Rohingya refugees sue Facebook for contributing to genocide

Rohingya refugees in the United States sued Facebook in the California state courts for more than $150 billion in compensation, alleging that the company’s failure to stop the spread of hate speech and misinformation online perpetuated their persecution and genocidal attacks on them in Myanmar. 

Key Players 

The Rohingya people have faced decades of systemic discrmination, statelessness, and targeted violence in Rakhine state, Myanmar, formerly known as Burma. An Indo-Aryan people who are predominantly Muslim, the Rohingya have been described as one of the most persecuted groups in the world. 

Meta, a multinational technology company based in Menlo Park, California, is the parent entity of Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp. 

Further Details 

In 2017, the Myanmar military launched a “scorched-earth campaign” to drive Rohingya residents out of the country, The Washington Post reported. About 750,000 Muslim men, women, and children were forcibly removed in a campaign of rape, murder, and destroyed villages, which Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein, a U.N. top official, described as a “textbook example of ethnic cleansing.” Doctors Without Borders estimated that at least 6,700 Rohingya people had been killed in the attacks that year. 

On Sept. 12, 2018, the U.N. Human Rights Council published a report examining abuses and violations committed in Myanmar and found Facebook had been “slow and ineffective” at preventing the spread of hatred online. 

On Dec. 6, 2021, a lawsuit was filed in California on behalf of more than 10,000 Rohingya refugees who had settled in the United States since 2012, The Post reported. The lawsuit asserts that, despite warnings that anti-Rohingya posts could incite violence, Facebook’s algorithm prioritized and rewarded users for posting dangerous and harmful content, encouraging users in Myanmar to engage in and contribute to more violence. 

“Facebook was willing to trade the lives of the Rohingya people for better market penetration in a small country in Southeast Asia,” the lawsuit states. “Successfully reaching the majority of Burmese people, and continuing to operate there

now, has a negligible impact on Facebook’s overall valuation and bottom line.” 

According to The Hill, Rohingya refugees in Europe have filed a similar lawsuit in the United Kingdom.

Outcome 

Facebook responds

“We’re appalled by the crimes committed against the Rohingya people in Myanmar,” a Meta spokesperson told BBC, adding that the company had built a team of speakers from Myanmar, banned Myanmar’s military from the platform, and “taken action on harmful misinformation to help keep people safe.”

“We’ve also invested in Burmese-language technology to reduce the prevalence of violating content,” the spokesperson added.

Attorneys for refugees will seek to apply Myanmar law

Lawyers representing the Rohingya refugees in the United States will attempt to argue that Section 230 of the U.S. Communications Decency Act, which generally provides immunity for web platforms with respect to third-party content, does not apply to Myanmar law, The Hill reported. 

As of Jan. 5, 2022, there were no further developments.