BSR | Human Rights Impact Assessment: Facebook in Myanmar 7 2. Project Overview and Methodology 2.1 HUMAN RIGHTS IMPACT ASSESSMENT Facebook Inc. commissioned BSR to undertake a human rights impact assessment (HRIA) of the company’s presence in Myanmar. The objectives of the HRIA are to: » Identify and prioritize actual and potential human rights impacts, including both risks and opportunities. » Make recommendations for an action plan to address the impacts, mitigate the risks, and maximize the opportunities. » Build capacity of relevant staff to lead constructive dialogue with rightsholders and stakeholders, and to improve management of human rights. The desired outcome of the project is that Facebook possess the knowledge, insights, and perspectives to integrate human rights responsibilities into the management of its Myanmar presence. This should include understanding how to prevent, mitigate, or address adverse human rights impacts that Facebook might be directly involved in or linked to via its products, services, or business relationships, and creating a human rights strategy to exercise leverage over adverse human rights impacts and positive human rights opportunities. The desired impact of the project is that investments in internet and social media products, services, and technologies are more likely to result in improved realization of human rights, such as privacy, security, freedom of expression, nondiscrimination, and economic, social, and cultural rights. It should be noted that this is a HRIA of Facebook in Myanmar; it is not an assessment of human rights at Facebook globally; nor is it a fact-finding mission regarding human rights violations in Myanmar or an assessment of human rights in the country overall. It is also important to note that BSR’s assessment is not an audit and does not apply a specific professional auditing standard. BSR has not undertaken a complete examination of all data, records, operations, and performance information, and we have not reached a formal auditor’s opinion. For example, while BSR reviewed many policies and processes during the assessment, it was outside our scope of work to reach conclusions about the extent, completeness, or effectiveness of implementation of these policies and processes. 2.2 FACEBOOK IN MYANMAR Facebook does not have a physical presence (i.e., no staff, offices, or data) in Myanmar. However, users in Myanmar use Facebook’s four main products: » Facebook enables people to connect, share, discover, and communicate with each other on mobile devices and personal computers. There are a number of different ways to engage with people on Facebook, the most important of which is News Feed, which displays an algorithmically ranked series of stories and advertisements individualized for each person. While almost all features of Facebook are available in Myanmar (such as Pages, Groups, Events, and Live), certain features of Facebook (such as Facebook Marketplace) are only available in a limited number of markets and are not currently accessible in Myanmar.