Facebook promises more action to curb hate speech in Myanmar

Coming under fire for not doing enough to stop the misuse of its platform for spreading hate in Myanmar Facebook has promised to invest more in people technology and partnerships to make the social network a safer place for people to express themselvesFacebook on Monday said it was looking into establishing a separate policy that defines its approach to content moderation with respect to human rights as per recommendation from San Franciscobased nonprofit Business for Social Responsibility BSRBSR was commissioned by Facebook to make an independent human rights impact assessment on the role of the social networks services in MyanmarWere also working to hire additional human rights specialists to strengthen engagement with and solicit input from NGOs academia and international organisation Alex Warofka Product Policy Manager at Facebook said in a statementIn its report BSR concluded that prior to this year Facebook was not doing enough to help prevent its platform from being used to foment division and incite offline violence Facebook agreed with this assessmentWe agree that we can and should do more Warofka saidIn Myanmar Facebook has become a means for those seeking to spread hate and cause harm and posts have been linked to offline violence according to the assessment by BSRA large proportion of this hate speech has been directed towards the Rohingya MuslimsIn April the Guardian reported that hate speech on Facebook in Myanmar had exploded during the Rohingya crisis which was caused by a crackdown by the military in Rahkine state in August 2017Tens of thousands of Rohingya were killed raped and assaulted villages were razed to the ground and more than 700000 Rohingya fled over the border to Bangladesh the report saidBut over the course of this year Facebook has taken some corrective action the BSR report saidIn the third quarter of 2018 we saw continued improvement we took action on approximately 64000 pieces of content in Myanmar for violating our hate speech policies of which we proactively identified 63 per cent up from 13 per cent in the last quarter of 2017 and 52 per cent in the second quarter of this year Warofka saidBSR said that Facebook should improve enforcement of its Community Standards the policies that outline what is and is not allowed on FacebookCore to this process is continued development of a team that understands the local Myanmar context and includes policy product and operations expertise Warofka saidEarlier this year Facebook established a dedicated team across product engineering and policy to work on issues specific to MyanmarFacebook promised that it would to grow the team of native Myanmar language speakers reviewing content to at least 100 by the end of 2018We have now hired and onboarded 99 of these reviewers This team is making a difference improving the development and enforcement of our policies Warofka saidFacebook has about 20 million users in MyanmarCatch up on all the latest Crime National International and Hatke news here Also download the new midday Android and iOS apps to get latest updatesThis story has been sourced from a third party syndicated feed agencies Except for the change in the headline the story has been provided ASIS AS AVAILABLE without any verification or editing from our side Midday accepts no responsibility or liability for its dependability trustworthiness reliability and data of the text Midday managementmiddaycom reserves the sole right to alter delete or remove without notice the content in its absolute discretion for any reason whatsoever