The lawsuit, filed this week on behalf of an Illinois-based Rohingya refugee in the San Mateo County Superior Court, accuses Facebook– now known as Meta– of negligence in enabling the expansion of hate speech that it says incited violence against the group. The plaintiff seeks class action status on behalf of the more than 10,000 Rohingyas refugees now living in the U.S
. According to the lawsuit, discrimination versus the Rohingya in Myanmar intensified to “terrorism and mass genocide” following the introduction of Facebook into the country in 2011.
A suit filed against Facebook seeks a minimum of U.S. $150 billion in damages for the social media businesss supposed role in stoking violence against ethnic Rohingyas in Myanmar.
The claim, filed this week on behalf of an Illinois-based Rohingya refugee in the San Mateo County Superior Court, implicates Facebook– now referred to as Meta– of negligence in allowing the proliferation of hate speech that it says prompted violence versus the group. The complainant looks for class action status on behalf of the more than 10,000 Rohingyas refugees now residing in the U.S
. According to the lawsuit, discrimination versus the Rohingya in Myanmar intensified to “terrorism and mass genocide” following the introduction of Facebook into the nation in 2011.
Facebook “materially added to the development and widespread dissemination of anti-Rohingya hate speech, misinformation, and incitement of violence– which together totaled up to a significant cause, and perpetuation of, the eventual Rohingya genocide,” the suit states.
A Meta spokesperson informed Ars Technica in action to the suit that the business is “appalled by the crimes committed against the Rohingya people in Myanmar” and said it had actually taken actions to tamp down on misinformation by building a team of Burmese speakers, banning the military, and interrupting “networks controling public debate.”
The suit mentions testament from a former Facebook worker turned whistleblower who stated that officials at the company “were completely aware that posts ordering hits by the Myanmar federal government on the minority Muslim Rohingya were spreading hugely on Facebook,” and that “the issue of the Rohingya being targeted on Facebook was well known inside the business for many years.”
It declares that, following conflicts in 2012 on the border of Rakhine state– where the bulk of Rohingyas live in Myanmar– the buddhist and military nationalists utilized Facebook “to arrange and spread fear.” Among those, it stated, were acts of “ethnic cleaning” over the following years that included the murder, gang rape and torture of 10s of thousands of Rohingya.
The violence culminated in a military offensive in Rakhine state in August 2017 that required some 740,000 Rohingya to cross Myanmars border into Bangladesh, where most remain in the largest refugee camp on earth. The crackdown prompted the West African nation The Gambia to file a lawsuit against Myanmar at the International Criminal of Justice in late 2019 over what it states was “genocidal intent” against the Rohingya.
The lawsuit kept in mind that Meta used its Internet.org Free Basics program to provide individuals in Myanmar access to the internet– provided they registered for Facebook. That decision led to a “crisis of digital literacy” since it was the very first time much of the users in Myanmar had access to online info and they had difficulty distinguishing reality from fiction, the suit alleges.
” Facebook not did anything, however, to warn its Burmese users about the threats of false information and phony accounts on its system or take any steps to limit its vicious spread,” the lawsuit said.
To prevent protections for Facebook and other social networks platforms that host user-generated content, the suit hinges on a brand-new legal argument declaring the company developed a “faulty item” since its ranking algorithm helped to propagate violence against the Rohingya. It also alleges that Facebook was negligent in filtering out material deemed unsafe to the ethnic group.
Seeking justice
Khin Maung, a refugee and founder of the Rohingya Youth Association in the Ukhia sub-district of Coxs Bazar in Bangladesh, informed RFA-affiliated online news service BenarNews that his group supports the lawsuit.
” When Myanmar authorities carried out genocide on the Rohingya community in Myanmar, Facebook worked in favor of the Myanmar federal government,” he said.
In Bangladeshs capital Dhaka, popular Bangladeshi rights activist Nur Khan Liton informed BenarNews that Facebook “was largely utilized to spread out hate speech against Rohingya people” in Myanmar.
” They were taken advantage of by Facebook advocates. Seeking justice at any phase or place is rather valid,” he said.
” It is very essential that the decision come out for the case. I am positive about a verdict in favor of the Rohingya neighborhood.”
In September, a U.S. magistrate ordered Facebook to launch records and deleted material which, he stated, helped stoke attacks versus the Rohingya by Myanmars military including the 2017 offensive that let loose the massive exodus of refugees into Bangladesh.
Zia M. Faruqui, a federal judge in Washington, ruled in favor of The Gambia, declaring that the social media powerhouse, by its own admission, was too sluggish to react to concerns about how the online platform contributed in Myanmars persecution of the stateless Rohingya Muslim minority.
Reported by RFAs Myanmar Service and by Sharif Khiam in Dhaka and Abdur Rahman in Coxs Bazar for BenarNews, an RFA-affiliated online news service. Composed in English by Joshua Lipes.
( function( d, s, id) connect.facebook.net
(document, script, facebook-jssdk));.
Source link.
