Facebook apologises for its role in 2018 anti-Muslim riots in Sri Lanka

Facebook apologised for its role in communal violence in Sri Lanka two years ago after an investigation found that social media platform was used to spre hate speech and rumours. After report was published on May 12, Facebook said in a statement to Bloomberg News that company deplores misuse of platform and apologise for its “very real” human rights impacts. 

In 2018, at least three people were killed and 20 injured following anti-Muslim rhetoric based on rumours was amplified on Facebook which forced government to block access to it and impose a state of emergency. company n commissioned an investigation into incident by hiring human rights consultancy Article One.

While Facebook has 4.4 million daily active users in Sri Lanka, officials said that tech giant h only "two resource persons" to review content in Sinhala, langu of country’s ethnic majority. company said that it has significantly increased staffing, hiring policy les and program manrs in Sri Lanka and expanding number of content reviewers who speak Sinhala.

“In Sri Lanka...we are reducing distribution of frequently reshared messs, which are often associated with bait and misinformation,” said Facebook in a statement.

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Recommendations of HRIA

Article One in its Human Rights Impact Assessments (HRIA) recommended Facebook to invest in changes to platform architecture to promote authoritative information and reduce spre of abusive content  tech giant said that it has alrey removed around 4.7 million pieces of content on Facebook connected to organised hate in first three months of 2020, an increase of over 3 million pieces of content from previous quarter.

“We’ll continue working to disrupt and remove dangerous organizations from our platform and we’ll share how we’re doing at enforcing our policies and combating new ways people may try to abuse our apps,” company ded.

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(Im credit: AP)