With roosters crowing in the background as he speaks from the crowded refugee camp in Bangladesh that's been his home since 2017, Maung Sawyeddollah, 21, describes what happened when violent hate speech and disinformation targeting the Rohingya minority in Myanmar began to spread on Facebook.
'We were good with most of the people there. But some very narrow minded and very nationalist types escalated hate against Rohingya on Facebook,' he said. 'And the people who were good, in close communication with Rohingya. changed their mind against Rohingya and it turned to hate.'
FACEBOOK FOLLY A car passes Facebook's new Meta logo on a sign at the company headquarters on Oct. 28, 2021, in Menlo Park, California. For years, Facebook, now called Meta, has pushed a narrative that it was a neutral platform in Myanmar that was misused by bad actors and failed to moderate violent and hateful material adequately. But a new report by Amnesty International says Facebook was not merely a passive site with insufficient content moderation. Rather, Meta’s algorithms 'proactively amplified' material that incited violent hatred against the Rohingya beginning as early as 2012. PHOTO BY AP
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