SHAH ALAM, April 18 — In an experiment, a man acting as an Indonesian migrant asked Malaysians to translate English messages he received on Facebook, with the messages turning out to be hate speech.

When the young Malaysians at the mamak stall took his phone and read the messages, they looked at him sympathetically and were reluctant to translate the messages that read: “Get whoever smuggled you in Malaysia to smuggle you back to your home country” and “Malaysia don’t have enough space for you”.

Instead, the young men told him to ignore the racist messages, with one of them even offering to buy him a meal. Another told him that the message said he was “hardworking” and “handsome”. A third said: “We welcome you to Malaysia”.

The video of the social experiment, which was run by five KDU University and College students for an assignment, has since gone viral and garnered about two million views since its release on March 31.

“Malaysians are generally against racism; that’s what we want to show in the video,” the video producer and director Esmend Lee told Malay Mail Online in an interview yesterday.

The video was filmed at a mamak stall in Klang last month. A hidden camera was used to capture the reactions of those who responded to the man acting as an Indonesian migrant, who told the restaurant patrons that he had just arrived from Indonesia two weeks ago and couldn’t understand the language of the messages he received.

Lee said the team only managed to film the responses of four out of six participants, as one old couple left “disgusted” after just 30 seconds of filming upon reading the messages.

“They were so ashamed that they could not tell it to the guy’s face what the message means,” said the 18-year-old second-year communications student.

Another team member and classmate, Calvin Ng, said the participants appear to be middle-class people, but declined to reveal their ethnicity as he did not want to be “racist”.

Ng told Malay Mail Online that there were already a thousand views by the second day he uploaded the video on his Facebook account.

“Then, others shared it on their Facebook, others at social media and news platforms. As of now, the video got about two million views,” said the 21-year-old.

Lee said he was inspired by Malay Mail Online’s “Are Malaysians racist?” video that was released last September and shot by advertising agency Naga DDB, which he had interned at.

The Malay Mail Online video, which had gone viral, featured a social experiment in which participants were asked but refused to repeat derogatory statements about other races.

The KDU students said they wanted to prove in their video that Malaysians are generally not racist towards migrant workers as some of them grew up being taught not to tolerate racism.

“One time when I was a kid, waiting with my father to buy nasi lemak from a Malay lady and we saw a Chinese saying racist stuff about the Malay lady. My father who was behind her immediately defended the lady,” Lee said.

He, however, acknowledged that a minority of Malaysians “looks down” on migrant workers.

Lee’s team member Hung Shiuh said migrant workers like those who work at mamak stalls should be treated well.

“They came here for a better life. They work there at the mamak, stand there for 12 to 14 hours straight. I felt they do not deserve the respect they should [get]. If they’re gone, who’s going to make your teh tarik for you?” the 21-year-old told Malay Mail Online.