Rohingya refugees sue Facebook for $ 150 billion for Myanmar genocide
Rohingya refugees sued Facebook on Monday for $ 150 billion over claims that the social network is failing to stop hate speech on its platform, exacerbating violence against the vulnerable minority.
The complaint, filed in a California court, says that the algorithms that power the US-based company promote disinformation and extremist thinking that results in real-world violence.
“Facebook is like a robot programmed with a singular mission: to grow,” says the court document.
“The undeniable reality is that Facebook’s growth, fueled by hatred, division and misinformation, has left hundreds of thousands of Rohingya lives devastated.”
The mainly Muslim group face widespread discrimination in Myanmar, where they are despised as outsiders despite having lived in the country for generations.
An army-backed campaign that the United Nations said amounted to genocide, caused hundreds of thousands of Rohingya to cross the border into Bangladesh in 2017, where they have since lived in extensive refugee camps.
Many others remain in Myanmar, where they are not allowed citizenship and are subject to communal violence, as well as official discrimination by the ruling military junta.
The legal complaint argues that Facebook’s algorithms lead susceptible users to join increasingly extreme groups, a situation that is “open to exploitation by politicians and autocratic regimes.”
Human rights groups have long accused that Facebook does not do enough to prevent the spread of misinformation and misinformation online.
Critics say that even when alerted to hate speech on its platform, the company does not act.
They charge that the social media giant allows falsehoods to proliferate, affecting the lives of minorities and skewing elections in democracies like the United States, where unfounded accusations of fraud among like-minded friends circulate and escalate.
This year, a major leak of company inside information sparked articles arguing that Facebook, whose parent company is now Meta, knew its sites could harm some of its billions of users, but executives chose growth earlier. that security.
Whistleblower Frances Haugen told the US Congress in October that Facebook is “stoking ethnic violence” in some countries.
Under US law, Facebook is largely protected from liability for content posted by its users.
The Rohingya lawsuit, anticipating this defense, argues that, where appropriate, Myanmar law, which has no such protections, should prevail in the case.
Facebook, which did not immediately respond to questions about the lawsuit, has been under pressure in the United States and Europe to clamp down on false information, particularly about the elections and the coronavirus.
The company has forged alliances with various media companies, including AFP, aimed at verifying posts online and removing those that are not true.
(AFP)
