Saijai Liangpunsakul (Myanmar)
Is Facebook responsible for Mass Killings in Myanmar? – The Rolle of Platforms

After five decades of military rule, Myanmar is opening up. At the same time, the country is undergoing a connectivity revolution. After liberalizing its telecommunications market, the country jumped straight to smartphones. With more than 20 million users, Facebook is simply the internet in Myanmar. 

With Facebook came new ways for people in Myanmar to connect and communicate. However, the UN report describes Facebook as a “useful instrument for those seeking to spread hate” against the Muslim minority and mentions that the role of Facebook must be independently and thoroughly investigated. Is Facebook responsible for the violence? Could misinformation and hate speech cause real-world violence? What is the role of the platform?