{"id":12431,"date":"2017-11-20T05:10:00","date_gmt":"2017-11-20T05:10:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mathewingram.com\/work\/?p=12431"},"modified":"2017-11-20T05:10:00","modified_gmt":"2017-11-20T05:10:00","slug":"in-some-countries-fake-news-on-facebook-is-a-matter-of-life-and-death","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mathewingram.com\/work\/2017\/11\/20\/in-some-countries-fake-news-on-facebook-is-a-matter-of-life-and-death\/","title":{"rendered":"In some countries, fake news on Facebook is a matter of life and death"},"content":{"rendered":"

Misinformation distributed by social platforms like Facebook has become a major issue in the United States, thanks to <\/span>all the attention focused<\/span><\/a> on Russian troll armies trying to influence the 2016 presidential election. But in some countries, “fake news” doesn’t just interfere with people’s views about who to vote for\u2014it leads to people being arrested, jailed, and in some cases even killed. And Facebook doesn’t seem to be doing a lot about it.<\/span><\/p>\n

Southeast Asia is one place where the social network is fomenting ethnic and political tensions in dangerous ways, according to a number of journalists who cover the region. This effect can be seen in countries like Thailand and Cambodia, but it has become increasingly severe in Myanmar, where the Rohingya people are being persecuted, driven from their homes and in some cases raped and killed.<\/span><\/p>\n

“As complicated as Facebook\u2019s impacts on the politics of the United States are, the impact in Asia may be even more tricky, the consequences more severe and the ecosystem less examined, both by Facebook and most people in the US,” says Christina Larson, who has written about the region for a number of outlets including Bloomberg and <\/span>The Atlantic<\/span><\/i>.<\/span><\/p>\n

As the situation has escalated over the past six months, observers in Myanmar have reported waves of Facebook-based misinformation and propaganda aimed at fomenting anti-Rohingya fervor, including fabricated reports that families were setting fire to their own homes in an attempt to generate sympathy. <\/span>More than 600,000 people<\/span><\/a> have been forced from their homes so far, and an untold number have died in the process.<\/span><\/p>\n

One of the main sources of anti-Rohingya propaganda is Ma Ba Tha, a group of radical Buddhist monks who have been preaching that the Rohingya are less than human, or that they are trying to over-run the country and make everyone into a Muslim. The leader of the group, Ashin Wirathu, has been <\/span>banned<\/span><\/a> from preaching, but he has been able to spread his message far and wide thanks to an orchestrated Facebook campaign.<\/span><\/p>\n

Larson and others say the problem is compounded by the fact that a majority of Myanmar residents rely on Facebook for their news. And yet, the level of media literacy is shockingly low, primarily because smartphones and social media are still relatively new.<\/span><\/p>\n

Until 2014, the digital SIM cards required to use smartphones were prohibitively expensive, because they were only available from the country’s government-controlled telecom carrier. After the industry was opened up, cheap smartphones and $1 SIM cards flooded the market, available from every street vendor\u2014and almost all had Facebook installed by default.<\/span><\/p>\n

“Facebook has basically become the way that people do everything,” says Paul Mozur, a <\/span>New York Times<\/span><\/i> reporter who covers Myanmar. “It replaces newspapers, it displaces outreach campaigns by NGOs and other agencies trying to reach people especially in remote areas, it replaces just about everything.”<\/span><\/p>\n

Wirathu, the leader of the anti-Rohingya movement, used to print out paper pamphlets and flyers to spread his incendiary messages, Mozur says, but now he just posts fake images on Facebook and gets 100 times the reach.<\/span><\/p>\n

Many of those who have been thrust into this new world of smartphones and social networks in Myanmar “just aren’t used to the level of misinformation or disinformation that’s happening on Facebook,” says Mozur. “Suddenly they’re subject to the full force of an information war coming out of Yangon, orchestrated by much more sophisticated sources, and it’s easy for them to become pawns in that war.”<\/span><\/p>\n

And what is Facebook doing to help? Not much, some observers say. The social network has relationships with non-government agencies, but only a couple of actual staffers on the ground. “It’s become a bit like an absentee landlord in Southeast Asia,”<\/span> according to<\/span><\/a> Phil Robertson, deputy director of Human Rights Watch in Asia. <\/span><\/p>\n

