(REUTERS): Rohingya refugees from Myanmar have sued Meta Platforms Inc, formerly known as Facebook, for $150 billion over allegations that the social media company failed to take action against anti-Rohingya hate speech that contributed to violence.
A US class-action complaint, filed in California on Monday by law firms Edelson PC and Fields PLLC, argues that the company’s failures to police content and its platform’s design contributed to real-world violence faced by the Rohingya community.
In a coordinated action, British lawyers also submitted a letter of notice to Facebook’s London office. However, Facebook did not immediately respond to a request for comment about the lawsuit.
“Facebook is like a robot programmed with a singular mission: to grow,” the court document states. “The undeniable reality is that Facebook’s growth, fueled by hate, division, and misinformation, has left hundreds of thousands of devastated Rohingya lives in its wake,” it added.
The company had previously said it was “too slow to prevent misinformation and hate” in Myanmar adding that it has since taken steps to crack down on platform abuses in the region, including banning the military from Facebook and Instagram after Feb 1 coup.
Facebook had said it is protected from liability over content posted by users by a US internet law known as Section 230, which holds that online platforms are not liable for content posted by third parties.
More than 730,000 Rohingya Muslims fled Myanmar’s Rakhine state in August 2017 after a military crackdown that refugees said included mass killings and rape. Rights groups documented killings of civilians and the burning of villages.
Myanmar authorities say they were battling an insurgency and deny carrying out systematic atrocities. A Myanmar junta spokesman did not answer phone calls from Reuters seeking comment on the legal action against Facebook.
The new class-action lawsuit references claims by Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen, who leaked a cache of internal documents this year, that the company does not police abusive content in countries where such speech is likely to cause the most harm.
The complaint also cites recent media reports, including a Reuters report last month, that Myanmar’s military was using fake social media accounts to engage in what is widely referred to in the military as “information combat.”
