The Guardian: Revealed: Facebook hate speech exploded in Myanmar during Rohingya crisis
Analyst says: ‘I really don’t know how Zuckerberg and co sleep at night’ after evidence emerges of a spike in posts inciting violence.
Hate speech exploded on Facebook at the start of the Rohingya crisis in Myanmar last year, analysis has revealed, with experts blaming the social network for creating “chaos” in the country.
Evidence of the spike emerged after the platform was accused of playing a key role in the spread of hate speech in Myanmar at a time when 650,000 Rohingya refugees were forced to flee to Bangladesh following persecution.
Digital researcher and analyst Raymond Serrato examined about 15,000 Facebook posts from supporters of the hardline nationalist Ma Ba Tha group. The earliest posts dated from June 2016 and spiked on 24 and 25 August 2017, when ARSA Rohingya militants attacked government forces, prompting the security forces to launch the “clearance operation” that sent hundreds of thousands of Rohingya pouring over the border.
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WNU editor: I mentioned this before .... but what helped spread the Rwandan genocide against the Tutsi minority in 1994 were the radio stations. Today .... at least in the case of the Rohingyas .... social media is the preferred medium of communication. The above report posted by the Guardian is incredibly damning of Facebook .... and it is helping change my mind that social media needs regulation and supervision. I know that Facebook is facing a crisis over how they use their access to our personal information to boost their business model. But this is an issue that Facebook founder Zuckerberg and Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg must confront head-on .... they just cannot give an interview here or there and hope that it will blow away .... Facebook Data Scandal Has Left Zuckerberg Isolated in Tech (Bloomberg) .... The infuriating invisibility of Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg (The Hill).