A Facebook spokesman told CJR the company works hard to keep hate speech and content that celebrates or incites violence off the platform, that it is working with non-profit groups in Myanmar to raise awareness of its community standards policies, and that it has local-language pages that offer tips on safety and security.<\/span><\/p>\n

But still, the problem continues. and it is arguably far more serious than any safety tip guidelines could cover. At one point, Mozur says, messages were spreading on Facebook Messenger that said Muslims were planning an attack on 9\/11, and at the same time a separate chain letter said that the Buddhists were planning to attack on the same day.<\/span><\/p>\n

“I don\u2019t know who was behind those messages, it could have been like four people, but it literally brought the country to a standstill,” he says. “A lot of times these rifts are there already, and so in a certain sense I guess Facebook is a mirror, holding itself up to the differences in society. But social media can also become a real catalyst for the violence.”<\/span><\/p>\n

Christina Larson says there\u2019s a debate to be had about what hate speech means in a particular context and how to define it, “but what I would consider dangerous speech is advocating that the Rohingya need to leave Myanmar, and sharing doctored images of them supposedly burning their own houses to create a media spectacle.”<\/span><\/p>\n

In a way, she says, these images\u2014which were liked and shared tens of thousands of times\u2014”gave cover for military action and human rights violations, including violence and rape. You can\u2019t say social media kills people any more than you can say guns kill people, but certainly social media shaped public opinion in a way that seems to have played a part in the escalation of violence against the Rohingya population.”<\/span><\/p>\n

Facebook’s approach to countries like Myanmar and others in the region often strikes those on the ground as not just out of touch but actively cavalier. In its recent split-feed tests, for example, users in countries like Cambodia and Slovakia <\/span>had news articles moved<\/span><\/a> to a completely separate feed, which local non-profit groups and media outlets say significantly impacted their ability to reach people with crucial information.<\/span><\/p>\n

It’s one thing to tread carefully around issues like free speech, Larson says, “but if you\u2019re going to run A\/B testing, where you change an algorithm and see what you think consumers like best, for God\u2019s sake, stick to stable democracies. Don\u2019t pick a place where there\u2019s an authoritarian regime that is busy locking up opposition leaders, and Facebook is a primary way that activists communicate about their government.”<\/span><\/p>\n

In many ways, Myanmar is an example of the future Mark Zuckerberg seems to want: A country in which most people are connected through the social network and get virtually all of their news from it. And yet, the outcome of that isn’t a utopian vision of a better world, it’s exactly the opposite\u2014a world where ethnic and cultural tensions are inflamed and weaponized. And Facebook’s response looks almost completely inadequate to the dangers it has helped unleash.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

————————————————————————-<\/p>\n

\u201cFacebook has become a bit like an absentee landlord in Southeast Asia,\u201d says Phil Robertson, deputy director of Human Rights Watch\u2019s Asia division<\/strong>. \u201cWhen Buddhist extremists start instigating action against Muslims [in Myanmar], looking around for the local Facebook representative is hopeless \u2014 there isn\u2019t one. Instead, it\u2019s sort of, complain into the void and hope some relief arrives before it\u2019s too late<\/p>\n

Why is Facebook so useful to the junta? First, its insistence on a \u201creal name-only<\/a>\u201d policy makes for easy tracking of dissidents. Even in cases where people successfully mask their names, their web of social connections makes them potentially easy to identify. (In the U.S., sex workers have already found themselves inadvertently exposed<\/a>by Facebook\u2019s data-aggregation and friend suggestions.) Hard-to-navigate privacy settings can mean that what people mistakenly think of as private speech, limited to a small group of friends, is often anything but. \u201cIf you make a certain kind of comment online, you can quickly be sent to prison in Thailand,\u201d says iLaw researcher Anon Chawalawan.<\/p>\n

But the BBC has reported<\/a> that one unintended impact was dramatically shrinking the number of people who would see published items. \u201cOut of all the countries in the world, why Cambodia? This couldn\u2019t have come at a worse time,\u201d a Cambodian blogger told the BBC, explaining that the number of people who saw her public video had dropped by more than 80 percent. \u201cSuddenly I realized, wow, they actually hold so much power.\u2026 [Facebook] can crush us just like that if they want to.\u201d<\/p>\n

Facebook Can’t Cope With the World It’s Created<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n