‘The Bengali problem was a long-standing one which has become an unfinished job despite the efforts of the previous governments to solve it. The government in office is taking great care in solving the problem.’”52 The IIFFMM notes that Facebook failed to respond to complaints that its platform was being used to incite violence in the years leading up to the operation, and that its content moderation was inadequate. As demonstrated in the section dedicated to due diligence above, numerous actors warned Facebook of how its platform was being used to fan the flames of hatred against the Rohingya from 2013 to 2017. In 2018, a group of local civil society organisations in Myanmar wrote an open-letter in response to Facebook’s CEO, Mark Zuckerberg’s, claims that there were effective systems in place in Myanmar noting “an over-reliance on third parties, a lack of a proper mechanism for emergency escalation, a reticence to engage local stakeholders around systemic solutions and a lack of transparency.” The letter further went on to say this specific case “epitomizes the kind of issues that have been rife on Facebook in Myanmar for more than 4 years [emphasis added] and the inadequate response from Facebook.”53 The IIFFMM further noted the lack of content moderators attuned to Burmese language and culture as contributing to the adverse human rights impact, and highlighted its own experience of Facebook’s slow and effective response when it reported a threat placed on a human rights defender for cooperating with the mission.54 It was not just Facebook’s omissions which contributed to the violence, but their actions too. The violence committed against the Rohingya, and the human rights they have been denied as a result, were facilitated by Facebook’s business model. In July 2016, Facebook and Myanmar Post and Telecommunications jointly launched ‘Free Basics’ and ‘Facebook Flex’- phonebased versions of the Facebook platform that can be accessed without mobile data. 55 This had the effect of drastically increasing the number of Facebook users in Myanmar, from 10 million in mid-201656 to 20 million two years later.57 While Facebook presents these initiatives as philanthropic in nature, there is evidence that they are geared towards maximising users so as to provide Facebook with opportunities on mining data from individuals for the purposes of targeted advertising. A recent UN report delivered at the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development found that “more local data would mean opportunities for providing better targeted advertising”58 and that with “Facebook’s Free Basics, traffic is effectively channelled 52 Senior General Min Aung Hlaing Facebook quote 2, from Penny Green, Thomas McManus, and Alicia de la Cour Venning, Genocide Achieved, Genocide Continues: Myanmar's Annihilation of the Rohingya (International State Crime Initiative, 2018), 13, from Senior General Min Aung Hlaing Facebook Page, <https://www.facebook.com/seniorgeneralminaunghlaing/posts/1698274643540350>. [accessed 13 November 2017] 53 Myanmar Open Letter to Mark Zuckerberg, viewed 28 May 2021, <https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/4432469-Myanmar-Open-%20Letter-to-Mark-Zuckerberg.html>. [accessed 28 May 2021] 54 IIFFMM, 1351. 55 Ibid., para 1344. 56 Catherine Trautwein, ‘Facebook racks up 10m Myanmar users’, Myanmar Times, 13 June 2016, viewed 1 July 2021 <https://www.mmtimes.com/business/technology/20816-facebook-racks-up-10m-myanmarusers.html>. [accessed 1 July 2021] 57 Jon Russel, 'Facebook still isn’t taking Myanmar seriously', Tech Crunch, 6 November 2018, viewed 1 July 2021, <https://techcrunch.com/2018/11/06/facebook-still-isnt-taking-myanmar-seriously/>. [accessed 1 July 2021] 58 United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, Digital Economy Report 2019, September 2019, <https://unctad.org/en/ PublicationsLibrary/der2019_en.pdf>, p 90 cited in Amnesty International Report, Surveillance Giants: How the Business Model of Google and Facebook Threatens Human Rights, 21 November 13