enhanced responsibility to conduct comprehensive due diligence through processes that were capable of capturing unpredictable as well as rapid changes in risks.318 As outlined in detail in Section 7.1, following Meta’s market entry into Myanmar, the company received repeated warnings from civil society activists that it risked contributing to an outbreak of mass violence, and repeatedly failed to act upon them, including several specific instances prior to 2017 where the company’s platform was used to spread harmful content including advocacy of hatred against the Rohingya, resulting in ethnic violence. These repeated warnings and interventions mean that Meta either knew or should have known about the potential human rights harms which it risked contributing to in Myanmar. As noted in Chapter 4, Meta had a responsibility to engage in ongoing human rights due diligence in respect of its business activities in Myanmar, encompassing a responsibility to draw upon “internal and/or independent external human rights expertise” and engage in “meaningful consultation with potentially affected groups and other relevant stakeholders”.319 However, Meta’s engagement with local civil society and human rights experts in Myanmar was generally reactive in nature, and these stakeholders consistently described the inadequacy of Meta’s engagement prior to 2017 (as detailed in Section 7.1). Amnesty International asked Meta whether the company carried out human rights due diligence related to the company’s presence in Myanmar between 2011 and 2017. Meta did not provide any information because the company is “currently engaged in litigation proceedings in relation to related matters”. 320 8.3 META’S FAILURE TO EFFECTIVELY MITIGATE HUMAN RIGHTS RISKS To fulfil its responsibility to respect human rights, Meta had a responsibility to “[a]void causing or contributing to adverse human rights impacts through their own activities" and to “seek to prevent or mitigate adverse human rights impacts that are directly linked to their operations, products or services by their business relationships, even if they have not contributed to those impacts.”321 Meta persistently failed to take adequate action aimed at preventing harm and mitigating human rights risks in response to repeated warnings from civil society and human rights experts between 2012 and 2017. The minor steps it took in 2014 – such as supporting the civil society-led ‘flower speech sticker pack’ and translating its community standards into Burmese – did not seek to address the amplification of harmful content, and were ultimately negligible in their impact. As noted in Section 5.3, the flower speech stickers may have even further amplified harmful content, including advocacy of hatred against the Rohingya, on the Facebook platform. There are numerous actions which Meta could have taken to prevent the dissemination and amplification of advocacy of hatred against the Rohingya and other anti-Rohingya content. In recent years, Meta has developed so-called ‘Break the Glass’ (BTG) measures intended for deployment in critical emergencies. BTG measures – referred to as ‘levers’ in internal company documents – effectively switch off, or at least significantly reduce, the amplifying power of Meta’s engagement-centric algorithms.322 The existence of these measures appears to be based on a tacit acknowledgement that Meta’s content-shaping algorithms can promote divisiveness and inflammatory content. The company has deployed BTG measures in the U.S. on at least two occasions – the 2020 Presidential elections, and the 6 January 2021 riots in Capitol Hill. 323 BTG measures are short-term by nature; once the peak of a given crisis is perceived to have passed, the levers are switched back on and normal service for Meta’s algorithms resumes. It is highly questionable Farhad Manjoo, “Facebook Use Polarizing? Site Begs to Differ”, 7 May 2015, The New York Times, nytimes.com/2015/05/08/technology/facebook-study-disputes-theory-of-political-polarization-among-users 318 319 UN Guiding Principles, Principle 18. 320 Meta, Letter to Amnesty International, 31 May 2022, on file with Amnesty International. UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (UNOHCHR), ‘Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights: Implementing the United Nations “Protect, Respect and Remedy” Framework’, 2011, UN Doc HR/PUB/11/04, Principle 13 including Commentary, ohchr.org/Documents/Publications/GuidingPrinciplesBusinessHR_EN.pdf 321 See: Donie O’Sullivan, “Not stopping 'Stop the Steal:' Facebook Papers paint damning picture of company's role in insurrection”, CNN, 24 October 2021, edition.cnn.com/2021/10/22/business/january-6-insurrection-facebook-papers/index.html 322 See: Donie O’Sullivan, “Not stopping 'Stop the Steal:' Facebook Papers paint damning picture of company's role in insurrection”, CNN, 24 October 2021, edition.cnn.com/2021/10/22/business/january-6-insurrection-facebook-papers/index.html 323 THE SOCIAL ATROCITY META AND THE RIGHT TO REMEDY FOR THE ROHINGYA Amnesty International 61