A US court ordered Facebook to hand over records linked to anti-Rohingya violence accounts. These were shut down in 2018 by the social media giant.
The federal court judge criticised Facebook for failing to hand over critical data to sleuths who were seeking to prosecute the country for international crimes against the Rohingya minority.
The court rebuked and rejected Facebook’s arguments of protecting privacy in its own manner.
“Facebook taking up the mantle of privacy rights is rich with irony. News sites have entire sections dedicated to Facebook’s sordid history of privacy scandals,” the US court judge said.
Although, Facebook has been reluctant to release data on violence against the Muslim minority Rohingyas. It cited a US law that bars electronic communications companies from disclosing user information.
The judge, taking a jibe, ruled that since the accounts were deleted, they would not be covered under the law; therefore, refusing to share the content would mean the reverse.
The Rohingyas have been described by the UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres as ”one of the most discriminated people in the world” are one of the many ethnic minorities in Myanmar.
The majority of Rohingyas used to reside in Rakhine state before their exodus in August 2017.
The report also reveals that the Myanmar military exploited Facebook’s wide reach to create a hate campaign against the Muslim minority Rohingya population.
These (deleted) posts and accounts have been deleted but held responsible for turning a majority of the population indifferent to what was inflicted on the Rohingya.
As per sources, Facebook played a key role in spreading hate speech that fuelled the violence.
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