April 2020] THE "WEAPONIZATION" OF FACEBOOK 835 The role that civil society organizations played in informing Facebook directly about the misuses of its platform sets the situation in Myanmar apart. According to various reporting sources, numerous organizations personally alerted Facebook to the growing misuse as early as 2012.180 In 2013, Aela Callan, an Australian documentary filmmaker who began a project on hate speech between Buddhists and Rohingya, met with Elliott Schrage, Facebook Vice President of Communications and Public Policy.181 Callan informed Schrage about the hate speech and fake user pages that were pervasive in Myanmar.182 A year later, Callan returned to Facebook with other Burmese civil society organizations to raise the same issues.183 Facebook executives told Callan that the company was addressing the issue and hired one Burmese speaker based in Dublin.184 David Madden, a tech entrepreneur, also claimed that he told Facebook officials in 2015 that its platform was being exploited in Myanmar during a presentation at Facebook headquarters.185 To Facebook’s credit, Mia Garlick, Facebook’s Asia Director met with technology organizations in Myanmar in July 2014 as part of a panel discussion between technology companies, civil society organizations, and the Myanmar government.186 During the discussion, Garlick promised to speed up the translation of User Guidelines and Facebook’s Code of Conduct by September 2015.187 While the flagged content itself does not show that Facebook had knowledge of the Tatmadaw’s use of its platform, the numerous warnings by civil society organizations affirmatively supports the fact that Facebook knew about the perpetration of war crimes and genocide through the Tatmadaw’s use of Facebook, and yet, did not act. Warnings of platform misuse were reported as early as 2013, four years before the “clearance operation” that led to grave human rights abuses and genocide.188 The flagged content and warnings furnished sufficient information to Facebook executives that the Tatmadaw were disseminating violent hate speech on its platform. Facebook officers’ actions addressing some of the concerns coupled with their decision to continue to provide services in the absence of an effective solution aimed at controlling the dissemination of hate speech shows Facebook knew of the flagged activity, yet consciously ignored it. 180. Stecklow, supra note 145. 181. Id. 182. Olivia Solon, Facebook’s Failure in Myanmar is the Work of a Blundering Toddler, GUARDIAN (Aug. 16, 2018, 5:00 PM), https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/aug/16/facebook-myanmar-failureblundering-toddler. 183. Id. 184. Stecklow, supra note 145. 185. Id. 186. Timothy McLaughlin, How Facebook’s Rise Fueled Chaos and Confusion in Myanmar, WIRED (July 6, 2018, 7:00 AM), https://www.wired.com/story/how-facebooks-rise-fueled-chaos-and-confusion-inmyanmar/. 187. Id. 188. Stecklow, supra note 145.