- On February 1, the Myanmar military launched a coup.
- In response to the military coup in Myanmar, Facebook is censoring reports from the coup leaders.
- Facebook said the accounts “continued to spread misinformation”, which forced moderators to act.
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On February 1, on the verge of a newly elected government taking office, Myanmar’s military announced a coup.
The basis of the coup, he said, was allegations of widespread electoral fraud in last year’s election. Although these claims have been repeatedly debunked and the election results confirmed, the military-backed Union Party for Solidarity and Development has seized government power after losing the country’s November elections by a landslide.
Facebook said it is treating the situation “as an emergency” and is limiting communications from the Myanmar military and military spokesman, it said this week.
The company said it will “significantly reduce the distribution of all content on Facebook pages and profiles administered by the Myanmar military (” Tatmadaw “) who continue to spread misinformation.” This includes the military spokesman and his “information team”, and can be applied more broadly “to any additional pages that the military controls and that repeatedly violate our disinformation policies,” said Facebook.
These pages and profiles will also be excluded from the recommendations.
Facebook was criticized for being too lax in its moderation efforts with politicians, especially former President Donald Trump. It wasn’t until the January 6 uprising attempt, and subsequent messages from Trump, that Facebook decided to suspend its account.
Notably, Facebook has previous experience with moderating sensitive users in Myanmar – the service played a role in the ethnic cleansing of the Rohingya Muslim population in the country, said Mark Zuckerberg in 2018.
“On a Saturday morning, I got a call and we detected that people were trying to spread sensational messages – it was Facebook Messenger, in this case – to each side of the conflict, basically saying to Muslims, ‘Hey, there is about to be a revolt by Buddhists, so make sure you’re armed and go to this place. ‘And then the same thing on the other side, “Zuckerberg told Ezra Klein of Vox.
Facebook said it is determined not to let that happen again. “We remain attentive to emerging trends,” said the company, “and will not hesitate to take further action as appropriate.”