Rohingya refugees sue Facebook for RM633bn over hate speech

Dec 11, 2021

CALIFORNIA: Rohingya refugees are suing Facebook for US$150 billion (RM633bn) over claims that the social network is failing to curb hate speech on its platform, exacerbating violence against the vulnerable minority.

The complaint, lodged in a California court on December 6, says the algorithms that power the USbased company promote disinformation and extremist thought that translates to real-world violence. “Facebook is like a robot programmed with a single mission: to grow,” the court document states. “The undeniable reality is that Facebook’s growth, fuelled by hate, division, and misinformation, has left hundreds of thousands of devastated Rohingya lives in its wake.”

The mainly Muslim group faces widespread discrimination in Myanmar, where its members are despised as interlopers despite having lived in the country for generations.

A military-backed campaign that the United Nations said amounted to genocide saw hundreds of thousands of Rohingya driven across the border into Bangladesh in 2017, where they have since lived in sprawling refugee camps.

Many others remain in Myanmar, where they are not permitted citizenship and are subject to communal violence and official discrimination by the ruling military junta. Rights groups have long charged that Facebook does not do enough to prevent the spread of disinformation and misinformation online.

The legal complaint argues that Facebook’s algorithms drive susceptible users to join ever-more extreme groups, a situation that is “open to exploitation by autocratic politicians and regimes”.

Rights groups have long charged that Facebook does not do enough to prevent the spread of disinformation and misinformation online.

Critics say even when alerted to hate speech on its platform, the company fails to act. They charge that the social media giant allows falsehoods to proliferate, affecting the lives of minorities and skewing elections in democracies such as the United States, where unfounded charges of fraud circulate and intensify among like-minded persons.

This year, a huge leak by a company insider sparked articles arguing that Facebook, whose parent company is now called Meta, knew its sites could harm some of their billions of users — but executives chose growth over safety. -- ucanews.com