Facebook owes reparations to Rohingya for Myanmar hate content

Facebook should pay reparations to the hundreds of thousands of Rohingyas forced from their homes in Myanmar in a campaign exacerbated by rampant online hate speech, Amnesty International has said in a report.

According to international media, the Rohingyas, a mainly Muslim minority, were targeted by Myanmar's military rulers in 2017 and driven into neighbouring Bangladesh, where they have since lived in sprawling refugee camps.

Victims' associations and rights advocates say the violence was ramped up by Facebook's algorithms, saying they play up extremist content that encourages harmful disinformation and hate speech.

"Many Rohingya tried to report anti-Rohingya content via Facebook's 'report' function" but to no avail, allowing these hateful narratives to proliferate and reach unprecedented audiences in Myanmar," Amnesty said in its report.

It noted the revelations from the whistle-blower "Facebook Papers" divulged in October 2021, indicating that company executives knew the site fuelled the spread of toxic content against ethnic minorities and other groups.

Three legal suits have been lodged against Facebook by Rohingya representatives, in the US and Britain as well as with the OECD group of developed economies, under its guidelines for responsible business conduct.

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