Facebook faces a huge number of lawsuits that often have to do with privacy and the like, but one of the more recent lawsuits that the social media giant has ended up receiving is of a far more serious nature. The genocide of Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar is well documented. A number of people belonging to that community came to the US as refugees because of the fact that this is the sort of thing that could potentially end up preventing them from being systemically killed in the way that so many other members of their minority group were.
With all of that having been said and now out of the way, it is important to note that these refugees are now suing Facebook for $150 billion, claiming that the social media platform’s lax policies on hate speech and the like made it so that the genocide was allowed to foment and get increasingly worse over the decade or so during which it was committed.
This lawsuit claims that many people that supported the genocide voiced their opinions openly on Facebook, and the social media platform didn’t really do much to prevent them from saying whatever it is that they wanted to say which arguably resulted in the genocide becoming significantly worse than might have otherwise ended up being the case.
H/T: BBC
Facebook itself has admitted some level of culpability in a 2018 report wherein the company stated that they could have done more to stop the spread of hateful rhetoric that fueled the genocide. Whether or not this results in the lawsuit being successful remains to be seen, but it might indicate that people are starting to hold Facebook accountable for the hate speech that it has allowed to thrive. Regardless of how things go, the fact remains that Facebook has become a hotbed for hate speech in several different ways. A recent example of imbalanced hate speech moderation popped up on social media, where users noted that Facebook was quick to take action when it comes to protecting it's CEO posts while a lot other wish if that approach could be applied to all posts on social network equally.
Read next: Frances Haugen states that Facebook doesn’t have enough employees to tackle the misinformation from other languages, Meta disagrees
With all of that having been said and now out of the way, it is important to note that these refugees are now suing Facebook for $150 billion, claiming that the social media platform’s lax policies on hate speech and the like made it so that the genocide was allowed to foment and get increasingly worse over the decade or so during which it was committed.
This lawsuit claims that many people that supported the genocide voiced their opinions openly on Facebook, and the social media platform didn’t really do much to prevent them from saying whatever it is that they wanted to say which arguably resulted in the genocide becoming significantly worse than might have otherwise ended up being the case.
H/T: BBC
Facebook itself has admitted some level of culpability in a 2018 report wherein the company stated that they could have done more to stop the spread of hateful rhetoric that fueled the genocide. Whether or not this results in the lawsuit being successful remains to be seen, but it might indicate that people are starting to hold Facebook accountable for the hate speech that it has allowed to thrive. Regardless of how things go, the fact remains that Facebook has become a hotbed for hate speech in several different ways. A recent example of imbalanced hate speech moderation popped up on social media, where users noted that Facebook was quick to take action when it comes to protecting it's CEO posts while a lot other wish if that approach could be applied to all posts on social network equally.
If you’re a religious minority in Myanmar, though, you’re on your own.
— Sleeping Giants (@slpng_giants) December 7, 2021
Read next: Frances Haugen states that Facebook doesn’t have enough employees to tackle the misinformation from other languages, Meta disagrees