BSR | Human Rights Impact Assessment: Facebook in Myanmar 33 6. Actual and Potential Human Rights Impacts 6.1 DEFINITIONS AND METHODOLOGY BSR’s assessment identified actual and potential human rights impacts of Facebook in Myanmar, including both risks and opportunities. Actual and potential impacts are defined as follows: » Actual impacts are defined in the UNGPs as impacts that have already occurred. In this HRIA, BSR has listed actual impacts as overall impact categories of known impact, such as privacy, freedom of expression, and nondiscrimination. » Potential impacts are defined by the UNGPs as human rights risks and adverse impacts that might occur in the future. In this HRIA, BSR has listed several detailed human rights risks for each actual impact category; however, given the power of the internet to support the realization of human rights, we have also listed human rights opportunities. It should be noted that these risks are impacts that might occur and are not necessarily facts or current practice observed during the assessment. Companies are expected to address their actual adverse human rights impacts through remediation and their potential adverse impacts through prevention or mitigation. However, while companies are expected to address all their adverse human rights impacts, it is not always possible to address them simultaneously. For this reason, and consistent with principles 14 and 24 of the UNGPs, we have prioritized human rights risks, based the severity of the impact. Severity is judged by: » » » Scope—How many people could be affected by the harm/opportunity? Scale—How serious are the impacts for the victim? Remediability—Will a remedy restore the victim to the same or equivalent position before the harm? It is also important to consider a range of other factors that will implement the prevention and mitigation strategies Facebook can deploy. First, we have considered the likelihood of the potential impact on rightsholders occurring in the next five years. When judging the likelihood of an impact occurring, BSR considered the human rights context in Myanmar, whether these impacts have happened in the past or are happening today, and the presence of relevant Facebook policies, processes, and procedures. Second, and in line with Principle 19 of the UNGPs, we considered whether Facebook is connected to the human rights impact in any of the following ways: » » Caused the impact, in which case the company should take the necessary steps to cease or prevent the impact. Contributed to the impact, in which case the company should take the necessary steps to cease or prevent its contribution and use its leverage to mitigate any remaining impact to the greatest extent possible.