12 December 2018

Facebook is among a number of companies from the US, UK, France, Switzerland and China named on a "dirty list" of corporations accused of involvement in human rights and environmental violations in Myanmar, or of doing business with the country's military, which is accused of genocide.

...Burma Campaign UK said Facebook was on the "dirty list" because it had "consistently allowed its platform to be used to incite hatred and violence [against] minorities in Burma, in particular the Rohingya Muslim minority and Muslims in general".

...Burma Campaign UK acknowledged that Facebook had recently taken action to rectify abuse of social media in Myanmar, but in the "dirty list" accused it of not going far enough.

...In a statement to the Guardian, a Facebook spokesperson said: "We have invested heavily in people, technology and partnerships to examine and address the abuse of Facebook in Myanmar. As part of this work, we have detected, investigated and taken action on a variety of abuse, including military-linked abuse.

"We have banned 20 individuals and organisations from Facebook in Myanmar, including Sen Gen Min Aung Hlaing, commander-in-chief of the armed forces, and the military's Myawaddy television network. We have also taken down pages and accounts that were covertly pushing the messages of the Myanmar military."