Meta says Myanmar military-linked businesses to be barred from Facebook

By DMG 09 Dec 2021

DMG Newsroom
9 December 2021, Sittwe

Facebook’s parent company Meta this week said it would remove any and all pages, groups and accounts on the social media platform that represent businesses controlled by Myanmar’s military, aka Tatmadaw, which seized power in a coup more than 10 months ago.

“We’re taking this latest action based on extensive documentation by the international community of these businesses’ direct role in funding the Tatmadaw’s ongoing violence and human rights abuses in Myanmar,” Rafael Frankel, Meta’s director of policy for Asia-Pacific emerging countries, said in a statement on December 7.

The announcement from Meta came the same week that a class action suit was filed against the company in a US court on behalf of Arakan State’s minority Muslim community. Facebook has previously admitted that it was “too slow to prevent misinformation and hate” on its platform in Myanmar as the military carried out what has been described as a genocidal campaign against Muslims in Arakan State in 2016-17.

“We’re appalled by the crimes committed against the Rohingya people in Myanmar,” Frankel said in a statement in response to the lawsuit.

He added: “We’ve built a dedicated team of Burmese speakers, banned the Tatmadaw, disrupted networks manipulating public debate and taken action on harmful misinformation to help keep people safe. We’ve also invested in Burmese-language technology to reduce the prevalence of violating content.”

Meta has already removed the Facebook pages of some military-owned media outlets, such as MRTV and MWD, since the February 1 military coup.