-- PRESS RELEASE -UNDER STRICT EMBARGO UNTIL 00.01 Monday 13 June
Facebook accused of enabling the Rohingya
genocide ahead of formal court proceedings
The UK legal action on behalf of victims and survivors of the Rohingya genocide will
progress today as the victims’ representatives write a formal Letter Before Action accusing
Facebook of playing a determinative role in the genocide. This letter comes in advance of
an anticipated claim seeking damages from the tech giant that, it is alleged, encouraged and
facilitated the violence and ethnic cleansing carried out by the Myanmar regime.
12 June 2022, London, UK
Today representatives of the Rohingya victims of genocide in Myanmar will write to Facebook demanding
information relevant to the anticipated legal claim in the UK courts, in which it will be alleged that
Facebook prioritized “growth and profit over safety” and that this directly led to the brutal suffering of the
Rohingya.
The case, which it is anticipated will ultimately be brought on behalf of tens or hundreds of thousands of
victims (including many of the 1 million+ currently living in the refugee camps in Bangladesh), will argue
that Facebook: breached its duty of care to its users; was “fully aware of the mobilising power” its platform
had and the effects this could cause; and ignored numerous stark warnings of the damage that was
unfolding as a direct result of their business.
The Letter Before Action demands key pre-action disclosure within 6 weeks and a full response within 3
months. It details the immense suffering that the Rohingya have suffered through the acts of genocide and
ethnic cleansing in Myanmar, and also how Facebook – despite being repeatedly put on notice by civil society
and non-governmental organisations - was used over a number of years to spread hate speech and
incitements of violence against this long-persecuted group which culminated in the clearance operations of
2017/2018.
The lawyers anticipate that Facebook will, as in all previous correspondence, attempt to dodge liability by
directing the victims to other Facebook entities in different jurisdictions where it is more difficult/impossible
for the victims to achieve justice (due to technical barriers to such a case being brought in those countries).
However, the letter details the factual and legal grounds that, the Claimants believe, show that this claim
can, and must, be brought in the UK.
Select quotes form the letter include:
“As Adama Dieng, former UN Special Adviser on the Prevention of Genocide, notes, genocides "do not
start with the slayings. [They start] with the dehumanisation of a specific group of persons". It is the
Claimants' case that Facebook played a material role in dehumanising the Rohingya people: the hate
content it actively curated and propagated created an environment in which anti-Muslim sentiment
could evolve into violence and, ultimately, the attempted destruction of the Rohingya people.”
“Facebook provided [the Myanmar military] with a powerful capability to carry out their intent to
harm the Rohingya people, by giving them tools to distort reality, curate and amplify hate speech and
extremist content, create epistemic bubbles that shut Facebook users off from alternative views,