Facebook sued by Rohingya refugees over Myanmar hate speech

Rohingya refugees in the UK and US sued Facebook (now Meta), accusing the social media giant of allowing hate speech against them to spread. According to legal action launched in the US and UK, Facebook failed to take down inflammatory posts. 

The refugees demand more than $150 billion in compensation, claiming Facebook’s platforms promoted violence against the persecuted minority. Around 10,000 Rohingya Muslims were killed during a military crackdown in Buddhist-majority Myanmar in 2017.

A law firm in the UK representing some of the refugees has written a letter to Facebook, seen by BBC, alleging:

• Facebook’s algorithms "amplified hate speech against the Rohingya people"

• The firm "failed to invest" in moderators and fact checkers who knew about the political situation in Myanmar

• The company failed to take down posts or delete accounts that incited violence against Rohingya

• It failed to "take appropriate and timely action", despite warnings from charities and the media

In the US, lawyers filed a legal complaint against Facebook in San Francisco, accusing it of being “willing to trade the lives of the Rohingya people for better market penetration in a small country in South-east Asia.”

Facebook says it has taken action to keep people safe. But the company is accused of allowing the dissemination of hateful and dangerous misinformation to continue for years.

The company in 2018 admitted that it had not done enough to prevent the incitement of violence and hate speech against the Rohingya. This followed an independent report, commissioned by Facebook, that said the platform had created an "enabling environment" for the proliferation of human rights abuse.