In Myanmar, it’s been well-documented that hate speech shared on Facebook played a role in the murderous campaign targeting the Rohingya community. Social media platforms have been similarly implicated in fanning ethnic violence in Ethiopia, far-right extremism in Europe.
As someone who spent a lot of time in Myanmar in the past 6 years, I saw the country go from near zero internet to 50-60% penetration in a couple of years. The strange thing is that most people don't really use the web - it's all Facebook. The internet, for a vast majority, means Facebook. The way news spreads in Myanmar is gossip and rumours - probably because of very limited press freedom in the past. This combined with some ugly undercurrents of nationalism, extreme poverty (for all ethnicities) in the conflict areas, and decades of poor education, has sometimes turned Facebook into an amplified medium of hate speech.
I don't think Facebook is to be blamed for the violence (it has existed, and still does, in many parts of Myanmar against other ethnic minorities - Karen, Kachin, etc - before Facebook, and without the same amount of press given to Rohingya) but it has most likely amplified the hate speech.
Facebook became available in Myanmar in 2011, but they didn't have anyone who could understand the local languages, so they had no idea what's happening on their own platform. The government and Buddhist nationalists basically overtook Facebook and started fueling the flames against the Rohingya people, which was followed by an ethnic cleansing. More than 700,000 Rohingya had to flee the country, 25,000 were killed and 18,000 women and girls were raped.
Facebook played a determining role in the genocide, which they later admitted. They not only allowed it, they amplified it as their algorithm took hate speech as engagement and started pushing it, basically turning Facebook into the perfect propaganda machine for the Myanmar Armed Forces. It didn't help that by 2016 most Burmese people have considered Facebook as their primary news source.
The genocide of the Rohingya in Myanmar is probable the clearest example, which Facebook has even acknowledged itself[1], after a UN fact-finding mission investigated the relationship between social media and the racist sentiment in the country[2]
"The Mission has examined documents, publications, statements, Facebook posts and audio-visual materials that have contributed to shaping public opinion on the Rohingya and Muslims more generally. The analysis demonstrates that a carefully crafted hate campaign has developed a negative perception of Muslims among the broad population in Myanmar. This campaign has been the work of a few key players: nationalistic political parties and politicians, leading monks, academics, prominent individuals and members of the Government. This hate campaign, which continues to the present day, portrays the Rohingya and other Muslims as an existential threat to Myanmar and to Buddhism"
I'm not even sure I can take the second point in good faith. Violence having decreased compared to historical high points has literally nothing to say on whether social media itself causes violence. Other factors can easily explain an overall decline, which obviously is not uniform. If you live in one of the countries in which social media is used as a means to instigate genocides, I can tell you that more safety in a US city will matter very little to you.
- There was a pre-existing prejudice towards muslims/rohinyga in Burma/myanmar by the dominant Buddhist population.
No , i am 40 years old and before Rohingya crisis we have no hate towards muslim but have to admit we don't even know Rohingya race exist at all . The general populace is very peaceful towards muslim .
- it became easier for anti-muslim voices in Myanmar to spread their message.
The anti-muslim voice are not from civlians , they are from Junta and Hardline Junta who lost power due to democratic transition and the Hardline Party called USDP . So it is political as evident now as their failure and lead to coup.
- Facebook was warned on many occasions that users attributing the violence against Buddhists to Muslims was leading to calls for violence against the Muslim minority, with multiple meetings/discussions by Myanmar and western sources at Facebook hq itself, only for Facebook to not take any action but instead focus on increasing engagement .
Deaths and killing are done by military junta , with and without uniform - to look like civilians and their sponsored grouped called MaBaTha .
It's very telling that you used an obvious strawman like China and didn't see fit to mention Myanmar.
Despite complaints, FB left up numerous pages run by the Myanmar military that spread hate and disinformation against the Rohingya people, of whom thousands have been murdered, and hundreds of thousands have been made refugees. Facebook "eventually" deleted these pages, but well after the damage was done.[0]
"On 6 December 2021, approximately a hundred Rohingya refugees launched a $150 billion lawsuit against Facebook, alleging that it did not do enough to prevent the proliferation of anti-Rohingya hate speech because it was interested in prioritizing engagement."
The widespread killing (and other abuses) of Rohingya is done by the Burmese Army as part of offensives against the independence armies in Rakhine state, not by people who read anti-muslim posts on FB and then go out and murder people. Burmese people (and UN, international press, etc.) aren't even allowed in the areas where the Rohingya crisis is happening! So no Facebook does not have much to do with it. Really.
