A US Federal Judge has ordered Facebook to release records of accounts that posted anti-Rohingya content leading to mass violence against the Muslim minority in Myanmar.
Rejecting Facebook’s argument about protecting privacy as “rich with irony”, the judge in Washingon, DC, on Wednesday criticised Facebook for failing to hand over information to investigators seeking to prosecute the country for international crimes against the Muslim minority Rohingya.
Facebook had refused to release the data, saying it would violate a US law that bars electronic communication services from disclosing users’ communications.
But the judge said the posts, which were deleted, would not be covered under the law
But the judge said the posts, which were deleted, would not be covered under the law and not sharing the content would “compound the tragedy that has befallen the Rohingya”, according to a Wall Street Journal.
Facebook’s privacy concern rich with irony
“Facebook taking up the mantle of privacy rights is rich with irony. News sites have entire sections dedicated to Facebook’s sordid history of privacy scandals,” he wrote.
A spokesperson for Facebook said the company was reviewing the decision and that it had already made “voluntary, lawful disclosures” to another UN body, the Independent Investigative Mechanism for Myanmar.
The Gambia is seeking the records as part of a case against Myanmar at the International Court of Justice in the Hague, accusing Myanmar of violating the 1948 United Nations Convention on Genocide.
More than 730,000 predominantly Muslim Rohingya fled Myanmar’s western Rakhine state in August 2017 after a military crackdown that refugees said included mass killings and rape.
Myanmar authorities say they were battling an armed uprising and deny carrying out systematic atrocities.
Facebook Played a key role in spread of violence
In 2018, UN human rights investigators said Facebook had played a key role in spreading hate speech that fueled the violence.
In Wednesday’s ruling, US magistrate judge Zia M. Faruqui said Facebook had taken a first step by deleting “the content that fueled a genocide” but had “stumbled” by not sharing it.
In Wednesday’s ruling, US magistrate judge Zia M. Faruqui said Facebook had taken a first step by deleting “the content that fueled a genocide” but had “stumbled” by not sharing it.
Shannon Raj Singh, human rights counsel at Twitter, called the decision “momentous”.
In a Twitter post, she said it was “one of the foremost examples of the relevance of social media to modern atrocity prevention & response”.
Facebook has come under fire in Myanmar over the past 10 years – during which the Rohingya have been subjected to successive waves of violence – for the volume of hate speech directed against the community.
