TEMPO.CO, Yangon - Just a day after Myanmar’s historic 2015 elections and already anticipating victory at the polls, opposition National League of Democracy (NLD) leader Aung San Suu Kyi stressed that she does not condone hate, regardless if it is against ethnic groups or minorities in the country.
"Hate leads to violence, and it could destroy the society,” she said in an interview with the BBC. "It is something we all have to work together (to resolve)."
So-called ‘hate speech’ has become a serious concern in Myanmar in the last few years, with its spread helped largely by the increasing popularity of Facebook in this sprawling Southeast Asian nation. And while trolling or pranking online is nothing new and far from being unique to Myanmar, the cyber vitriol that has been spewed by anonymous Facebook users here have either contributed to or directly led to several instances of communal violence. In one instance, two people were even killed and several others injured.
More often than not, the target of the online hate speech, which includes unfounded stories, are the Rohingya, a Muslim minority who live mostly in Myanmar’s southwestern state of Rakhine. (Myanmar is predominantly Buddhist, representing 80 percent of the population.)
It’s unclear how and when it all started, but in the last two years, the ‘hate’ posts seem to have picked up steam, with individuals apparently hiding behind fake Facebook accounts churning out hundreds of pages against the Rohingya in particular. And while the Rohingya have long been outcasts in Myanmar society, the hate speech aimed at them have only made them more vulnerable to abuse. (Courtesy of TEMPO.CO)
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