FACEBOOK WHEAT
Bangkok, Dec 7 (EFE) .- Rohingya refugees have sued Facebook in the United States and the United Kingdom in a coordinated manner and claim 150,000 million dollars (about 132,000 million euros) for having encouraged hate messages on its platform in Burma (Myanmar).
In the United States, the lawsuit filed in a San Francisco court seeks multimillion-dollar damages from Meta, Facebook’s parent company, as compensation for the violence and persecution suffered by the Rohingya.
The San Francisco malpractice complaint has been filed by the law firms Edelson and Fields Law on behalf of the Rohingya in the United States, while in the United Kingdom the lawsuit has been filed by the attorneys at McCue Jury & Partners on behalf of the refugees. Rohingya outside the US
“While the Rohingya have long been victims of discrimination and persecution, the scope and violence of the persecution has changed in the last decade, from sporadic violence and human rights abuses to terrorism and mass genocide,” alleges the Edelson and Fields Law lawsuit to which Efe has had access.
Lawyers for the United States allege that the introduction of the Facebook social network in Burma in 2011 encouraged, through its algorithms, “the dissemination of hateful messages, disinformation and incitement to violence”, which, in their opinion, led to the “Genocide of the Rohingya”.
The plaintiffs refer to military operations in 2016 and 2017 that caused at least 10,000 deaths and the exodus of more than 800,000 Rohingya to Bangladesh, where they continue to be crammed into the world’s largest refugee camps.
The Burmese military have been charged with alleged crimes against humanity before the International Criminal Court and for alleged genocide before the International Court of Justice, both tribunals in The Hague.
After conducting an internal investigation, Facebook, which recently changed the parent’s name to Meta, acknowledged in 2018 that it had not done enough to curb hate messages in Burma and pledged to make changes and hire more translators.
Since then, the Silicon Valley giant, which also owns WhatsApp and Instagram, has established agreements with the media and agencies to combat hoaxes and misinformation on social media.
However, plaintiffs in the United States and the United Kingdom accuse him of acting late, despite NGO and media warnings, to limit hateful messages against the Rohingya.
“Despite Facebook’s acknowledgment of guilt and its statements about its role in the world, it has not paid a penny of compensation or any other form of reparation or support to any survivor,” McCue Jury said in a letter sent to the headquarters of Facebook in London, to which Efe has had access.
The lawyers of Edelson and Fields Law allege that disinformation through Facebook continues “to this day” in Burma, which has been under a military junta since the coup on February 1.
“At the core of this lawsuit is the understanding that Facebook was willing to trade the lives of the Rohingya to penetrate the market of a small country in Southeast Asia,” says the legal document filed in San Francisco.
The chairman of the UK’s Rohingya Burmese Organization, Tun Khin, said the lawsuits seek “justice” for the Rohingya and said that Facebook must bear responsibility for allowing hate messages that led to “unspeakable violence.”
“Facebook looked the other way as genocide was perpetrated, putting profit above the human rights of the Rohingya,” Tun Khin said in a statement.
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