An influential sub-committee in the United States Senate on Wednesday passed an amendment urging Facebook to improve efforts to tackle hate speech in Myanmar.
The amendment brought forward by Senator Edward Markey, the top Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations East Asia Subcommittee, calls on Facebook and other technology companies to take greater steps to mitigate the risks of their platforms being used for the promotion of violence and discrimination against Rohingya and other ethnic minorities in Myanmar.
Facebook remains the most widely used social media tool in Myanmar and it drew strong criticism by Human Rights groups for allowing anti-Rohingya propaganda and allowing the platform to incite murder, rapes, and the largest forced human migration in recent history.
“Facebook is failing in its efforts to mitigate the threat of hate speech toward the Rohingya,” said Senator Markey in a statement.
“The United Nations and a number of organisations have drawn a link between dangerous online speech and violence against the Rohingya. Despite its stated efforts, Facebook can and should do more to address these threats, particularly in the lead up to next year’s elections in Myanmar,” he added.
In February, Senator Markey had questioned Facebook’s decision to ban three ethnic armed groups from its platform, noting that the decision would “prevent these groups from engaging with ethnic civil society, government negotiators, international observers (including the United States) facilitating the peace process, and international humanitarian groups accessing areas under their control, isolating them from any national reconciliation efforts.”
The amendment is part of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee Resolution introduced early this year to express the “sense of the Senate that the governments of Myanmar and Bangladesh ensure the safe, dignified, voluntary, and sustainable return of the Rohingya refugees who have been displaced by the campaign of ethnic cleansing conducted by the Burmese military.’’
The resolution calls on the US government to develop a more robust diplomatic strategy to engage regional partners, including the ASEAN, to press Myanmar to improve humanitarian access to Rakhine state, discourage involuntary returns of Rohingya refugees, and ensure perpetrators of attacks against the Rohingya in 2016 and 2017 are held accountable.
It urges the US Secretary of State to assess whether the actions by the Burmese military, including Senior General Min Aung Hlaing, Vice-Senior General Soe Win, Brigadier-General Aung Aung, and Brigadier-General Than Oo, constitute gross violations of human rights, war crimes, crimes against humanity or genocide.
It also calls upon the US government to ensure it continues to be a top global donor nation to the humanitarian response in Myanmar and Bangladesh, and for the fiscal year 2020 appropriation for State, Foreign Operations, and Related Programs to reflect that longstanding commitment.
