On Tuesday, Rohingya refugees in the United States sued Facebook parent Meta Platforms for more than $150 billion over what they say was the company’s failure to stop hateful posts that incited violence against the Muslim ethnic group by Myanmar’s military rulers and their supporters.
Lawyers filed a class-action lawsuit Monday in California saying Facebook’s arrival in Myanmar helped spread hate speech, misinformation and incitement to violence that “amounted to a substantial cause, and eventual perpetuation of, the Rohingya genocide.”
Lawyers in the United Kingdom have issued notice of their intention to file a similar legal action. Facebook, which was recently renamed Meta, did not immediately, reply to a request for comment.
But who are the Rohingya? And why did they file the suit?
Let’s briefly examine this:
The Rohingyas are a Muslim ethnic group forced to flee persecution and violence in Myanmar starting in 2017, with an estimated 1 million living in refugee camps in neighbouring Bangladesh. Some 10,000 have ended up in the United States.
The combined legal claims from Rohingya refugees are being filed on behalf of anyone worldwide who survived the violence or had a relative who died from it.
But why are they suing Facebook?
In 2018, United Nations human rights experts investigating attacks against the Rohingya said Facebook had played a role in spreading hate speech.
More than 10,000 Rohingya have been killed and more than 150,000 were subject to physical violence, according to the law firms organising the cases.
The lawsuits say Facebook’s algorithms amplified hate speech against the Rohingya people and that it didn’t spend enough money to hire moderators and fact checkers who spoke the local languages or understood the political situation.
They also say Facebook failed to shut accounts and pages or take down posts inciting violence or using hate speech directed at the ethnic group.
A Reuters investigation that year, cited in the US complaint, found more than 1,000 examples of posts, comments and images attacking the Rohingya and other Muslims on Facebook. Almost all were in the main local language, Burmese.
The invective included posts calling the Rohingya or other Muslims dogs, maggots and rapists, suggested they be fed to pigs, and urged they be shot or exterminated.
The posts were tolerated in spite of Facebook rules that specifically prohibit attacking ethnic groups with "violent or dehumanising speech" or comparing them to animals.
The Rohingyas' claims were fortified by the revelations in internal company documents that former Facebook employee and whistleblower Frances Haugen provided this fall to Congress and US securities regulators. The documents could also serve to buttress potential legal action by other groups around the world harmed by hate speech and misinformation on Facebook's platform.
Myanmar was among several places mentioned in documents brought to light by Haugen, and reviewed by The AP, that also detailed content-monitoring lapses in Afghanistan, the Gaza Strip, India, and Dubai and the United Arab Emirates.
Years after coming under scrutiny for contributing to ethnic and religious violence in Myanmar, recently revealed internal Facebook documents show the company still has problems defining and moderating hate speech and misinformation on its platform in the country.
It’s the latest in a series of accusations that the social media giant fuelled misinformation and political violence, outlined in redacted internal documents obtained by a consortium of news organizations, including The Associated Press.
What does the lawsuit allege?
Facebook was launched in Myanmar in 2011, arranging for millions of residents to access the internet for the first time, according to the lawsuit filed in California Superior Court for San Mateo County. But the lawsuit says the company did little to warn people about the dangers of online misinformation and fake accounts — tactics employed by the military in its campaign against the Rohingya.
The lawsuit says Facebook knew that rewarding users for posting dangerous content and allowing fake accounts created by autocrats to flourish would radicalise users.
“The resulting Facebook-fueled anti-Rohingya sentiment motivated and enabled the military government of Myanmar to engage in a campaign of ethnic cleansing against the Rohingya,” the lawsuit says.
Another youth-led group of Rohingya based at a refugee camp in Bangladesh says it is planning to file a separate complaint against Meta in Ireland on Thursday. It's not a lawsuit but a formal complaint with the watchdog Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development calling for the company to provide some remediation programs in the camps.
What does Facebook say?
Facebook in its statement Tuesday said it is appalled by the crimes committed against the Rohingya people in Myanmar and has built a team of Burmese speakers and invested in technology to take action against harmful misinformation there.
As per the BBC, Facebook admitted in 2018 that it had not done enough to prevent the incitement of violence and hate speech against the Rohingya.
With inputs from agencies
Read all the Latest News, Trending News, Cricket News, Bollywood News,
India News and Entertainment News here. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
0 Comments: