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Facebook Sued For $150B Over Alleged Role In Violence

Published

4 years ago

December 11, 2021

Rohingya refugees sued social network powerhouse Facebook for more than $150 billion, accusing it of failing to stop hate speech that incited violence against the Muslim ethnic group by military rulers and their supporters in Myanmar.

Years after coming under scrutiny for contributing to ethnic and religious violence in Myanmar, recently revealed internal Facebook documents show the company still has problems defining and moderating hate speech and misinformation on its platform in the country.

The breaches have even been exploited by hostile actors since the Feb. 1 military takeover this year that resulted in human rights abuses across the country.

The Rohingyas’ claims were fortified by the revelations in internal company documents that former Facebook employee and whistleblower Frances Haugen provided this fall to Congress and U.S. securities regulators.

The documents could also serve to buttress potential legal action by other groups around the world harmed by hate speech and misinformation on Facebook’s platform.

Lawyers filed a class-action lawsuit Monday in California against Facebook parent Meta Platforms, saying Facebook’s arrival in Myanmar helped spread hate speech, misinformation and incitement to violence that “amounted to a substantial cause, and eventual perpetuation of, the Rohingya genocide.”

Lawyers in the United Kingdom have issued notice of their intention to file a similar legal action. Facebook, which was recently renamed Meta, said in a statement Tuesday that it is “appalled by the crimes committed against the Rohingya people in Myanmar” and has built a team of Burmese speakers and invested in technology to take action against harmful misinformation there.

The Rohingya are a Muslim ethnic group forced to flee persecution and violence in Myanmar starting in 2017, with an estimated 1 million living in refugee camps in neighboring Bangladesh. Some 10,000 have ended up in the United States.

In 2018, United Nations human rights experts investigating attacks against the Rohingya said Facebook had played a role in spreading hate speech.

More than 10,000 Rohingya have been killed and more than 150,000 were subject to physical violence, according to the law firms organizing the cases.

The lawsuits say Facebook’s algorithms amplified hate speech against the Rohingya people and the company didn’t spend enough money to hire moderators and fact checkers who spoke the local languages or understood the political situation.

They also say Facebook failed to shut accounts and pages or remove posts inciting violence or using hate speech directed at the ethnic group.

Facebook arrived in Myanmar in 2011, arranging for millions of residents to access the internet for the first time, according to the lawsuit filed in California Superior Court for San Mateo County. But the lawsuit says the company did little to warn people about the dangers of online misinformation and fake accounts — tactics employed by the military in its campaign against the Rohingya.

Facebook noted in its statement Tuesday that it has banned the military, known as the Tatmadaw, from its platform while also working to disrupt networks trying to manipulate public behavior in the country.

The lawsuit says Facebook knew that rewarding users for posting dangerous content and allowing fake accounts created by autocrats to flourish would radicalize users.

“The resulting Facebook-fueled anti-Rohingya sentiment motivated and enabled the military government of Myanmar to engage in a campaign of ethnic cleansing against the Rohingya,” the lawsuit says.

Myanmar was among several places mentioned in documents brought to light by Haugen, and reviewed by The AP, that also detailed content-monitoring lapses in Afghanistan, the Gaza Strip, India, and Dubai and the United Arab Emirates.

In the U.S., extremist misinformation and inflammatory content on Facebook egged on supporters of then-President Donald Trump in the days and weeks leading up to the Jan. 6 assault on the Capitol, raising the question of whether injured Capitol and District of Columbia police officers might seek to hold the company responsible. The documents open a window into how Facebook’s conflicting impulses — to nurture its business and protect democracy — clashed in the run-up to the insurrection.

“Across the board, the Facebook papers give civil rights advocates and others a lot of ammunition for their advocacy work,” Washington attorney Peter Romer-Friedman said. He is a lead attorney for a lawsuit filed by the civil rights organization Muslim Advocates in April against Mark Zuckerberg and other top Facebook executives, accusing them of falsely claiming that the company removes anti-Muslim rhetoric and other hate speech from the platform. The suit has garnered support from consumer groups and the District of Columbia’s attorney general.

Romer-Friedman said their case was bolstered “100%” by the internal documents shared by Haugen. “The world has changed a lot since early September,” he said. The Wall Street Journal published a series of articles based on the documents obtained by Haugen in September, and she went public in early October in a television interview and testimony to a Senate panel.

Another youth-led group of Rohingya based at a refugee camp in Bangladesh says it is planning to file a separate complaint against Meta in Ireland on Thursday. It’s not a lawsuit but a formal complaint with the watchdog Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development calling for the company to provide some remediation programs in the camps.

Headline

FULL LIST: US To Review Green Cards From 19 ‘Countries Of Concern’ After Washington Shooting

Published

3 hours ago

November 29, 2025

Editor

The Trump administration announced on Thursday that it will review the immigration status of all permanent residents, or “Green Card” holders, from Afghanistan and 18 other countries following the attack on National Guard troops in Washington, D.C.

U.S. officials identified the suspect in Wednesday’s shooting as a 29-year-old Afghan national who previously worked alongside American forces in Afghanistan.

The individual was granted asylum earlier this year, not permanent residency, according to AfghanEvac, an organisation that assists Afghans resettled in the United States after the Taliban takeover in 2021.

“I have directed a full-scale, rigorous reexamination of every Green Card for every alien from every country of concern,” said Joseph Edlow, director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), on X.

The review follows a June executive order from President Trump classifying 19 countries as “of Identified Concern.”

The order banned entry for nearly all nationals from 12 countries, including Afghanistan. The full list of these countries is:

Afghanistan

Myanmar

Chad

Congo-Brazzaville

Equatorial Guinea

Eritrea

Haiti

Iran

Libya

Somalia

Sudan

Yemen

A partial travel ban applies to seven additional countries, though some temporary work visas remain allowed: Burundi, Cuba, Laos, Sierra Leone, Togo, Turkmenistan, and Venezuela.

Headline

Romanian Defence Minister Quits After Admitting Error In Academic Record

Published

3 hours ago

November 29, 2025

Editor

Romania’s defence minister resigned on Friday after saying he made a “mistake” on his CV about his university education, as controversy swirled over alleged lies on his resume.

Ionut Mosteanu – who has admitted to writing on his CV that he graduated from a university he never attended – said he did not want the row “to distract” the NATO member at a time when it and Europe are “under attack from Russia”.

Romania has repeatedly seen drone fragments fall on its soil since Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, and reported a number of drone incursions.

On Tuesday, a drone crashed in eastern Romania, which borders Ukraine.

Romania has also accused Moscow of “hybrid attacks”, including meddling in presidential elections last year that were subsequently annulled.

“Today, I resigned from my position as minister of national defence,” Mosteanu said in a Facebook post, adding he wanted the country to be focused on its “difficult mission”.

“Romania and Europe are under attack from Russia. Our national security must be defended at all costs,” he added.

Mosteanu had come under pressure after a media investigation published on Thursday revealed that he wrote in a CV that he graduated from a university which he did not actually attend.

That same day he apologised for what he called “a mistake”.

“In a CV I quickly put together in 2016 using a template I found online, there is a mistake that I admit embarrasses me. I didn’t pay much attention to these details at the time,” he said on Facebook.

Mosteanu was appointed defence minister in June of this year, when a new pro-European government was formed after months of political turmoil.

Prime Minister Ilie Bolojan said in a press release that he would propose economy and tourism minister Radu Miruta take over the defence portfolio in the interim.

AFP

Headline

Russia Insists Ukraine Must Cede Land Or Face Continued Military Push

Published

1 day ago

November 27, 2025

Editor

Russian President Vladimir Putin said Thursday that he would end his Ukraine offensive if Kyiv withdrew from territory Moscow claims at its own — otherwise his army would take it by force.

The Russian army has been slowly but steadily grinding through eastern Ukraine in costly battles against outnumbered and outgunned Ukrainian forces.

Washington has meanwhile renewed its push to end the nearly four-year war, putting forward a surprise plan that it hopes to finalise through upcoming talks with Moscow and Kyiv.

“If Ukrainian forces leave the territories they hold, then we will stop combat operations,” Putin said during a visit to Kyrgyzstan. “If they don’t, then we will achieve it by military means.”

Russia controls around one-fifth of Ukraine’s territory. The issue of occupied land, which Kyiv has said it will never cede, is among the biggest stumbling blocks in the peace process.

Another important issue in the talks are Western security guarantees for Ukraine, which Kyiv says are needed to prevent Moscow from invading again in the future.

Washington’s original plan — drafted without input from Ukraine’s European allies — would have seen Kyiv withdraw from its eastern Donetsk region and the United States de facto recognise the Donetsk, Crimea and Lugansk regions as Russian.

The US pared back the original plan over the weekend following criticism from Kyiv and Europe, but has not yet released the new version.

Putin, who has seen the new plan, said it could be a negotiation starter.

“Overall, we agree that it could form the basis for future agreements,” he said of the latest draft, which the US is thought to have shortened to about 20 points.

US negotiator Steve Witkoff was expected in Moscow next week to discuss the revised document, Putin said.

US Army Secretary Dan Driscoll is meanwhile due to visit Kyiv later this week, Ukraine’s top presidential aide Andriy Yermak said.

– ‘Little can be done’ –

In his remarks Thursday, Putin repeated the claim that Russia had encircled the Ukrainian army in Pokrovsk and Myrnograd in Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region — the most fiercely embattled area and a key target for Moscow’s forces.

“Krasnoarmeysk and Dimitrov are completely surrounded,” he said, using the Russian names for the cities.

Moscow was also advancing in Vovchansk and Siversk, as well as approaching the important logistic hub of Guliaipole, he added.

The Russian offensive “is practically impossible to hold back, so there is little that can be done about it”, Putin said.

Ukraine has denied Pokrovsk and Myrnograd are encircled, insisting its forces continue to hold the enemy along the front line.

Putin also questioned Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s legitimacy and said signing any agreement with him would be legally “almost impossible” at the moment, a suggestion that has drawn groans from Kyiv and its allies.

According to data analysed by AFP from the American Institute for the Study of War (ISW), Russian forces have conquered an average of 467 square kilometres (180 square miles) each month in 2025 — a step up from 2024.

Moscow launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, triggering the worst armed conflict in Europe since World War II.

The war has killed hundreds of thousands of people and forced millions to flee their homes.