1 community standards in Burma and other Asian countries, did not hire its first two Burmese 2 speakers, who were based in Manila, until 2015. Former monitors “said they didn’t actually 3 search for hate speech themselves; instead, they reviewed a giant queue of posts mostly reported 4 by Facebook users.” Chris Tun, a Deloitte consultant who had arranged meetings between the 5 Burmese government and Facebook, told Reuters: “Honestly, Facebook had no clue about 6 Burmese content. They were totally unprepared.” 172 7 128. Instead, Facebook tried initially to rely entirely on users to report inappropriate 8 posts. However, “[a]lthough Myanmar users at the time could post on Facebook in Burmese, the 9 platform’s interface – including its system for reporting problematic posts – was in English.”173 10 129. In one case in 2018, Mark Zuckerberg was forced to apologize for exaggerating 11 Facebook’s monitoring capabilities. In an interview with Vox, Zuckerberg cited “one incident 12 where Facebook detected that people were trying to spread ‘sensational messages’ through 13 Facebook Messenger to incite violence on both sides of the conflict” but claimed that “the 14 messages were detected and stopped from going through.”174 In response, a group of activists 15 issued an open letter criticizing Zuckerberg and pointing out that Facebook had not detected the 16 messages; rather, the activists had “flagged the messages repeatedly to Facebook, barraging its 17 employees with strongly worded appeals until the company finally stepped in to help.” 18 Zuckerberg apologized in an email: “I apologize for not being sufficiently clear about the 19 important role that your organizations play in helping us understand and respond to Myanmar- 20 related issues, including the September incident you referred to.” 175 21 22 23 24 25 26 172 Steve Stecklow, Why Facebook is losing the war on hate speech in Myanmar, REUTERS (Aug. 15, 2018), https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/myanmar-facebook-hate/. 173 Id. 174 Jen Kirby, Mark Zuckerberg on Facebook’s role in ethnic cleansing in Myanmar: ‘It’s a real issue’, VOX (Apr. 2, 2018), https://www.vox.com/2018/4/2/17183836/mark-zuckerbergfacebook-myanmar-rohingya-ethnic-cleansing-genocide. Kevin Roose, Paul Mozur, Zuckerberg Was Called Out Over Myanmar Violence. Here’s His Apology, NEW YORK TIMES (Apr. 9, 2018), https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/09/business/facebook-myanmar-zuckerberg.html. 175 27 28 CLASS ACTION COMPLAINT 54 Case No. __________________