Rohingya refugees testified two class action lawsuits seeking over $150 billion in damages from Meta, formerly Facebook, for its role in fueling the Rohingya genocide in Myanmar (Myanmar, Rohingya).
The lawsuits, filed anonymously at United Kingdom And the USA, argue that Facebook's platform widely disseminated hate speech and misinformation against the Rohingya, while helping users incite violence that resulted in the rape, death and torture of hundreds of thousands of Rohingya.
The Rohingya are a Muslim minority historically found in present-day Myanmar, but have faced persecution and human rights abuses by the local government and extremist Buddhists in the country.
The UK lawsuit was filed on behalf of all non-US Rohingya survivors worldwide, with a separate US lawsuit against the US-based Rohingya community.
In the initial complaint [PDF] for the U.S. lawsuit, the refugees claim that Facebook executives allowed posts ordering Myanmar government strikes on the Rohingya to remain on the platform despite knowing they had existed for years.
The complaint alleges that Facebook algorithms recommended users to join extremist groups, and forced users to post even more inflammatory and divisive content, as this made the post viral and remained at the top of the News Feed.
"At the heart of this complaint is the realization that Facebook was willing to exchange Rohingya lives for better market penetration in a small country in Southeast Asia."
According to the complaint, Facebook only admitted in 2018 that its platform was used to incite division and incitement to offline violence, since the Rohingya genocide had already taken place. This happened despite the fact that Facebook had been warned since 2013 about extensive posts, groups and accounts against the Rohingya on its platform, the complaint states.
Both lawsuits are seeking more than $ 150 billion in damages for the unlawful death, personal injury, pain, mental anguish and loss of property of the Rohingya people.
Under Burmese law, companies can be held liable if the content on their platforms incites violence and contributes to genocide.
