Facebook shut down pages linked to Myanmar military
New Delhi : The social networking giant, Facebook has removed hundreds of pages and accounts in Myanmar with links to the military. The action has been taken as a respond to the criticism over failures to control hate speech and misinformation.
For years, Myanmar's most popular and influential site has been lambasted for its ineffective response to malicious posts, particularly against the country's Rohingya Muslims.
The problem reached new levels of urgency as Myanmar's military drove more than 720,000 Rohingya into Bangladesh, while dehumanising material about the stateless group spread on the site.
Facebook announced that some 425 pages, 17 groups, 135 accounts and 15 Instagram accounts had been removed. These pages appeared as independent news, entertainment, beauty and lifestyle pages but in reality had links to the military or to pages previously removed.
It is the company’s third sweeping takedown of pages and accounts for what it calls " coordinated inauthentic behavior" in Myanmar following deletions in October and August.
Hardline nationalist monks and even the army's top generals, accused by UN investigators of genocide, are among the users Facebook blacklisted this year.
Facebook said that t does not want people or organisations "creating networks of accounts to mislead others about who they are, or what they're doing," adding that one page had 2.5 million followers.
"Down for Anything", "Let's Laugh Casually", and "We Love Myanmar" are among the deleted pages.
It seems that Facebook is trying to repair its battered reputation, improving the speed with which hate speech is taken down and vowing to complain up its Myanmar-language reviewers on staff to 100 by the end of 2018.
However, critics say this is not enough to oversee some 20 million Facebook accounts in the country, many in a patchwork of regional languages.
An independent report released by Facebook reveals last month that the state was ultimately responsible for rights abuses, but the company should have done more to prevent the platform from being used to foment division and incite offline violence.
It was also informed that the 2020 election in Myanmar will likely be a flashpoint for abuse and misinformation.
