5/22/22, 5:59 PM TIMOTHY MCLAUGHLIN How Facebook’s Rise Fueled Chaos and Confusion in Myanmar | WIRED BACKCHANNEL JUL 6, 2018 7:00 AM How Facebook’s Rise Fueled Chaos and Confusion in Myanmar The social network exploded in Myanmar, allowing fake news and violence to consume a country emerging from military rule. LYDIA ORTIZ/PATRICK RAFANAN T H E R I OTS WO U L D N ’ T have happened without Facebook. On the the evening of July 2, 2014 a swelling mob of hundreds of angry residents gathered around the Sun Teashop filling the streets in the commercial hub of Mandalay, Myanmar’s second-largest city. The teashop’s Muslim owner had been accused, falsely, of raping a female Buddhist employee. The accusations against him, originally reported on a blog, exploded when they made its way to Facebook—by then, synonymous with the internet in Myanmar. Many among the crowd had seen the Facebook post, which was widely shared including by a Mandalay-based ultra-nationalist monk named Wirathu, who has a massive following across the country. As anger rose among the throngs of men, police struggled to disperse the growing crowds, firing rubber bullets and trying to corral rioters into certain sections of the city. Their efforts were largely https://www.wired.com/story/how-facebooks-rise-fueled-chaos-and-confusion-in-myanmar/ 1/16