April 2020] THE "WEAPONIZATION" OF FACEBOOK 817 corporate governance rules, “rarely think that international criminal law is relevant to their business operations,” in large part due to the lack of enforcement of human rights laws.18 Yet, no one can deny that bad actors in recent years have increasingly utilized platforms like Facebook to engage in behavior that ultimately amount to human rights abuses.19 This raises the question: what legal responsibility, if any, does Facebook have in light of these atrocities? Part I frames the problem of authoritarian regimes’ misuse of social media platforms and categorizes the various tools that autocrats use to transform Facebook into a weapon of disinformation. Part II discusses corporate criminal liability in international law. Extending the theory of corporate complicity to social media companies, Part III argues that courts should apply the “knowledge plus substantial act” standard to social media companies. Part IV further explores that standard using Myanmar as a case study. Lastly, Part V critiques the theory of holding Facebook criminally liable and emphasizes the role of shareholders, employees and civil society organizations to hold social media corporations accountable. I. THE WEAPONIZATION OF FACEBOOK BY AUTOCRATS Since the rise of the Internet in the early 1990s, “the world’s networked population has grown from the low millions to the low billions,”20 now including 81% of the populations of developed countries, 40% percent in developing countries, and 15% in the least developed countries.21 Increased Internet connectivity has empowered users to spread ideas, communicate with likeminded users and organize protests.22 The Internet ushered in a new wave of activism, most notably seen in the Arab Spring.23 In 2011, an activist from Egypt observed the impact of social media on his ability to engage in activism, stating: “We use Facebook to schedule the protests . . . Twitter to coordinate, and YouTube to tell the 18. INT'L COMM'N OF JURISTS, 2 CORPORATE COMPLICITY & LEGAL ACCOUNTABILITY: CRIMINAL LAW REPORT OF THE INTERNATIONAL COMMISSION OF JURISTS EXPERT LEGAL PANEL ON CORPORATE COMPLICITY IN INTERNATIONAL CRIMES 5 (2008). 19. See, e.g., Avi Asher-Schapiro, Youtube and Facebook Are Removing Evidence of Atrocities, Jeopardizing Cases Against War Criminals, INTERCEPT (Nov. 2, 2017, 11:55 AM), https://theintercept.com/2017/11/02/war-crimes-youtube-facebook-syria-rohingya/; Efe Kerem Sozeri, Twitter Is Censoring Turkish Accounts for RTs and Likes, DAILY DOT (Aug. 29, 2016, 8:45 AM), https://www.dailydot.com/layer8/turkey-twitter-retweet-censorship/. 20. Clay Shirky, The Political Power of Social Media: Technology, the Public Sphere, and Political Change, 90 FOREIGN AFF. 28, 28 (2011). 21. Press Release, Int’l Telecomm. Union, ITU Releases 2016 ICT Figures (July 22, 2016), https://www.itu.int/en/mediacentre/Pages/2016-PR30.aspx. 22. YVONNE ROSTECK, HOW GLOBALISATION AND MEDIATISATION CHALLENGE DEMOCRACY 39 (NCCR Democracy ed. 2019). 23. The Arab Spring, HIST., https://www.history.com/topics/middle-east/arab-spring (last updated Jan. 17, 2020). AND INTERNATIONAL CRIMES: