FB vows to stop hate speech posts

Facebook has promised to implement new measures to prevent hate speech in Myanmar after an independent study commissioned by the company found that it had been used to incite violence against the Muslim Rohingya minority.

The resulting report broadly agrees with the findings of United Nation human rights experts who said that Facebook had ‘‘turned into a beast’’ in Myanmar, and had played a role in the ethnic cleansing of 700,000 Rohingya Muslims who were driven into Bangladesh by the Myanmar army.

‘‘Facebook has become a means for those seeking to spread hate and cause harm, and posts have been linked to offline violence,’’ the report by Business for Social Responsibility (BSR), a US charity, said. ‘‘A minority of users is seeking to use Facebook as a platform to undermine democracy and incite . . . serious crimes under international law.’’

For many in Myanmar, Facebook, accessed via cheap mobile phones, is their only window on the internet and the social network’s near-monopoly meant that it was used to spread disinformation, lies and fake images. This included a large volume of material targeting the Rohingya, who have faced decades of persecution in Rakhine state.

‘‘Everything is done through Facebook in Myanmar,’’ Yanghee Lee, the UN’s chief human rights monitor on Myanmar, said in March. ‘‘It was used to convey public messages but we know that the ultra-nationalist Buddhists are really inciting a lot of violence and a lot of hatred against the Rohingya or other ethnic minorities.’’

Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook’s founder, told American senators that the company was hiring dozens more speakers from Myanmar to address the problem, but months later many expressions of hate were still openly posted on the platform.

‘‘We must fight them the way Hitler did the Jews, damn kalars!’’ one user wrote, in a post highlighted by the Reuters news agency, and still accessible in August. ‘‘Kalar’’ is a racially offensive term applied to Rohingya. Another read: ‘‘These non-human kalar dogs, the Bengalis, are killing and destroying our land, our water and our ethnic people. We need to destroy their race.’’ A third urged: ‘‘Pour fuel and set fire so that they can meet Allah faster.’’

The report warned that general elections next year would be an opportunity for more hate speech.

One interviewee told BSR: ‘‘Facebook should prepare for massive chaos and manipulation. There is a great risk of increased polarisation in 2020.’’

Alex Warofka, Facebook’s product policy manager, said: ‘‘Prior to this year, we weren’t doing enough to help prevent our platform from being used to foment division and incite offline violence. We agree that we can and should do more.’’ –