BSR | Human Rights Impact Assessment: Facebook in Myanmar 3 1. Executive Summary PROJECT OVERVIEW AND METHODOLOGY Facebook commissioned BSR to undertake a human rights impact assessment (HRIA) of the company’s presence in Myanmar. The objectives of the HRIA are to: » » » Identify and prioritize actual and potential human rights impacts, including both risks and opportunities. Recommend an action plan to address the impacts, mitigate the risks, and maximize the opportunities. Build capacity of relevant staff to lead constructive dialogue with rightsholders and stakeholders and to improve management of human rights. BSR undertook this assessment between May and September 2018 using a methodology based on the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (UNGPs). This methodology included a documentation review, direct consultation with around 60 potentially affected rightsholders and stakeholders during two visits to Myanmar by BSR staff, and interviews with relevant Facebook employees. This HRIA was funded by Facebook, though BSR retained editorial control over its contents. ACTUAL AND POTENTIAL HUMAN RIGHTS IMPACTS The question of how social media platforms can respect the freedom of expression rights of users while also protecting rightsholders from harm is one of the most pressing challenges of our time. This challenge is even more testing in Myanmar, where the majority of the population is still developing the digital literacy required to navigate the complex world of information sharing online, and where lack of rule of law and recent political, economic, and social history add to the challenging environment. It is widely recognized that Facebook’s human rights impacts in Myanmar cannot be addressed by Facebook alone, but instead require broader systemwide change. The legal framework in Myanmar is not aligned with international human rights norms and provides insufficient legal protections for Facebook users. Laws governing telecoms services, content restrictions, defamation, and privacy are very ambiguous, and many provisions are available to prosecute users for content shared on Facebook. An uptick in arrests and prosecutions under existing laws, as well as the enactment of new laws with vague provisions and definitions, implies that the state will increasingly police digital communications and infringe on human rights. Moreover, there are deep-rooted and pervasive cultural beliefs in Myanmar that reinforce discrimination and result in interfaith and communal conflict. A minority of users are seeking to exploit Facebook as a platform to undermine democracy and incite offline violence. In this context, BSR prioritizes the following actual and potential human rights impacts based on their severity for rightsholders. It should be noted that, while we have segmented impacts this way in the assessment, these rights are highly interdependent and interrelated, with the improvement or deprivation of one right significantly affecting the others.