ASIAN ETHNICITY 11 communicate more easily than those communities without their own script keyboards. The more adaptable and available these language packages are, the more likely users are able to employ them to write posts, send text messages and communicate with each other. Despite the fact that many minority groups are able to write and speak to each other in their own languages on Facebook, a majority of my respondents said they tended to use Burmese more frequently than their own languages. This has less to do with Burmese being the official Facebook language than users’ deliberate attempt to use Burmese to target populations across different language groups. Burmese not only serves as a common communication medium of the multi-ethnic society, but also it is the only language that sub-groups of minorities who speak different dialects can use to commu­ nicate with each other. Burmese has not had much advantage in having automatic access to direct translation because Machine Translation (MT), which is a key translation mechanism of Facebook,62 can only work effectively with rich-resource languages.63 It is still challenging for Facebook’s MT to deal with some low-resource languages, such as Burmese, Lao, Kazakh, Haitian, and Oromo, despite Facebook’s continuous research and progress toward this goal in recent years.64 The multifaceted usage of Facebook The overwhelming majority of respondents who use Facebook said it was their major source of information and communication over popular news media sources such as independent broadcaster DVB or privately-run printed newspapers and journals. While automatic translation is only available for Facebook languages, Messenger allows speak­ ers of Facebook and non-Facebook languages to engage in both written (text messaging) and verbal communication through voice messaging and video-calling. Text messaging is the most widely used medium for easy and quick communication for work and chatting with family and friends. While voice-messaging and video chatting on Messenger are still limited to relatives and close friends, they are also occasionally used for urgent workrelated issues. One female respondent from Mon State, who is a leading member of a local civil society organization working on women and ethnic rights, states: I was surprised when our working group members, who have been working for preparing the Universal Periodic Review on the gender portion, suggested to have group meetings through Messenger. They all agreed and did so. I first thought they would be conducting the discussion through only email or Skype. Respondents also use Facebook Messenger as a directory to communicate with each other. One respondent explains, ‘We can find almost everyone on Messenger if we know a person’s name and appearance. We don’t even need to be friends with each other on Facebook.’ Most respondents state that they previously used Viber (another popular verbal communication platform) for communication, but now almost all of them are using only Messenger, which they perceive to be more effective and cheaper. Facebook creates multiple connections for users through several other social media platforms, such as Messenger and Instagram, simultaneously creating favorable environ­ ments for people to get engaged and involved. One respondent, a Naga woman in her 30s recounted her experiences: