{"id":3889,"date":"2018-04-11T13:17:59","date_gmt":"2018-04-11T06:47:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/equalitymyanmar.org\/new-eng\/?p=3889"},"modified":"2026-01-28T10:58:41","modified_gmt":"2026-01-28T04:28:41","slug":"when-facebook-becomes-the-beast-myanmar-activists-say-social-media-aids-genocide","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/equalitymyanmar.org\/?p=3889","title":{"rendered":"When Facebook becomes \u2018the beast\u2019: Myanmar activists say social media aids genocide"},"content":{"rendered":"

By\u00a0Euan McKirdy<\/a>, CNN<\/span><\/p>\n

Updated 0005 GMT (0805 HKT) April 7, 2018<\/p>\n

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(CNN)<\/cite>As tens of millions of Americans come to grips with revelations that data from Facebook may have been used to sway the 2016 presidential election, on the other side of the world, rights groups say hatemongers have taken advantage of the social network to widely disseminate inflammatory, anti-Muslim speech in Myanmar.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

The rhetoric is aimed almost exclusively at the disenfranchised Rohingya Muslim minority, a group which has been the target of a sustained campaign of violence and abuse by the Myanmar military, which claims it is targeting terrorists.<\/div>\n
Human rights activists inside the country and out tell CNN that posts range from recirculated news articles from pro-government outlets, to misrepresented or faked photos and anti-Rohingya cartoons.<\/div>\n
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A Rohingya refugee looks out from a school window at Kutupalong refugee camp in Bangladesh\u2019s Ukhia district.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
In response to the flood of hate-filled posts, a cross-Myanmar group of tech firms and NGOs has written\u00a0an open letter<\/a>\u00a0to Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, lambasting what they term the \u201cinadequate response of the Facebook team\u201d to escalating rhetoric on the platform in Myanmar.<\/div>\n
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Impact of Myanmar misinformation on refugees<\/span>\u00a001:45<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
Citing conversations the group says it unearthed on Facebook\u2019s Messenger service, which issue calls to arms against Muslims over a fabricated \u201cjihad\u201d planned for September 2017, it stated that the examples show \u201cclear examples of (Facebook) tools being used to incite real harm.<\/div>\n
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Facebook Messenger conversations, screenshotted and included with an open letter to Mark Zuckerberg from Myanmar tech companies.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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\u201cFar from being stopped, they spread in an unprecedented way, reaching country-wide and causing widespread fear and at least three violent incidents in the process.\u201d<\/div>\n
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The letter cited an interview\u00a0Zuckerberg did with Vox\u2019s Ezra Klein<\/a>, in which he said Facebook\u2019s \u201csystems detected\u201d the hate speech. The letter surmised that by \u201csystems\u201d Zuckerberg meant the signatories of the letter \u2014 third party vendors in Myanmar which, the letter admits, were \u201cfar from systematic\u201d in their detection of hate speech.<\/div>\n
Calling it \u201cthe opposite of effective moderation,\u201d the group also chided Facebook for what it called a lack of proper mechanisms for emergency escalation, a reticence to engage local stakeholders and a lack of transparency.<\/div>\n
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Zuckerberg told Vox hate speech is \u201ca real issue, and we want to make sure that all of the tools that we\u2019re bringing to bear on eliminating hate speech, inciting violence, and basically protecting the integrity of civil discussions that we\u2019re doing in places like Myanmar, as well as places like the US that do get a disproportionate amount of the attention.\u201d<\/div>\n
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Young men browse Facebook on their smartphones as they sit in a street in Yangon.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Sudden surge<\/h3>\n<\/div>\n
New research suggests Facebook played a key role as extremists sought to escalate the conflict in Myanmar.<\/div>\n
Data analyst Raymond Serrato looked at posts from Myanmar citizens over the course of 2017, determining that there was a massive spike in hate-speech posts following an August military campaign in the country\u2019s western Rakhine state, home to the majority of the country\u2019s Rohingya.<\/div>\n
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The campaign was initially sparked when an insurgent group, the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army, called for an uprising \u2014 one which was easily quelled by the government.<\/div>\n
The failed attempt led to the large-scale purge, which the UN has called \u201cethnic cleansing,\u201d and a subsequent refugee crisis, which has seen 700,000 Rohingya forced from their homes and across the border into neighboring Bangladesh. Myanmar denies the intentional killing of civilians, and insists that operations targeted terrorists.<\/div>\n
