10. CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS “I’m afraid that Facebook has now turned into a beast, and not what it originally intended” Yanghee Lee, UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Myanmar, 2018370 CONCLUSION This report, based on a thorough investigation of Meta’s role in serious human rights abuses perpetrated against the Rohingya in Northern Rakhine State in 2017, has firmly established that the company substantially contributed to these harms and, therefore, has a corresponding responsibility to provide an effective remedy to affected communities. In a context where the Rohingya had faced decades of systematic oppression, violence, and discrimination, Meta’s dereliction of its responsibility to conduct appropriate human rights due diligence helped to create an enabling environment for an outbreak of mass violence against the Rohingya. The company’s reality-warping algorithms actively amplified and promoted harmful content, including content which incited violence and discrimination against the Rohingya, and delivered this content directly to those most likely to act up such incitement. At the same time, the company consistently failed to act upon the repeated warnings it received from civil society stating that it risked contributing to mass violence in Myanmar, and instead allowed content targeting the Rohingya to run rampant on its platform. Meta’s reckless business practices in Myanmar lit a match amidst a tinderbox of simmering ethnic tensions, and it ultimately substantially contributed to the litany of severe human rights abuses suffered by the Rohingya. For the Rohingya, one of the most historically marginalized and oppressed minority groups in the world, Facebook indeed became a ‘beast’. Meta’s response to these atrocities has only added insult to injury. The company’s presentation of itself a passive and neutral platform which was ‘misused’ by other actors is a clear attempt to deflect from the company’s active contribution to spreading and amplifying harmful content including advocacy of hatred and violence. The company’s attempt to characterize Rohingya communities’ efforts to secure a remedy from the company as requests for “philanthropy” is equally problematic and represents another attempt to evade responsibility. Although Meta has improved some aspects of its content moderation and community engagement in Myanmar, these reforms fail to provide guarantees of non-repetition through addressing the 370 BBC, “UN: Facebook has turned into a beast in Myanmar”, 13 March 2018, bbc.co.uk/news/technology-43385677 THE SOCIAL ATROCITY META AND THE RIGHT TO REMEDY FOR THE ROHINGYA Amnesty International 70