Complicity of Social Media Companies in Inciting Genocide Hakim as moral or psychological.187 Since this case involves the assistance of business executives, The Zyklon B Case serves as instructive precedent. The social media CEO is most analogous to Bruno Tesch, the owner of the firm in that case.188 There, the Court held that Tesch assisted the Nazis, reasoning that his company provided the Nazis with material means (toxic gas) for the crime’s commission (killing via gas chambers). Similarly, the CEO of a social media company satisfies the actus reus of complicity if he or she provides a platform, the material means, to individuals executing a systematic propaganda campaign which amounts to incitement, the crime. The extent to which the CEO is involved likely bears on the materiality of the contribution. For example, one could imagine a scenario where a CEO delegates authority to expand service to certain countries. This CEO’s contribution to incitement would be less material than the CEO who personally pushes to expand social media services. In the case of Myanmar, publicly available information suggests that Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg falls into the latter camp and may have satisfied the actus reus for complicity. In August 2013, Zuckerberg personally announced an initiative called “Internet.org,” “a plan to make the internet available for the first time to billions of people in developing countries.”189 The CEO unveiled the proposal in a 10page white paper, posted on Facebook.190 Zuckerberg framed the plan as an attempt to make “internet access available to those who cannot currently afford it.”191 Consistent with this initiative, Facebook launched a Myanmar version of the platform in 2015, although a version of the platform had been available years prior. The service quickly attracted millions of users.192 According to the IIFFMM, the “relative unfamiliarity of the population with the Internet and with digital platforms and the easier and cheaper access to Facebook led to a situation in Myanmar where Facebook is the Internet.”193 The IIFFMM further noted that the platform became “a regularly used tool for the Myanmar authorities to reach the public.”194 Several years before 2018, the year Facebook began taking down official accounts, the Tatmadaw launched a systematic campaign which involved “hundreds of military personnel who created troll accounts and news and celebrity 187 188 189 190 191 192 193 194 See Ventura, supra note 120, at 176. See The Zyklon B Case, Case No. 9, 1 Law Reports of Trials of War Criminals at 93. Stecklow, supra note 10. Jessi Hempel, What Happened to Facebook’s Grand Plan to Wire the World?, WIRED (May 17, 2018), http://perma.cc/F4VB-CGWJ. Stecklow, supra note 10. Detailed Report, supra note 11, at ¶ 1345. Id. Id. Summer 2020 111