Facebook bans Buddhist monks for Muslim hate
message - but they are fighting back with fake profiles
Nationalist activists from the Southeast Asian country
have been using the social networking site to share angry and violent
propaganda that they consider as “the truth.” According to Reuters, the United
Nations uncovered the abuse while investigating a possible genocide in Myanmar.
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The group see Rohingya Muslims as illegal immigrants
residing within the country. Around 700,000 Rohingya Muslims have now fled to
Bangladesh out of fear, according to the U.N. and aid agencies.
Facebook eventually stepped in and removed the accounts,
but the nationalist monks responded by creating fake profiles.
Speaking to Reuters, Patriotic Myanmar Monks’ Union
member Thusietta said it was a “violation of freedom of expression” to remove
their content. “We will keep using Facebook with different names and accounts
to tell the truth to people,” Thusietta said.
Another member, who had his account suspended by Facebook
in May, said he has already made new profiles. Pinnyawenta pledged he would
“continue to write about the truth.” Facebook had warned him several times to
remove his posts.
The Myanmar Government has denied claims it helped
Facebook locate and deactivate accounts. According to Radio Free Asia,
Myanmar’s National League for Democracy spokesman Myo Nyunt said the party had
“nothing to do with it”. Read more: https://lnkd.in/gSXGN3t
“We cannot answer for Facebook taking action against
those who distribute or provoke racial and religious hate speech in Myanmar,”
Nyunt said. “We can only explain that we were not part of that decision. People
reported those accounts to Facebook, and Facebook took action against them
after verifying their complaints.”
Facebook told Reuters it was investing more in local
teams to “understand and respond to Myanmar’s unique technical challenges.”
“There’s always more we can do to get ahead of these repeat offenders, and we
are committed to improving our detection tools to remove them from Facebook as
quickly as possible,” Facebook said.
No social media service has more reach in Myanmar than
Facebook, where nationalist hard-liners have been able to gather substantial
followers by fanning the flames of anti-Muslim sentiment.
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One of the most prominent nationalist Buddhist monks,
Ashin Wirathu, whose profile was removed from Facebook, recently admitted that
other social networks such as YouTube and Twitter do not work as well.
Source: NewsWeek
Source: NewsWeek