As Facebook tries to address its role in spreading hate speech, human rights experts criticize fresh ban of ethnic armed groups

Facebook banned four ethnic armed Myanmar-based groups from its site this week, in its latest effort to reckon with its role in the violence in that nation. But the tech giant’s decision is drawing criticism from local civil society and human rights groups who warn that the move appears ill-considered and inconsistent with international law.

On Tuesday, Facebook announced in a blogpost that it had designated four separatist groups – the Arakan Army, the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army, the Kachin Independence Army and the Ta’ang National Liberation Army – as “dangerous organizations”.

That designation, which Facebook applies to “organizations or individuals that proclaim a violent mission or are engaged in violence” – ie terrorist groups and criminal cartels – brings with it not just a ban on the group itself, but a ban on “all related praise, support and representation” of the groups, according to the company’s rules.

“There is clear evidence that these organizations have been responsible for attacks against civilians and have engaged in violence in Myanmar, and we want to prevent them from using our services to further inflame tensions on the ground,” Facebook said in explaining the bans. “In an effort to prevent and disrupt offline harm, we do not allow organizations or individuals that proclaim a violent mission or engage in violence to have a presence on Facebook.”

Facebook has faced significant pressure to be more proactive in Myanmar, after it failed to take action against hate speech and incitement amid a peak in violence against the Rohingya minority that began in 2017.

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But the action on the four ethnic armies this week has raised more questions about the way the company plans to handle the spread of hate on its platform than it answered.

“How was the decision made? What was the process? And who oversees these kind of decisions?” asked Myat Thu, a research advisor for the Myanmar Tech Accountability Network, a civil society group in Yangon. “This is a perfect example of why Facebook should have Myanmar [Burmese] speaking staff. A blogpost in English does not constitute adequate information.”

A catastrophic track record in Myanmar

For Facebook, Myanmar has represented extreme success – and catastrophic failure. Facebook dominates the country, with 20 million users in a country of 53 million, and for most people in Myanmar, Facebook simply is the internet.

But the company failed to take timely action when its platform was used by Buddhist extremists to inflame hatred and violence against the Rohingya minority in 2017. Even as the Myanmar military, known as the Tatmadaw, was carrying out a campaign of ethnic cleansing against the Rohingya, Facebook designated a Rohingya insurgent group, the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army, as a dangerous organization, while taking no action against the Tatmadaw.

It took until August 2018 – a year after 25,000 Rohingya were killed by Myanmar’s army and allied Buddhist militias and 700,000 Rohingya were forced to flee the country – for Facebook to ban Tatmadaw leaders from its platform. Facing growing public pressure, the company also commissioned and published an independent Human Rights Impact Assessment on the role its services were playing in the country and committed to hiring 100 native Burmese speakers as content moderators.

Tuesday’s moves signaled further action against violent actors using Facebook in Myanmar, the platform said in its announcement. But Facebook’s action on the four ethnic armed organizations was “frenetic” and a result of “overreacting to their past failure”, Ko Maw Htun Aung, the founder of a Yangon-based social policy thinktank, told The Irrawaddy, a local media outlet.

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And its consequences may be severe, human rights observers warn. There are more than a dozen recognized ethnic armed organizations in Myanmar, many of which have been engaged in armed struggle against the military for ethnic or national self determination for decades.

By deeming these four armies as “dangerous organizations”, Facebook was “tipping the scales” toward the military and providing “a big boost for the government”, one human rights observer told the Guardian.

Facebook’s policy could have a disparate impact on free expression for Myanmar’s ethnic minorities because the armed forces and government control state media, while minority groups relied on Facebook to distribute their messages, echoed Nay San Lwin, campaign coordinator for the Free Rohingya Coalition.

“As Facebook said no one can praise, support or represent these four groups, the same things should apply for Tatmadaw too,” he said.

Myat Thu from the Myanmar Tech Accountability Network raised concerns that the bans will “create a vacuum that, if not managed with care, could fuel disinformation”.

“Facebook is removing pages that have long been recognized as the official presence for these groups and gained legitimacy as such,” he said. “This is going to create a lot of confusion for journalists and political analysts here, who have relied on these pages for information.”

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To many of these observers, Facebook’s decision was especially baffling since it seemed to run counter to the recommendations of the Human Rights Impact Assessment it had commissioned itself.

That report recommended that the company “align Facebook’s definition of a terrorist organization with international standards” by “exclud[ing] organizations considered to be legitimate combatants in conflict, such as officially recognized ethnic armed organizations (EAOs)”.

“This recommendation is particularly relevant in a context like Myanmar, where there is a history of toxic nationalism and state-mandated violent oppression of ethnic groups, as well as the presence of multiple legitimate secession movements,” the report stated. By bringing its treatment of these combatants in line with international law, the report said, Facebook can reduce its risk of violating the freedom of expression of ethnic minorities.

Facebook declined to comment on the record to numerous queries from the Guardian, but noted that there is no universally accepted definition of terrorism.

State vs non-state actors

Facebook’s quandary in Myanmar also raises profound questions about the ways the platform chooses to regulate – and declines to regulate – violent actors using its platform.

There is no real dispute that Myanmar’s military has committed violent atrocities in Myanmar, but though Facebook has punished leaders of the military, it has not designated it a “dangerous organization” that cannot be praised or supported.

“The company’s statement says groups with a violent mission are banned,” said Matthew Smith of Fortify Rights, a Southeast Asian human rights organization. “Does that mean all armies would be banned? Or just non-state armies? There are dozens of non-state armed groups in Myanmar. Is the company planning to ban all of them? The company didn’t tell us exactly why these four groups were targeted while dozens of others were not.”

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These questions have resonance far beyond Myanmar. Had Facebook existed during the Rwandan genocide, one human rights observer asked, would it have allowed the government-backed Hutu genocidaires to use its platform while banning the rebel Tutsi forces that fought back?

Facebook declined to clarify its thinking on state and non-state “dangerous organizations” on the record, but a spokeswoman acknowledged that they focus on non-state actors.

Facebook also did not respond to questions about whether the four banned groups had engaged in hate speech or used Facebook’s platform to incite violence, stating only that the decision was made because of a recent increase in violence.

Smith said that Facebook’s decision to allow support for Myanmar’s armed forces but not the banned ethnic armies seemed “arbitrary”, and questioned why Facebook was not choosing to model its policy on international law.

“At least with regard to international crimes, such as attacks on civilians in situations of armed conflict, there is useful law and jurisprudence,” he said. “Why not use it? Why reinvent the wheel? … If not international human rights and humanitarian law, we would encourage the company to release more information about the framework they’re relying on.”