5/23/22, 2:34 AM
Facebook blacklists Myanmar hardline Buddhist group | Frontier Myanmar
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Facebook blacklists Myanmar hardline
Buddhist group
JUNE 7, 2018
By AFP
YANGON — Facebook has blacklisted a group of Buddhist hardliners including monks notorious for
hate speech against Rohingya Muslims, the company said today, as it scrambles to show it is tackling
inflammatory content.
The social media company plays an outsized role in a country that has only recently come online and
boasts 18 million accounts among the population of over 51.4 million people.
UN investigators have said that Facebook has morphed into a “beast” in the country and that hate
speech and incitement to violence against the Rohingya are rampant on the site.
Some 700,000 Rohingya have fled a violent army crackdown in Myanmar to Bangladesh since August
last year — after years of increasingly violent and angry discourse against the minority, much of it
playing out on Facebook.
In response, Facebook this week has undertaken
its highest-profile visit yet to Myanmar.
It banned the Buddhist nationalist movement Ma Ba
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Tha from its platform, as well as a pair of prominent
monks known for stoking hatred towards the Rohingya.
“They are not allowed a presence on Facebook, and we will remove any accounts and content which
support, praise or represent these individuals or organisations,” said content policy manager Mr
David Caragliano.
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