) to attack, insult or spark anger in another person, to ignite fights and arguments. While not initially defining hate speech in terms of prejudice or discrimination, there was a consensus between all participants that hate speech is often seen in the comments of posts between specific groups of people, particularly related to religion. For example, creating religious or ethnic conflict, trying to sway people to choose a particular side, pointing out the negative behaviours of certain groups of people and using derogatory terms, most notably, “kalar” for Rohingya and other Muslim groups in Myanmar. The word, “kalar” is an extremely derogatory term that is frequently used in Myanmar against Rohingya and other Muslim groups in the country, regardless of their actual ethnic identity. The term is commonly used as a racist slur to insult and highlight a person’s “dark” skin and/or “foreign” ancestry. Though accounts of the term’s origins differ, today, the term “kalar” is almost exclusively used to mean a person from the Indian subcontinent, but more importantly, it is increasingly used to indicate that the person is Muslim (Gravers, 2015). The growing use of the term “kalar” or “Bengali” to denote “foreignness” has become a wide-ranging ethnonym for all Myanmar Muslims, serving to further marginalise and “other-ise” Rohingya and other Muslim groups as not belonging in Myanmar. The term is frequently used in cases of hate speech in Myanmar. “I see some posts regarding Bengali aka Rohingya. Some try to cause tensions between Catholics and Muslims. I saw one person photoshop and post that the Pope is saying to kill Muslims. So, it can affect the community and cause misunderstandings on Islam and Rohingya.” Female, 19 years, Kayan Christian, Loikaw (Kayah State urban) “There is a Karenni soldier who always posts hatred against Bamar. I don’t like what he posted. Before I didn’t like Bamar either. But now I’ve became more considerate. He said our Kayah people are always victims and we shouldn’t get married to Bamar people. Sometimes I posted my comments under his posts and he cursed at me under comments.” Male, 19 years, Loikaw (Kayah State urban) “U Wirathu is from the side of military dictatorship and he always said offending words against NLD. He spreads hatred against Kalar people. He is an extremist and doesn’t see Kalar as human. He only sees Kalar as bad. He doesn’t follow the Buddhist way. I don’t know why there is no action against him.” Male, 19 years, Christian, Loikaw (Kayah State urban) A participant pointed out that online conflict can also result in offline conflict. “Here we have some gangs, and if one of the gang members post some pictures and get negative feedback from other gangs in the comments, they will attack each other outside as well.” Male, 18 years, Dee Maw Hso Urban Facilitators noted that some rural participants had difficulty differentiating between the concepts of hate speech, harassment, and fake news. One rural participant believed that hate speech was not produced by rural-based people. 41