Is Facebook contributing to genocide in Myanmar?
It’s not every day that a country of over 51 million people goes online virtually overnight.
But that’s been the case in Myanmar, which until recently had one of the world’s lowest internet penetration rates but is now largely plugged into the digital age. And as many will attest, Facebook is the internet in Myanmar.
Yet Facebook is also fanning the flames of communal conflict, violence perpetrated by state security forces and others that United Nations officials say qualifies as “crimes against humanity”, “ethnic cleansing” and potentially even “genocide” against the nation’s Muslim Rohingya minority.
Marzuki Darusman, chair of the United Nations’ Independent International Fact-Finding Mission on Myanmar, recently said that Facebook has played a “determining role” in a humanitarian crisis that has seen over 600,000 Rohingya flee across the border into Bangladesh.
“[Facebook] has … substantively contributed to the level of acrimony and dissension and conflict, if you will, within the public. Hate speech is certainly of course a part of that,” he said.
Facebook’s news feed chief Adam Mosseri recently said on a Slate podcast that Facebook is still working toward finding the right approach to the situation in Myanmar. “Connecting the world isn’t always going to be a good thing … We lose some sleep over this.”
http://www.atimes.com/article/facebook-contributing-genocide-myanmar/