Facebook Has Turned Into a Beast in Myanmar, UN Says (bbc.com)

UN investigators have accused Facebook of playing a "determining role" in stirring up hatred against Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar. From a report: One of the team probing possible acts of genocide said Facebook had "turned into a beast." About 700,000 Rohingya have fled to Bangladesh since Myanmar's military launched an operation in August against "insurgents" in Rakhine state. Facebook has said there is "no place for hate speech" on its platform. "We take this incredibly seriously and have worked with experts in Myanmar for several years to develop safety resources and counter-speech campaigns," a Facebook spokeswoman told the BBC.

The UN's Fact-finding Mission on Myanmar announced the interim findings of its investigation on Monday. During a press conference the chairman of the mission, Marzuki Darusman, said that social media had "substantively contributed to the level of acrimony" amongst the wider public, against Rohingya Muslims. "Hate speech is certainly, of course, a part of that," he added.

Comments

Re:No that title is just wrong

[ShanghaiBill]

But you have to blame the population and government for these tragedies.

That would mean admitting that the Nobel Peace Prize was given to the wrong person.

Here is a complete list of all the things necessary to turn the oppressed into oppressors:

1. Power

Ordering and Moderation

[Prien715]

What's terribly insidious about Facebook as a platform is not the speech it allows, but the speech it promotes.

Here on /., you have numerous ways about how to order the comments on the site, which ones to show/not show, etc. Facebook does not. Instead, it orders your feed based on what it thinks you will interact with -- this happens to be things which we strongly disagree with. Instead of a society where reasonable people have discussions about solutions to problems, Facebook has created a platform where it literally promotes posts that troll to increase "user engagement" -- and thus their ad revenue. Online discussions have literally become worse since Facebook has existed -- and you see it here too.

In Soviet Valley, Facebook uses you.

Re:Rohingyans Brought it on Themselves

[lucasnate1]

Make no mistake, the Rohingyans brought it upon themselves for their inability to peacefully live alongside Buddhists.

Citation needed. Why the hell was this modded up when there is no concrete information? Whats next, +5 insightful for "9-11 was done by the jews?"

are you kidding me?

[slashmydots]

700,000 people show up unannounced in your country and Facebook is the problem? The 700,000 people are the problem! It doesn't help that a lot of their cultural practices are EXTREMELY disapproved of by the rest of the world.