Christina Fink The wide reach of Facebook, the speed of information dissemination, the impact of arresting images and incendiary text, and the participatory nature of sharing and commenting on the platform have contributed to an atmosphere of heightened anxiety among Buddhists and other non-Muslims in Myanmar. This has spurred offline action. For example, Buddhist ultranationalists launched a boycott of Muslim-owned businesses and promoted the widespread use of stickers with Buddhist symbols to identify Buddhist-owned establishments. In another instance, a local government official who had never met a Muslim told a New York Times reporter that he was thankful to Facebook for giving him “true information” about the problems that Muslims posed.15 As a result, he authorized making his village one of more than 20 that bar Muslim residents.16 Between 2012 and 2014, several instances of communal violence in central Myanmar resulted in fatalities. In at least one case, a Buddhist monk’s Facebook post appeared directly connected to the violence. In 2014, Wirathu, a prominent ultranationalist monk in the city of Mandalay, reposted on his Facebook page a report of a Buddhist female employee’s rape by the proprietor of a local teashop. Wirathu added that he had called the proprietor to assert he would face justice.17 Some followers took this as a call to action. Crowds of agitated Buddhist men gathered in the streets of Mandalay, Muslims organized in defense, and fighting erupted. A Muslim man and a Buddhist man were killed. Later, the state media reported that the rape allegation was false.18 There are moderating voices in Myanmar, including some human-rights activists, elected officials, Buddhist monks, and interfaith organizations. They have been able to reduce or prevent violence in certain instances, but ultranationalists have tried to marginalize such voices. When 97 civil-society groups opposed legislation drafted by a Buddhist nationalist organization that would have, among other things, restricted marriages between Buddhist women and men of other faiths, several women’s rights leaders received threatening online messages and phone calls, including some death threats.19 This has had a chilling effect on those who would speak out in defense of social inclusion. The Myanmar Government’s Engagement with Facebook Senior Burmese officials have not forcefully discredited the Buddhist nationalist narrative or promoted a compelling counter-narrative on their Facebook accounts or in the state media. The military leadership benefits from Buddhist perceptions that it is defending the Buddhist-majority nation, while the civilian wing of the government does not want to alienate voters by pushing a message out of step with majority sentiment. Buddhist nationalism also resonates with some leaders’ views, and some officials in the 2011-16 Thein Sein government had per- 46