9/24/21, 8:16 PM Why Facebook is losing the war on hate speech in Myanmar  MARKET PENETRATION: The sun rises behind the entrance sign to the Facebook headquarters in Menlo Park, California, in 2012, a time when only 1.1 percent of people in Myanmar used the internet. Six years on, the company has 18 million users in the country, about a third of the population. REUTERS/Beck Diefenbach/File Photo Many of the millions of items flagged globally each week – including violent diatribes and lurid sexual imagery – are detected by automated systems, Facebook says. But a company official acknowledged to Reuters that its systems have difficulty interpreting Burmese script because of the way the fonts are often rendered on computer screens, making it difficult to identify racial slurs and other hate speech. Facebook’s troubles are evident in a new feature that allows users to translate Burmese content into English. Consider a post Reuters found from August of last year. In Burmese, the post says: “Kill all the kalars that you see in Myanmar; none of them should be left alive.” Facebook’s translation into English: “I shouldn’t have a rainbow in Myanmar.” In response, Facebook said: “Our translations team is actively working on new ways to ensure that translations are accurate.” The company said it uses a different system to detect hate speech. Guy Rosen, vice president of product management, wrote in a blog post on Facebook in May about the problems the company faced in identifying hate speech. “Our technology still doesn’t work that well and so it needs to be checked by our review teams,” he wrote. Facebook officials say they have no immediate plans to hire any employees in Myanmar itself. But the company does contract with local agencies for tasks unrelated to content monitoring. One is Echo Myanmar, a communications firm whose managing director is Anthony Larmon, an American. Larmon has expressed strong opinions on the Rohingya. Toward the end of 2016, the Myanmar army launched an onslaught across some 10 villages after Rohingya militants attacked border posts. At the time, a U.N. official accused the government of seeking “ethnic cleansing” of the Rohingya. In November 2016, Larmon wrote that an article about the U.N. allegation was “misleading.” He cited what he said were claims by multiple “local journalists” that the ethnic minority “purposely exaggerate (lie about)” their situation to “get more foreign aid and attention.” He also wrote: “No, they aren’t facing ethnic cleansing or anything remotely close to what that incendiary term suggests.” He said he later removed the post. A Facebook spokesperson said that Larmon’s post “does not represent Facebook’s view.” Larmon told Reuters: “It was overly-emotional, under-informed commentary on a highly nuanced subject that I do regret. My view on the Rohingya, same today as then, is that they should be safely repatriated and protected.” The platform on which he aired his views about the Rohingya? Facebook. https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/myanmar-facebook-hate/ 10/13