OK, (Burmese) Hello.
My name is Min Thu Aung,
and I'm trying to find a solution
to solve the problem of online hate speech in Myanmar.
So you might ask, "Why is this so important?"
After all, hate speech is nothing new, right?
Countries all over the world have experienced hate speech in some way.
And as a country we have a lot of problems to solve.
I'll give you one. Healthcare.
We need to improve our healthcare,
we need to improve our education our roads, electricity maybe -
a lot of problems to solve.
Why hate speech? And why now? Well, here's why.
As we know well,
back in August 2017, there was the Rohingya crisis of course.
The UN fact-finding mission
concluded that online hate speech on Facebook
was one of the main reasons for this crisis.
This is hate speech that divided communities
and caused a refugee crisis.
This is hate speech that -
really damaged our country's international reputation,
and also reduced
the investment friendliness of the country from a Western perspective.
It also is hate speech that one day will affect all of us,
and, therefore, I believe that it's an important problem to solve.
Here's another reason:
Just last month,
an LGBT librarian at a private university in Yangon
was forced to confess his status in a case of workplace harassment.
This harassment continued online where he experienced cyberbullying
and also hate speech because of his sexual orientation
and, tragically, he took his own life.
It's a big problem.
Another reason.
Another reason is that the elections are coming up in 2020.
Political parties now are already taking their positions,
and just like the US election in 2016 also,
we expect that hate speech could become, and fake news,
could be a feature of the elections in 2020.
So that's why I'm convinced that online hate speech,
in any democracy,
is an important issue to solve, and Myanmar is no exception.
It applies to Myanmar as well.
I guess we first need to look at what is hate speech?
What is the problem we're trying to solve?
What is free speech?
Where does free speech end, and where does hate speech begin?
And for that, we can rely on -
international definitions of hate speech and free speech.
So article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights
and also the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, ICCPR,
says that free speech is the right to hold any opinion you want
and also to seek and receive information in any way, right?
That's quite clear. You can say anything you want. That's free speech.
But article 20 of the ICCPR goes one step further.
It tells you where your free speech could be limited.
If your free speech includes any propaganda for war,
any advocacy of national, racial, or religious hatred
which incites discrimination, incites hostility or violence,
then your free speech can be restricted.
That's pretty clear.
But what does that mean in normal language? That means ...
Well, in private you can say anything you want,
even if it's very controversial,
but if you use that same speech in public
to incite any violence, any hostility against specific groups of people,
then that can be considered hate speech, and that can be offline or online.
It's the same.
Now, how big is the problem, right?
I think it's first important to note
that social media and the internet is not all about hate speech, right?
If anything, the UN in 2016 passed a resolution that says that the internet
is actually required or actually allows the enjoyment of people's human rights.
It's very important, and some countries have also even made internet access
a constitutional right, right?
So it's not the internet and social media.
It's not all about hate speech.
However, in 2014, when most of the Myanmar population
got access to the internet,
they also got access to a tool which allowed them
to access and express their views to millions of people
for the first time in their lives.
Behind the veil of anonymity,
users on Facebook realized that the speech they were using online
had consequences,
negative consequences for people offline.
And with 20 million users in Myanmar,
Facebook is effectively the internet, right?
I think we all know that in some way, shape, or form,
and therefore, for the rest of my talk I'm going to focus on Facebook
as the main area where hate speech exists online in Myanmar.
Now, concrete information or data on hate speech is hard to find.
According to a survey done by Myanmar mobile operator Telenor,
back in 2016,
the survey found that around 28% of the people surveyed
knew someone that had been cyberbullied, and hate speech could be a part of it.
But actually, anecdotally, we know it's a big problem.
If you look at any Facebook page of news outlets in the country,
you will find in the comments following each article a lot of speech
which could be termed hate speech, relating to religion, relating to race,
relating to other characteristics.
We also know, of course, as I mentioned earlier,
that the UN fact-finding mission also said
that hate speech on Facebook contributed to the Rohingya crisis.
