Conflict between Buddhists and Muslims throughout Myanmar in the past three years has led to casualties, forced people from their homes and stirred political battles. These episodes of violence are fueled, in part, by anti-Muslim rumors, misinformation and inflammatory accusations spread through social media.  USIP works on a range of initiatives with government officials in Naypyidaw, religious leaders and organizations, and the media to address the root drivers of these conflicts. One area of focus is preventing and mitigating the rhetoric that incites prejudice and violence.

Last month in the former capital Yangon, civil society participants from across the country, including key religious figures, worked with local and international technology experts to develop 13 solutions to identify, monitor and counter dangerous speech used  to instigate violence. USIP has set aside almost $200,000 in grant funding to support the implementation of the collaborative projects that were designed as part of this exchange.

The three-day PeaceTech Exchange (PTX), held in the newly-formed Sule Tech collaboration space, connected more than 120 civil society leaders from all regions of Myanmar with 25 local and international technologists, with the aim of developing localized innovations to address dangerous speech. The PeaceTech Lab, an initiative of USIP that recently became a separate organization, co-hosted the PTX with the Myanmar ICT for Development Organization (MIDO) and Phandeeyar, an innovation lab fostering the country’s tech community.

In the country’s transition to representative democracy after five decades of military rule, leaders and citizens have struggled to address long-standing and emerging internal conflicts. Ongoing clashes between ethnic and religious groups have cast doubt on the progress achieved through reform, and the violence jeopardizes the general elections set to take place later this year.

“In Myanmar today, even if we are not shooting each other with guns, we are shooting each other with words,” Nay Phone Latt, a Burmese blogger and activist, told participants as the PeaceTech Exchange kicked off.  “We are all here today because we want peace.”

Latt is a former political prisoner in Myanmar, also known by its previous name Burma, and recipient of the PEN/Barbara Goldsmith Freedom to Write Award. He participated in the event as a technology trainer and featured speaker.

Technology precedents

The easing of technology restrictions and the expansion of internet and mobile services has allowed 51 million Burmese to go online for the first time. As access to the internet and mobile phones increases from less than 10 percent of the population to the more than 70 percent predicted in the near future, many important questions arise regarding the impact of this technology on the country’s transition.

Media, and particularly social media, have proven powerful vehicles for amplifying and spreading inflammatory speech, such as Buddhist sermons promoting anti-Muslim views. In addition, false information and rumors – especially when amplified through these mass communication channels –have a powerful impact, escalating tensions between communities.

Yet the spread of new technologies in Myanmar, which provides unprecedented access to media channels, also give Burmese citizens great opportunities to counter dangerous speech, promote respect for and celebration of Myanmar’s rich diversity, and positive relations among various groups.

PeaceTech Exchanges are highly interactive, small-group discussions that provide a forum for local and international technologists to help civil society organizations harness low-cost, easy-to-implement technologies to build capacity and better achieve their mission. A similar series of PeaceTech Exchanges in Iraq has trained 180 different civil society organizations in tools to help them better communicate and organize in their efforts to promote better government.

PTX Myanmar brought together organizations and entities working to address dangerous speech -- non-governmental organizations working with interfaith groups, for example, as well as inter-ethnic groups, educational institutions, monks, youth activists and community groups , many longtime partners of USIP’s Burma program -- to devise, learn and use a range of online and low-tech approaches.

'Speedgeeking'

In one session, 16 technology trainers engaged in a round-robin storytelling called “Speedgeeking,” in which small groups of participants gathered around and rotated to a new technologist every 5 minutes.

Nanjira Sambuli, of iHub in Nairobi, Kenya, told the story of Umati, a platform for monitoring dangerous speech in Kenya. Rahul Batra from Bindez, a Burmese search-engine company focused on natural-language processing, showed how their technology is being used to improve mobile access to news in Myanmar.

Next, 12 simultaneous sessions provided practical, hands-on training on topics such as identification and monitoring of dangerous speech online, digital storytelling, low-tech approaches to project design, and development of counter-narratives on Facebook.

After the technology sessions, civil society participants discussed challenges surrounding dangerous speech in Myanmar. They included faith-based and inter-ethnic tensions, inter-communal violence, the spread of misinformation and dangerous speech in the mainstream media, as well as the influence of international media. This led to a brainstorming exercise that identified more than 20 problems dealing with dangerous speech that technology potentially could address.

Day two involved a “visioning session” to develop key themes for dangerous speech, followed by sessions to form project teams that would devise solutions using technology.

Monitoring, countering dangerous speech

Participants produced proposals for 13 different collaborative projects that use low-cost innovative technology approaches to monitor and counter dangerous speech online and offline. Most of the projects linked participants from rural areas with NGOs working in either Mandalay or Yangon.

Project titles included:

• Online dangerous speech monitoring
• Countering dangerous speech in remote areas of Myanmar
• Spreading Peace messages online and offline
• Security for observers and monitors of online incidents of dangerous speech
• Educating youth for tolerance on other religions
• Educating extremists about human rights

On Day 3, USIP’s grants officer, Steven Riskin, led a workshop for the project teams on project design and development and how to apply for grants. 

The PTX concluded by working with the project teams to set up their project-management process in preparation for developing their grant proposals. Because so many of the projects involved civic groups from both remote areas and big cities, most of the teams opted to use the mobile platform, Viber, a popular mobile platform, as their primary means of collaborating.

USIP staff in the country will work with the civic groups in the next few months as they transform their project descriptions into grant applications. These efforts will feed into and support USIP’s wider efforts to provide civil society and government sectors with the tools to manage violence, promote inter-communal harmony, and support peace and reform efforts.