Serrato said he was \u201csurprised by the intensity\u201d and frequency of the anti-Rohingya posts.<\/div>\n
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\u201cIn August, when ARSA called on the Rohingya to rise up, (we were) surprised by the speed at which (anti-Rohingya voices) weaponized social media.\u201d<\/div>\n
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Facebook has \u2018turned into a beast\u2019<\/h3>\n<\/div>\n
In March, Facebook was accused by the UN of \u201csubstantively\u201d contributing to the \u201clevel of acrimony\u201d against Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar.<\/div>\n
Marzuki Darusman, the chair of a United Nations probe into human rights in Myanmar, said \u201chate speech and incitement to violence on social media is rampant, particularly on Facebook\u201d and largely \u201cgoes unchecked.\u201d<\/div>\n
His colleague, the UN special rapporteur on human rights in Myanmar, Yanghee Lee, added that \u201cwe know ultra-nationalist Buddhists\u2026 are really inciting a lot of violence and a lot of hatred against the Rohingya or other ethnic minorities.<\/div>\n
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\u201cI\u2019m afraid that Facebook has now turned into a beast, and not what it originally intended\u201d to be, she said.<\/div>\n
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UN official says Rohingya crisis has \u2018hallmarks of genocide\u2019<\/span>\u00a003:57<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Instrument of \u2018hate and racism\u2019<\/h3>\n<\/div>\n
Human rights activist Zarni, who like some in the country, goes by only one name, told CNN the platform is neutral, but \u201cwhat is toxic is the state. (Lee) said Facebook has turned into a beast, (but in fact) the beasts are using Facebook.\u201d<\/div>\n
He says the main provocateurs are \u201coperating in very powerful institutions \u2014 the military and monastic networks; the two major pillars of Burmese society.\u201d Among the offenders, at least until his ban from the platform, was the infamous ultra-nationalist monk Wirathu.<\/div>\n
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Controversial Myanmar monk Wirathu speaking during an interview at a monastery in Myanmar\u2019s second biggest city of Mandalay.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
In 2015, he told CNN<\/a>\u00a0that Muslims \u201ctake many wives and they have many children. And when their population grows they threaten us.\u201d \u201cAnd,\u201d he concluded, \u201cthey are violent.\u201d<\/div>\n
Thaw Parka, a spokesman for Ma Ba Tha, a Buddhist nationalist group associated with the controversial monk, says critics \u201ccherry pick (Wirathu\u2019s) extreme words.\u201d<\/div>\n
A Facebook spokesperson told Reuters it suspends and sometimes removes anyone that \u201cconsistently shares content promoting hate,\u201d in response to a question about Wirathu\u2019s account.<\/div>\n
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Others are not letting the social media giant off the hook. It would be \u201csuperficial\u201d to \u201cignore the conflict between ethnicities,\u201d Serrato says, \u201cbut Facebook has definitely facilitated it.\u201d<\/div>\n
Jes Kaliebe Petersen, CEO of Myanmar-based startup accelerator Phandeeyar, says while there is a lot of racist content shared on the platform, \u201cthere are also moderate voices that are doing good work not only countering this but spreading moderate narrative, but \u201cget drowned out.\u201d<\/div>\n
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New users, new problems<\/h3>\n<\/div>\n
Myanmar\u2019s relative callowness in engaging online is part of the reason the rhetoric has exploded, and been so influential.<\/div>\n
The country experienced a \u201cdigital leapfrog effect,\u201d says Petersen. \u201cUntil 2014, there was less than 5% mobile phone penetration, but overnight, SIM cards were offered for (as little as) $1.50,\u201d allowing a much greater number of people to buy smartphones.<\/div>\n
Myanmar has a \u201cwhole new generation of internet users, just coming to terms with what you can do online,\u201d he says.<\/div>\n
Facebook\u2019s ubiquity in the country \u2014 the UN\u2019s Darusman says, in Myanmar, \u201csocial media is Facebook, and Facebook is social media\u201d \u2014 only serves to multiply hate speech\u2019s virality.<\/div>\n
Activist Sein Thein says the burden of responsibility for the online rhetoric should not fall entirely on Facebook\u2019s shoulders, and that Myanmar\u2019s citizens \u201cneed to be mature\u201d when they are online.<\/div>\n
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Facebook: We\u2019re combating hate<\/h3>\n<\/div>\n
In order to combat the platform being used for hate speech against the Muslim minority, Facebook said it has \u201cinvested significantly in technology and local language expertise\u201d in Myanmar following the UN accusations.<\/div>\n
\u201cThere is no place for hate speech or content that promotes violence on Facebook, and we work hard to keep it off our platform,\u201d a spokesperson told CNN.<\/div>\n
The spokesperson said the company has worked with experts in Myanmar for several years to produce a community standards page for Myanmar \u201cand regular training sessions for civil society and local community groups across the country.\u201d<\/div>\n