So, in a nutshell, it's a big problem, right?
But this is not a new problem.
Of course, countries in the West have used social media and the internet
since the mid-nineties, right?
So how are they tackling the problem?
Well, I will show the way that they are tackling this problem,
based on this framework of the four solutions for hate speech.
First, let's look at the state solution which is -
the governments regulate and control speech online and offline.
One example of this is actually in Germany.
They passed an act which has been called the "Facebook Act,"
which requires Facebook to remove any law-breaking content
within 24 hours of been told.
If they don't do this,
then they could be fined up to 50 million euros.
And just in July this year, Facebook was fined 2 million euros
for breaking some part of this law.
So this law is actually been described as one of the most severe ways
that the government and regulators around the world
have limited hate speech online.
And I know that France is also looking at a similar law as well.
So civil societies, the NGOs and rights groups in Germany
have actually criticized this law,
saying that it could actually reduce free speech,
it could actually lead to censorship.
Why is that?
Well, Facebook can be fined if there's any law-breaking content.
So Facebook could proactively remove content that some people
might not even consider to be hate speech, so that could lead to censorship.
Now, in a country like Germany,
which is a very advanced democracy,
if there's criticism for this kind of a law,
in a newer democracy
where legislative, executive and judicial capacity are still limited,
and freedom of the press is still also limited,
this kind of a law is extremely risky.
But some countries are looking at the solution.
Let's look at the social media solution.
And this is where platforms, such as Facebook,
remove content proactively,
regardless of whether there are laws or not.
Now, this solution is actually quite active in a sense
that Facebook has a few thousand content moderators around the world
that review content that has been flagged by users as hate speech,
or as another kind of non-compliant content.
Also in Myanmar, I understand that Facebook
has a hundred or so content moderators in Myanmar language,
and I also understand that Facebook
is in the longer term looking at using artificial intelligence, or "AI,"
to help detect and review hate speech.
This can be really fast and scalable, but under three conditions.
Number one: that these content moderators actually can distinguish
between free speech and hate speech without bias.
In an unbiased fair way. Number one.
Number two: the way that hate speech is expressed
from time to time actually changes, right?
The way it's expressed today and expressed next week may be different.
So it's important that content moderators
actually keep up to date with the way that hate speech is expressed online.
That's the second condition.
And the third one is that Facebook is investing in AI.
Well, it's important that this AI is actually trained well
by the decisions made by users and also by content moderators,
so that the AI can make its own decisions accurately at a later point in time.
Of course, this solution can be quite expensive for Facebook.
Lots of content moderators, lots of new technology, lots of AI -
but I don't think Facebook, frankly, has a choice but to invest in this.
They need to invest in this,
so it's not seen as a place for hate speech and fake news
online in the future.
So we may have heard of the Cambridge Analytica scandal
on Facebook.
I believe that if this hate speech issue is not solved on Facebook,
it could become the next Cambridge Analytica,
which could potentially be detrimental for Facebook if they don't invest.
Now, looking at a third way, the self solution,
which is where each of us actually individually take responsibility
for what we post, what we share, what we like online.
And there are three ways this can happen.
Number one is through formal education.
So online curriculum, online training, online safety
being part of the national curriculum.
That's the first way.
The second way is through informal training.
So for people outside of school,
they can be trained by mass awareness programs,
by government on TV, on radio, in newspapers.
That's another way.
And the third way is that we could train people on Facebook itself.
Now, I have to say that Myanmar
is actually making some progress in this regard,
so the Myanmar mobile operator Telenor, for example,
has actually trained 300,000 students on hate speech
and online safety in the last two-and-a-half years,
and this has been done collaborating with the Ministry of Education,
with civil society group MIDO
and with training provider KMD as well.
All four partnering together.
Of course, we also know that online safety is in the national curriculum in the UK,
in Germany, in Singapore, and Sweden for example.
So this is a solution that could work, long-term is probably required,
but because it requires behavioral change,
we have to change the way we think, the way we act.
That takes time, and therefore, it cannot be acting alone.
