5.3 ANALYSIS: HOW ANTI-ROHINGYA CONTENT ON FACEBOOK LINKED TO OFFLINE VIOLENCE As detailed in the preceding section, advocacy of hatred against the Rohingya, as well as other dehumanizing and discriminatory anti-Rohingya content, was rife on the Facebook platform before and during the 2017 atrocities, resulting in direct human rights impacts against the Rohingya. This section provides an analysis of the connection between this online content and the enactment of offline violence. In its final report, the IIFFMM noted that “[t]he Mission has no doubt that the prevalence of hate speech in Myanmar significantly contributed to increased tension and a climate in which individuals and groups may become more receptive to incitement and calls for violence. This also applies to hate speech on Facebook.”147 The Mission documented a number of specific incidents whereby viral Facebook posts were linked to incidences of violence offline, concluding that “the linkage between offline and online hate speech and real-world acts of discrimination and violence is more than circumstantial”.148 Academic literature on genocide and other forms of mass violence frequently draws a connection between advocacy of hatred, dehumanization, and acts of mass violence. In relation to dehumanization as a justification for violence, Adam Jones, author of Genocide: A Comprehensive Introduction, notes that “[b]efore they are killed, they are brutalized, debased, and dehumanized – turning them into something approaching “subhumans” or “animals” and, by a circular logic, justifying their extermination”. 149 Jones underscores the centrality of “the less dramatic, permitted, everyday acts of violence that make participation (under other conditions) in genocidal acts possible”, which include, “all expressions of social exclusion, dehumanization, depersonalization, pseudo-speciation, and reification that normalize atrocious behaviour and violence toward others”.150 Other scholars focus on the function of ideology, and its dissemination, in justifying acts of violence perpetrated in the context of mass atrocities. Jonathan Leader Maynard offers that “Ideology may (a) generate or shape active motives that create the desire to commit violence; (b) create legitimating perceptions or beliefs which make violence seem permissible prior to/during commission; and/or (c) provide rationalizing resources for retrospectively dealing with the commission or permission of violence after the fact”.151 The phenomenon of “epistemic dependence” is another means of understanding how individuals can be influenced to engage in acts of violence against a target group. It emphasizes the importance of the presence of trusted sources of information, including media sources and civic leaders, which legitimize and promote violence and dehumanization. Maynard states that “atrocity-justifying ideologies are most influential when they operate through such epistemic dependence”.152 Susan Benesch’s “Dangerous Speech Project” also highlights the central importance of the medium of dissemination when advocacy of hatred is spread, and specifically cites Facebook in the context of mass violence against the Rohingya as a key example. It notes: “Messages also tend to have a greater capacity to persuade if there are no alternative sources of news available, or if other sources don’t seem credible…. As a result, Facebook became a highly influential medium, used to spread frightening, false messages intended to turn the majority population against minority Rohingya Muslims, even as the country’s military has carried out a vicious campaign to drive the Rohingya out, including rape, killing, and burning villages.”153 Chris Sidoti, an international human rights lawyer and one of the three expert members of the IIFFMM, explained the function of dehumanization of the Rohingya to Amnesty International: UN Human Rights Council, Report of the detailed findings of the Independent International Fact-finding Mission on Myanmar, 18 September 2018, UN Doc. A/HRC/39/CRP.2, para 1354. 147 UN Human Rights Council, Report of the detailed findings of the Independent International Fact-finding Mission on Myanmar, 18 September 2018, UN Doc. A/HRC/39/CRP.2, para 2929 . 148 149 Adam Jones, Genocide: A Comprehensive Introduction, Second Edition, p. 393. 150 Adam Jones, Genocide: A Comprehensive Introduction, Second Edition, p. 437. Jonathan Leader Maynard, Rethinking the Role of Ideology in Mass Atrocities, 25 February 2014, Terrorism and Political Violence, 26:5, 821 -841, DOI: 10.1080/09546553.2013.796934 p.828. 151 Jonathan Leader Maynard, Rethinking the Role of Ideology in Mass Atrocities, 25 February 2014, Terrorism and Political Violence, 26:5, 821 -841, DOI: 10.1080/09546553.2013.79693 p.827. 152 153 Dangerous Speech Project, Dangerous Speech: A Practical Guide, 19 April 2021, dangerousspeech.org/guide/ THE SOCIAL ATROCITY META AND THE RIGHT TO REMEDY FOR THE ROHINGYA Amnesty International 32