It is hard for Facebook to monitor the rise of hate speech in the country, Petersen says, partly due to language difficulties.<\/div>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s an intention to enforce them but it\u2019s not being followed.\u201d Petersen says his company, Phandeeyar, helped Facebook translate its community standards into Burmese.<\/div>\n
In response to the March UN accusations, Myanmar government spokesman Zaw Htay said his government and Facebook are \u201cpromoting cooperation and coordination for the Myanmar people to understand the community standards of Facebook.\u201d<\/div>\n
On Facebook he said supporters of the Rohingya were also using social media to \u201cspread\u2026 disinformation around the world.\u201d<\/div>\n
The group that sent the open letter to Zuckerberg, co-signed by Phandeeyar, urged the tech mogul \u201cto invest more into moderation \u2014 particularly in countries, such as Myanmar, where Facebook has rapidly come to play a dominant role in how information is accessed and communicated.\u201d<\/div>\n
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Long history<\/h3>\n<\/div>\n
Zarni says the country has a \u201clong ideological tradition by which genocides are acceptable,\u201d which can partially be explained by support of the enemies of the then-British empire, including the Nazis, in resistance to British rule in the 1930s and 40s.<\/div>\n
\u201cI came from that society, I grew up with it. In the 1930s, we were quoting Hitler left and right in Burma,\u201d he said, using the colonial-era name for the country.<\/div>\n
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Activist: This is a genocide\u00a0<\/span>01:45<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\u201cWhat really has emboldened the Burmese public behavior in terms of their social media interactions is the military \u2014 the military has taken up an entirely new function, it\u2019s not only the (defense of what it sees as its) territory, but defense of culture, society, religion and race.\u201d<\/div>\n
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Silence condemned<\/h3>\n<\/div>\n
The country\u2019s de facto leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, has been criticized for her silence in the face of the country\u2019s treatment of the minority.<\/div>\n
\u201cShe will not do anything (to defend the Rohingya) \u2014 she struggled more than 15 years to get this position,\u201d Rohingya rights defender Nay San Lwin says.<\/div>\n
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Bill Richardson: Myanmar\u2019s Suu Kyi \u2018has changed\u2019<\/span>\u00a008:30<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\u201cShe will never speak for any minority. If she (sympathizes with) the oppressed people, she will lose her position. She\u2019s never been a human rights defender, she\u2019s a politician.\u201d<\/div>\n
Suu Kyi and her supporters meanwhile have accused the international press of exaggerating the crisis and constructing a \u201chuge iceberg of misinformation\u201d which is negatively affecting her ability to run the country.<\/div>\n
However in September 2017 she acknowledged the issue, saying her administration also wanted to \u201cfind out what the real problems were,\u201d\u00a0according to<\/a>\u00a0the Financial Times, and agreed to implement the recommendations of the UN-led Rakhine Advisory Commission.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

CNN\u2019s Angus Watson and Bex Wright contributed to this report.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By\u00a0Euan McKirdy, CNN Updated 0005 GMT (0805 HKT) April 7, 2018 (CNN)As tens of millions of Americans come to grips with revelations that data from Facebook may have been used to sway the 2016 presidential election, on the other side of the world, rights groups say hatemongers have taken advantage of the social network to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3890,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3889","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/equalitymyanmar.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3889","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/equalitymyanmar.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/equalitymyanmar.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/equalitymyanmar.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/equalitymyanmar.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3889"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/equalitymyanmar.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3889\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3891,"href":"https:\/\/equalitymyanmar.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3889\/revisions\/3891"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/equalitymyanmar.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/3890"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/equalitymyanmar.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3889"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/equalitymyanmar.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3889"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/equalitymyanmar.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3889"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}