Rohingya refugees on Monday sued Facebook for US$150 billion over claims the social network is failing to stem hate speech on its platform, exacerbating violence against the vulnerable minority.
The complaint, lodged in a California court, says the algorithms that power the US-based company promote disinformation and extremist thought that translates to real-world violence.
“Facebook is like a robot programmed with a singular mission: to grow,” the court document says.
Photo: AP
“The undeniable reality is that Facebook’s growth, fueled by hate, division, and misinformation, has left hundreds of thousands of devastated Rohingya lives in its wake,” it says.
The mainly Muslim group faces widespread discrimination in Myanmar, where they are despised as interlopers, despite having lived in the nation for generations.
A military-backed campaign that the UN said amounted to genocide saw hundreds of thousands of Rohingya driven across the border into Bangladesh in 2017, where they have since lived in sprawling refugee camps.
Many others remain in Myanmar, where they are not permitted citizenship and are subject to communal violence, as well as official discrimination by the ruling military junta.
The legal complaint argues that Facebook’s algorithms drive susceptible users to join ever-more extreme groups, a situation that is “open to exploitation by autocratic politicians and regimes.”
Rights groups have long charged that Facebook does not do enough to prevent the spread of disinformation and misinformation online.
Critics say even when alerted to hate speech on its platform, the company fails to act.
They charge that the social media giant allows falsehoods to proliferate, affecting the lives of minorities and skewing elections in democracies such as the US, where unfounded charges of fraud circulate and intensify among like-minded friends.
This year, a huge leak by a company insider sparked articles arguing Facebook, whose parent company is called Meta, knew its sites could harm some of their billions of users — but executives chose growth over safety.
Whistle-blower Frances Haugen told the US Congress in October that Facebook is “fanning ethnic violence” in some nations.
Under US law, Facebook is largely protected from liability over content posted by its users.
The Rohingya lawsuit, anticipating this defense, argues that where applicable, the law of Myanmar — which has no such protections — should prevail in the case.
Facebook, which did not immediately respond to questions about the lawsuit, has been under pressure in the US and Europe to clamp down on false information, particularly over elections and the COVID-19 pandemic.
The company has forged partnerships with several media companies, including Agence France-Presse, intended to verify online posts and remove those that are untrue.
Indonesia and Malaysia have become the first countries to block Grok, the artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot developed by Elon Musk’s xAI, after authorities said it was being misused to generate sexually explicit and nonconsensual images. The moves reflect growing global concern over generative AI tools that can produce realistic images, sound and text, while existing safeguards fail to prevent their abuse. The Grok chatbot, which is accessed through Musk’s social media platform X, has been criticized for generating manipulated images, including depictions of women in bikinis or sexually explicit poses, as well as images involving children. Regulators in the two Southeast Asian
COMMUNIST ALIGNMENT: To Lam wants to combine party chief and state presidency roles, with the decision resting on the election of 200 new party delegates next week Communist Party of Vietnam General Secretary To Lam is seeking to combine his party role with the state presidency, officials said, in a move that would align Vietnam’s political structure more closely to China’s, where President Xi Jinping (習近平) heads the party and state. Next week about 1,600 delegates are to gather in Hanoi to commence a week-long communist party congress, held every five years to select new leaders and set policy goals for the single-party state. Lam, 68, bade for both top positions at a party meeting last month, seeking initial party approval ahead of the congress, three people briefed by
Yemen’s separatist leader has vowed to keep working for an independent state in the country’s south, in his first social media post since he disappeared earlier this month after his group briefly seized swathes of territory. Aidarous al-Zubaidi’s United Arab Emirates (UAE)-backed Southern Transitional Council (STC) forces last month captured two Yemeni provinces in an offensive that was rolled back by Saudi strikes and Riyadh’s allied forces on the ground. Al-Zubaidi then disappeared after he failed to board a flight to Riyadh for talks earlier this month, with Saudi Arabia accusing him of fleeing to Abu Dhabi, while supporters insisted he was
The Chinese Embassy in Manila yesterday said it has filed a diplomatic protest against a Philippine Coast Guard spokesman over a social media post that included cartoonish images of Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平). Philippine Coast Guard spokesman Jay Tarriela and an embassy official had been trading barbs since last week over issues concerning the disputed South China Sea. The crucial waterway, which Beijing claims historic rights to despite an international ruling that its assertion has no legal basis, has been the site of repeated clashes between Chinese and Philippine vessels. Tarriela’s Facebook post on Wednesday included a photo of him giving a
RSS