Not to mention that Myanmar has had serious problems with repression of religious and ethnic minorities for decades. I find it very difficult to believe Facebook is the spark that ignited an already sectarian government in a country with a long history of ethnic persecution.
The sad thing is that the difference between the 'g' and the 'r' in this case is genocide:
> U.N. human rights experts investigating a possible genocide in Myanmar said on Monday that Facebook had played a role in spreading hate speech there.[0]
I live in Myanmar. I started my software company at 2010 , as soon as we gained democracy and here are my take as a citizen and a founder who had gone through various stages of the country.
The article is more about bashing Facebook and its algorithms but the ground situation is not much due to Facebook at all. The main problem is political players are using Racism , Nationalism , Brainwash , Multimedia as a tool to induce instability so they can go back to non-democratic country , just to take back our freedom.
The violence aren't real cause by hatespeech on the Facebook. Sure it increased Racism by a lot but also it leads to find out about truth fast.The actual genocide ware done by the Junta military and Junta assigned thugs who are infused within riots are by a group known as Ma Ba Tha , which was known before as Swan Arr Shin ( Meaning Super Heros) - which ironically used to kill peacefully protesting monks back in 2007 (Saffron Revolution), Now they are known as Pyu Saw Htee who are killing innocent people now regardless of Race or Ethnicity in suspicion of supporting Spring Revolution.
They are Ex Junta , Prisoners , low ranking members from the Rival Hardline Military Party lead by extremist nationalists . They are the one who raze and displaced millions of Rohingyas.
The start of Rohingya crisis :
- At first when the news breakout that innocent girl was raped and killed , the uncensored mutilated body of the underage girl along with caught preps had been posted online who are identified as rohingyas, that is the first time many people had seen violence on the Facebook and it was spread like wild fire , and there was a lot of hate online.
- And then. The MaBaTha movement started ( the group i mentioned above) , goes on ground , spreading the image of the post , they organize and formed other nationalists , and then they started using monks , most of them are military spies robed and planted into there since after Saffron Revolution - as a tool for political play.
- Soon after they started using monks many real Buddhist are shunning away and stop following as soon as they started using Buddhism as a tool for violence which is totally against buddha's ways and it become appearant that is a political play.
- But the riots were organized by military , in Meikhtila case , polices guards the people who burned the whole town to ashes - who are Later Identified as MaBaTha .
So here is take away
- The crisis is totally fuled by junta nad organized by Junta Swann Arr Shin group ( MaBaTha , and now Pyu Saw Htee) (The organized criminal group , members existed since 1988, used again and again in 1988 , De Pe Yin massacre , Saffron Revolution) .
- If there were no Facebook , the Junta would use state owned media and journal outlets and would have the same effect but because of Facebook we have a chance to speak-out , we have a chance to find out truth, report massacres .
- Free Speech is very important for us , for a country who had lost freedom for 70+ Years
- Free Speech and Facebook has to do very little on Rohingya crisis since it is mostly done by the on-ground , organized criminal .
- Facebook Algorithms boost controversial topics that is undeniable
- Rohingya genocide was a military sponsored terrorism it was fueled by Military Junta and hard liners and organized criminal group founded by junta.
- When the crisis had been controlled by Democratic government , the military start to lose power so they stage a coup in 2021
Now situation is a lot worse
The Junta who organized the Rohingya crisis , stage a coup and killed over 5000 innocent civilians of all races and genders , and that had lead to people arming up and fighting against Junta .
Details of which i couldn't say much here , because of safety reasons. Please contact me if you want to know more.
Yeah the article is a bit vague. But the stuff happening in Myanmar eg ‘They Threw My Baby Into a Fire’ [1] helped along by facebook giving platform to people like Wirathu's "Muslims are dogs" type stuff [2] is horrible. Facebook could at least tune their algorithms for more sharing of let's be tolerant and less of let's kill all the outsiders type posts.
Beginning in August 2017, the Myanmar security forces undertook a brutal campaign of ethnic cleansing against Rohingya Muslims. This report is based on an in-depth investigation into Meta (formerly Facebook)’s role in the serious human rights violations perpetrated against the Rohingya. Meta’s algorithms proactively amplified and promoted content which incited violence, hatred, and discrimination against the Rohingya – pouring fuel on the fire of long-standing discrimination and substantially increasing the risk of an outbreak of mass violence. The report concludes that Meta substantially contributed to adverse human rights impacts suffered by the Rohingya and has a responsibility to provide survivors with an effective remedy.
But yes, 2016 is when it hit home.
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