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Rohingya sue Facebook for £150bn over Myanmar genocide
Victims in US and UK legal action accuse social media firm of
failing to prevent incitement of violence
Dan Milmo Global technology correspondent
Mon 6 Dec 2021 17.03 GMT
Facebook’s negligence facilitated the genocide of Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar after the social media
network’s algorithms amplified hate speech and the platform failed to take down inflammatory posts,
according to legal action launched in the US and the UK.
The platform faces compensation claims worth more than £150bn under the coordinated move on both
sides of the Atlantic.
A class action complaint lodged with the northern district court in San Francisco says Facebook was
“willing to trade the lives of the Rohingya people for better market penetration in a small country in southeast Asia.”
It adds: “In the end, there was so little for Facebook to gain from its continued presence in Burma, and the
consequences for the Rohingya people could not have been more dire. Yet, in the face of this knowledge,
and possessing the tools to stop it, it simply kept marching forward.”
A letter submitted by lawyers to Facebook’s UK office on Monday says clients and their family members
have been subjected to acts of “serious violence, murder and/or other grave human rights abuses” as part
of a campaign of genocide conducted by the ruling regime and civilian extremists in Myanmar.
It adds that the social media platform, which launched in Myanmar in 2011 and quickly became
ubiquitous, aided the process. Lawyers in Britain expect to lodge a claim in the high court, representing
Rohingya in the UK and refugees in camps in Bangladesh, in the new year.
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2021/dec/06/rohingya-sue-facebook-myanmar-genocide-us-uk-legal-action-social-media-violence
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