5/22/22, 8:16 PM Is Facebook responsible for Myanmar’s anti-Rohingya violence? | Coconuts A Facebook post (via Twitter) by Myanmar government spokesman Zaw Htay repeats an unsubstantiated claim that ISIS has been supporting the ARSA insurgency. The post is still up. This approach, according to Facebook spokesperson Clare Wareing, includes filtering out direct incitement, promoting media literacy, and encouraging users to report dangerous content. “We allow people to use Facebook to challenge ideas and raise awareness about important issues, but we will remove content that violates our Community Standards,” Wareing told Coconuts. “In Myanmar, we have been working with local communities and non-profits to tackle hate speech and raise awareness of our policies for several years… We are also working to help promote news literacy and recently ran a series of public service ads, developed with the News Literacy Project, to help inform people on Facebook about this important issue.” The company also released a series of Myanmar-language resources to educate users on the dangers of bullying, hate speech, and violent threats. Unfortunately, these safety mechanisms still leave the bulk of the responsibility for correcting misinformation and reporting violence in the hands of users, and few people in Myanmar have taken up this responsibility on behalf of the Rohingya. Promoting standards and literacy have done little to stop Myanmar netizens, including State Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi, her spokesman Zaw Htay, and Commander-in-Chief Min Aung Hlaing, from using https://coconuts.co/yangon/features/facebook-responsible-myanmars-violence-against-rohingya/ 2/11