Facebook’s latest de-platforming decision removed the infamous “Tatmadaw True News Information
Team,” which was the military’s official Facebook page, and Major General Zaw Min Tun, the military’s
spokesperson. It also included the MRTV and MRTV Live “news” pages. According to Facebook, these pages
repeatedly violated its prohibition on incitement to violence and coordinating harm.
As was locally reported last year, the Tatmadaw set up the “True News” page in June 2020 to provide
“accurate news” ahead of the November election. This factor is crucial for analyzing the present, as the
military has alleged voter fraud as a pretext for the coup. The Tatmadaw has so far attempted to justify its
actions – including the unlawful use of lethal force, arbitrary arrests of protestors, democratically elected
leaders, journalists, and celebrities, shutdown of independent media, and denial of the nationwide calls to
respect the people’s vote – ironically under the guise of protecting “democracy.” The pages most recently
banned by Facebook were used to disseminate the Tatmadaw’s false narrative on election fraud and enabled
it to lay the groundwork for the coup.
One may wonder why the Tatmadaw True News Information Team and Zaw Min Tun were allowed on
Facebook in the first place. Indeed, I asked this question here last year upon the creation of the page. To
recall, Facebook banned Min Aung Hlaing and other generals in 2018 for their involvement in serious
human rights violations in Myanmar. As found by the FFM then, the Rohingya and other ethnic minorities
suffered the brunt of these violations, some of which constituted crimes under international law. As regards
speech that could be expected to incite violence or discrimination, the FFM specifically found that
Facebook, along with other forms of media, “enabled the spread of … hateful and divisive rhetoric”
targeting the Rohingya in a country where, as the FFM observed, “Facebook is the Internet” (para. 1345).
Given the platform’s dominance in the country, the FFM found it “unsurprising that propagators of hate
speech resort[ed] to Facebook to wage hate campaigns, amplify their message, and reach new audiences.”
The platform was also “widely used to spread misinformation … by government officials and the Tatmadaw”
(para. 1346).
As I explained last year, Facebook neither attributed its 2018 de-platforming decision to the 2018 FFM
report or any of its Community Standards, despite the latter supposedly being the governing law on the
platform. Moreover, although select military officials were de-platformed, civilian government officials
equally found by the FFM to have disseminated hate speech against the Rohingya were still allowed to
remain on the platform with apparently little to no consequence. More importantly in the present context,
only select military accounts were permanently suspended rather than the entire military, without any
explanation for this particular strategy. The Tatmadaw television network, Myawaddy, was in fact banned in
2018 but allowed to reappear until banned again in the wake of the coup. It was at least in part as a result of
these gaps that the Tatmadaw was able to set up accounts such as the Tatmadaw True News Information
Team. Even now, Facebook has inexplicably decided to allow at least 23 other pages and profiles “controlled
and/or operated by the Tatmadaw” (without specifying which ones) to continue operating, only opting to
significantly reduce the distribution of their content.
What Is Proportionate?
It is apparent by now that Facebook’s lack of clarity and consistency in its 2018 de-platforming decision has
returned to haunt it in 2021. Both Zaw Min Tun and the Tatmadaw True News Information Team that
Facebook platformed in 2020 figured prominently in the coup that has derailed Myanmar’s fragile path to