4 The International Journal of Press/Politics 00(0) “free basics” program, which between 2016 and 2017 allowed many cellphone customers to sign up for a free, albeit limited, version of Facebook without using their mobile plan to pay for this service (Lee 2019). By 2017, the ITU (2019) estimated that more than 30 percent of the population had Internet access.6 Because the government retains indirect control of domestic media in Myanmar, it is difficult and dangerous for journalists working in the country to safely criticize the government or report on government violations of human rights. Yet, the government mostly does not regulate the Internet. Violence toward the Rohingya coincided with a proliferation in extreme speech and disinformation appearing on Facebook, much of it targeting Muslims and the Rohingya in particular (McLaughlin 2018). Fink (2018: 46) argues that Facebook’s wide reach, its interactivity, and viral potential created an atmosphere of “heightened anxiety” and that “in at least one case,” a Facebook post appeared to connect directly to mob violence directed at the Rohingya. In 2014, a post appeared on Facebook about an alleged rape of a Buddhist woman by two Muslim men (Fink 2018; McLaughlin 2018). The post about the rape (which turned out to be fabricated) was widely shared, and when a Mandalay-based ultra-nationalist monk named Wirathu7 shared it, it seemed to include a call to action (Fink 2018). Mob violence broke out and two men (one Muslim and the other Buddhist) were killed and twenty others were injured (Fink 2018; McLaughlin 2018). Figure 1 presents a timeline of events leading up to what the United Nations has called “grave crimes” against the Rohingya (United Nations 2018: 322). The conflict escalated in August 2017. At that time, there were more than 150 highly influential accounts, pages, and groups that routinely spread hateful messages against Muslims and the Rohingya, available on Facebook (United Nations 2018). Around this time the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA), a militant group representing the Rohingya, attacked government security posts in Rakhine. The security forces responded with disproportionate and immediate violence (United Nations 2018). The Tatmadaw’s “clearance operations” lasted more than two months and prompted more than 750,000 Rohingya to flee (United Nations 2018: 178). Afterward, members of the U.N. Fact-Finding Mission called both for the investigation and prosecution of members of the Tatmadaw for genocide and crimes against humanity, and for an investigation into the military’s use of Facebook in the spread of hate speech and disinformation (United Nations 2018). What is the media’s role and more specifically, what is Facebook’s role in the Rohingya crisis? According to Lee (2019) and Thu (2019), Myanmar’s state media created an environment where extreme speech targeting the Rohingya on Facebook was tolerated. Government media used slurs like “kalar”8 when referring to Rohingya Muslims in 2012 in their coverage and offered explicit accounts of inter-ethnic violence (e.g., a rape and murder perpetrated by Muslims). This was a significant departure from the historical silence on ethnic conflict, possibly to incite further conflict (Thu 2019). As government media became more hostile toward the Rohingya, other changes were also taking place: Social media became influential, which was a concern to traditional foreign journalists (Lee 2019), and international sources that typically provided a check on national and local perspectives lost influence in the country. Lehmann-Jacobsen (2018) found that the BBC, VOA, and RFA, which offered a pro-Rohingya perspective and