Newshub18:Facebook must compensate Rohingya: Amnesty.Many Rohingya refugees in the United Kingdom and the United States have filed a lawsuit against the social media platform Facebook seeking $15 billion in damages.They allege that Facebook has created a platform for spreading hatred and hatred against the Rohingya, which has resulted in the death of 10,000 Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar’s military operation, and the displacement of hundreds of thousands of others.
Facebook did not immediately respond to the allegations. The company’s corporate name is now Meta. Facebook is accused of allowing “years of hateful and dangerous misinformation” to spread.A British law firm representing some Rohingya refugees in the UK wrote a letter to Facebook, seen by the BBC. It has been alleged that:
Facebook’s algorithm “fueled hatred against Rohingya”The organization “failed to invest” in hiring moderators and fact checkers who know Myanmar’s political realities.The organization failed to remove posts that incited violence against the Rohingya and to delete related accounts
It failed to take “appropriate and timely action” despite warnings from charities and the media.US lawyers filed a complaint in San Francisco saying Facebook “was willing to sacrifice the lives of the Rohingya community to better penetrate the market of a small Southeast Asian country”.
Reuters investigated the Facebook posts they cited, including one from 2013 that read: “We will resist them as Hitler resisted the Jews”.Another post read: “Put fuel on the fire so they can reach Allah sooner”.There are over 20 million Facebook users in Myanmar. For many people in the country, this social media is the main or only way to get and share news.In 2018, Facebook admitted that it had not done enough to prevent the spread of violence and hatred there.
An independent report commissioned by Facebook earlier said the platform created a “conducive environment” for human rights abuses to spread there.Rohingya are considered illegal immigrants in Myanmar and have been discriminated against by the state for decades.In 2017, Myanmar’s military launched a crackdown on police posts in Rohingya-populated Rakhine state after a deadly attack.
Thousands of Rohingyas were killed in these operations. More than 700,000 Rohingya migrated to neighboring Bangladesh.There have been allegations of widespread human rights violations, indiscriminate killings, rape and arson in Myanmar.
In 2018, the United Nations complained that Facebook was “slow and ineffective” in responding to issues of online hate speech.Facebook is widely protected from liability for content posted by users under US law.But the new complaint filed against Facebook argues that Myanmar law has no such protection and should apply in this case.BBC has asked for comments from Meta in this regard.
Facebook must compensate Rohingyas for spreading hate speech. Hundreds of thousands of Rohingya were forced to leave their homes in Myanmar. Reckless hate speech online fueled the drive to displace them.These things were said in a report of the international human rights organization Amnesty International on Thursday, according to the news agency AFP.
Myanmar’s military targeted the Rohingya Muslim minority in 2017. Many of them migrated to Bangladesh. Since then they have been living in refugee camps.
Victims’ groups and rights activists say Facebook’s algorithm has fueled violence. Algorithms overspread extremist content, which actually encouraged harmful rumors and hate speech.
Many Rohingyas tried to report anti-Rohingya content through Facebook’s ‘report’ function, but to no avail, Amnesty said in the report. These hateful statements have been allowed to spread and reach a large audience in Myanmar.The human rights organization highlighted the issues raised in the controversial ‘Facebook Papers’ published in October 2021.
There were indications that company executives knew the site was involved in spreading harmful content against ethnic minorities and other groups.The Rohingya representatives have filed a total of three cases against Facebook under the Responsible Business Conduct Guidelines with the United States and Britain as well as the OECD Group of Developed Economies.
The US lawsuit was filed last December in the state of California. It is where Facebook and its parent company Meta are headquartered. In that case, the refugees have sought compensation of 15 billion dollars.Facebook has also been called on to proactively take responsible steps to protect human rights across its platform, while national authorities step up their oversight