And last but not least, the civil society solution:
so this is where NGOs work together to actually determine what hate speech is,
and in Myanmar, this has been quite an important part of reducing hate speech.
So there have been a number of campaigns done by civil society.
So the Panzagar campaign by MIDO, for example, is one example.
The Myanmar Institute for Peace and Security
has an online hate speech tracker,
and there's been a lot of media literacy and fact-checking campaigns
organized by civil society as well.
Civil society are very active and they will remain active
I believe going forward.
Oops!
So what's the answer for us in Myanmar?
How can we actually apply the learning from around the world
and create our own solution?
Well, let's use the same framework again.
And as I mentioned, the state solution -
so having laws to regulate hate speech,
maybe it's a little early for that in Myanmar.
But I do think though that Facebook could play a much more prominent role.
They need to hire more content moderators familiar with Myanmar language
and also even the ethnic languages.
The second thing is we need better content moderators:
content moderators that can keep up-to-date
with the way that hate speech is expressed online.
Content moderators that can distinguish clearly
between free speech and hate speech,
and content moderators whose decisions are reviewed regularly,
and as used as a way to train future content moderators as well.
I think that Facebook cannot act alone.
They need to partner closely with civil society,
and civil society can help Facebook spot new trends in hate speech
and also help train and support the content moderators,
so that they work hand in hand.
So that's in the short term.
In the medium term, I mentioned earlier that I believe AI
artificial intelligence,
is a very important part in reducing hate speech.
So with more content moderators, collaboration with civil society,
I believe that these -
decisions made by content moderators
should be used to train the AI of Facebook,
such that posts can be flagged, reviewed, and maybe even taken down one day,
consistently in line with international standards
of freedom of expression,
so that we're not relying on human moderators only.
Because human moderators to moderate -
well, 100 to even 500 content moderators to moderate 20 million people's speech,
it's a bit difficult.
We need a technical solution as well.
In the long term though,
I think hate speech can really only be reduced
if we change the way we think as a people.
And that can be done in two ways I think:
First, I think there should be mandatory online safety training,
including on hate speech on Facebook itself.
New users should be required to actually go to an online safety course
before they use Facebook.
Existing users, like probably you and me,
should take annual recertification in Facebook's Community Guidelines,
which include online safety and hate speech.
And until we complete that recertification,
the account should be locked.
We should be forced to go through this training every year by Facebook, OK?
Second thing is I believe it's important
to have an online safety course in our national curriculum.
With that, I'm pleased to announce that on 12th of July, just last week,
Telenor Myanmar and international NGO Plan International signed an agreement
to explore including online safety in the national curriculum,
together with the Ministry of Education.
We're working on this.
And if it works well, we will be educating
millions of our children every year
on how to be responsible digital citizens online,
avoiding hate speech, and using social media in a positive way.
So I believe that -
platforms, Facebook and its content moderators,
its AI, civil society, educators, all working together
can significantly reduce hate speech, but what about you?
What can you do?
How can you be a part of the solution?
Or have you been a victim of hate speech yourself?
Well, here are four tips to reduce hate speech and what you can do.
The first one's obvious, right?
Avoid hate speech yourself. That's a given.
Secondly, don't share or like any post or comments
that contain hate speech.
Sometimes hate speech can appear as fake news,
as jokes on Facebook as well.
So be careful not to share, not to like, and not to comment on these posts either.
You can also report any instance of hate speech directly to Facebook,
so that their content moderators can review and quickly take down
any hate speech quickly.
And last but not least, if you have been a victim yourself,
you're able to now report to the cybercrime police in Naypyidaw.
They now have about 100 officers that are looking at this issue.
Again, 100 officers for 20 million users.
It's still a bit small, but it's a good start.
But you can also call on them, or alternatively,
report the issue to your local police station as well,
for assistance if you are a victim of hate speech.
Now, I think for this solution,
for hate speech to be reduced in Myanmar long-term,
we all need to be part of this solution, and that starts now.
Thank you so much everyone.
(Applause)