Complicity of Social Media Companies in Inciting Genocide Hakim In Myanmar, the IIFFMM found that Tatmadaw officials used Facebook to execute a systematic campaign to dehumanize the Rohingya.173 Officials actively promoted the narrative that the Rohingya did not exist in Myanmar. For example, on September 1, 2017, one senior official stated “so we openly declare that ‘absolutely, our country has no Rohingya race.’”174 Moreover, officials reinforced the “narrative of the whole Rohingya population being ‘terrorists’ and inherently violent.”175 The IIFFMM also found that “[m]ost of the Myanmar authorities’ posts and communications [ ] directly [fed] the narratives of illegal immigration and Islamic threat.”176 Even if these statements only implicitly dehumanized the Rohingya, the IIFFMM produced evidence that the audience potentially understood the posts as calls for genocide, citing user comments on Tatmadaw posts.177 While further analysis is required to discern whether the Tatmadaw’s campaign constituted direct incitement, an implicit but systematic effort to dehumanize the Rohingya may be sufficient under Streicher and the Media Case, where similar tactics resulted in direct incitement. 178 Finally, a prosecutor must show the alleged inciter had the specific intent to cause genocide. Such intent may be inferred from the circumstances.179 Where a genocide actually occurs, this inquiry may be straightforward, as the genocide itself provides strong evidence of specific intent.180 Nonetheless, the content of the post or the systematic nature of the incitements may also suggest specific intent. International courts are reluctant to find specific intent where the individual merely passed along content developed by another, as evidenced by the acquittals in Fritzsche and the Media Case.181 Accordingly, individuals on social media who merely promote or share inciting content spontaneously, and not as part of some organized campaign, are unlikely to have the specific intent necessary for an incitement conviction. Applying these principles to Myanmar, it may be difficult to show that citizens who shared Tatmadaw Facebook posts, even where the post dehumanized the Rohingya, committed incitement. But if the ICC concludes that 173 174 175 176 177 178 179 180 181 See Detailed Report, supra note 11, at ¶ 1345; Mozur, supra note 165. See Detailed Report, supra note 11, at ¶ 1330. Id. at ¶ 1334. Id. at ¶ 1337. Id. at ¶ 1332. See Benesch, supra note 77, at 509–18. CLICC, supra note 56, at 271 n.272. See Davies, supra note 48, at 255–56. See Prosecutor v. Nahimana, Case No. ICTR 99-52-T, Judgment and Sentence, ¶ 486 (Dec. 3, 2003), http://perma.cc/9PWE-ERDZ; United States v. Streicher, Judgment, 301–03 (Int’l Military Trib. Oct. 1, 1946), http://perma.cc/6JUR-L9TZ. Summer 2020 109