JAKARTA - Facebook was sued for Rp2.16 quadrillion by the Rohingya refugee community. The plaintiffs argued that Facebook's algorithm exacerbated the massacre of the Rohingya in Myanmar. Not a new story. Facebook is often highlighted as a platform for triggering conflict vulnerabilities.
"Facebook is like a robot programmed with a single mission, namely to grow... In fact, Facebook's growth, fueled by hatred, division and misinformation, has cost hundreds of thousands of Rohingya lives," the lawsuit said.
The lawsuit was filed in a court in California, United States. According to CNA, the plaintiffs argue that Facebook's algorithms have encouraged the spread of disinformation and even promoted extremist thoughts.
Those thoughts, which are then translated into violence in the real world. The United Nations (UN) itself has declared the massacre of the military-backed Rohingya ethnic as genocide.
The Rohingya people, if they don't die, then suffer. Hundreds of thousands of them were forced to flee across the border into Bangladesh in 2017. They then live in refugee camps.
Their purpose of evacuating is increasingly spreading to many other countries in Asia, including Indonesia. A number of ethnic Rohingya who live in Myanmar experience discrimination, intimidation, to violence and massacres.
Almost all of them actually wanted to go find refuge. But Myanmar's ruling military junta detained them without granting them citizenship.
Through many generations, the plight of Rohingya Muslims has long faced widespread discrimination. They are seen as smugglers despite having lived in Myanmar for a long time.
How does Facebook's algorithm exacerbate Rohingya violence?
The lawsuit says Facebook's algorithms encourage vulnerable users to join extreme groups. Facebook has failed to prevent hate speech from spreading.
Beyond the lawsuit, Mark Zuckerberg's company has long been criticized by human rights groups with similar accusations. Facebook, with its algorithm is said to allow fake news to proliferate.
Quoted by the BBC, all the hoaxes that then affect the lives of minorities. Facebook, algorithmically, will prioritize new and viral information rather than validity and truth.
Facebook, in its operating system also allows hoax content creators to spread false information. Even without the validation process, Facebook's digital advertising feature allows hoax content creators to reach a wider range of users even if it's a hoax.
Critics eventually identified a pattern of malicious advertisements and information. Characteristics, usually using a bombastic title, image, and description.
Identification is actually not difficult. But Facebook itself seems to deliberately allow the spread of such dangerous news.
A former Facebook employee, this year leaked secrets about the attitude of company executives. They are said to have consciously chosen to allow hatred to grow even though they knew Facebook's algorithms were putting its users at risk.
Facebook itself did not respond to the Rohingya lawsuit. The company, which has now changed its name to Meta, is also under pressure in America and Europe to suppress false information, especially regarding elections and the coronavirus.
Social media triggers widespread conflict
This is the case with Uighur Muslims in China. Jack Dorsey and Twitter are strongly accused of helping Chinese politics through the help of their paid feature: promoted tweets.
Dorsey's remarks before the Senate last year about Twitter not following in Zuckerberg's and Facebook's dirty footsteps actually boomeranged back against his credibility. Moreover, we remember how Dorsey spoke very loudly about neutrality as the foundation of his micro blogging philosophy.
Twitter's involvement in helping the Chinese government's politics was caught in an investigation by a number of journalists and global social media practitioners. The investigation found that the promoted tweets feature was used to help the Chinese government's politics in mid-2019.
At that time, the investigation found that propaganda carried out by China through the Global Times account was milling about -- through the promoted tweets feature -- massive on Twitter. Global Times is one of the Chinese media which is fully controlled and controlled by the government.
According to monitoring, at least the promoted tweets feature encourages the appearance of Global Times propaganda content up to more than 50 times on the timelines of hundreds of millions of Twitter user accounts worldwide, even if they don't follow the Global Times. Through these propaganda content, China tries to refute international accusations by showing the condition of Xinjiang on the Uighur issue in their version.
Promoted tweets forced hundreds of millions of Twitter users to consume Chinese propaganda in the form of a scene of a poor elderly in Xinjiang receiving free medical aid from the Chinese government. The Global Times, through the help of Twitter, is trying to lead public opinion that what is happening in Xinjiang today is even more harmonious and joyful after the "pig's head" terror tragedy between the Uighurs and the Han ethnicity.
This drew strong criticism of Twitter's policies. If you look at the rules of the game, Twitter's terms of service actually stipulate that they are not obligated to receive political orders via media that are suspected to be political tools of the regime in various countries, including the Global Times which is controlled by the Chinese government. This policy was formed as a reflection of the Facebook scandal that was accused of aiding Russian politics and harming the Donald Trump administration.
The greater China as Twitter's business share
The greater China is Twitter's designation to describe the business share zone in mainland China as one of Twitter's poor revenue coffers throughout the Asia Pacific. Huawei and Xiaomi are one of Twitter's big clients.
The greater China, which has representative offices in Singapore and Hong Kong, is indeed good for Twitter's business. Despite being blocked among the Chinese public, Twitter's turnover is reportedly increasing. This has even forced Twitter to triple their support team fleet in the past year.
Not only promoted tweets. Twitter also provides intensive training for officials, politicians, and diplomas in the Xi Jinping regime. This finding reinforces the allegation that Twitter actually facilitates Chinese government propaganda. 'Praise' to Xi Jinping's regime for cleverly taking advantage of the moment of blocking Twitter among China's internal public.
This situation was exploited by using Twitter as a beacon to broadcast propaganda after propaganda to the outside world through paid media maintained by the government. And Twitter is used to minimize the international public's perception of the chaos in Xinjiang due to acts of violence and human rights violations by the Chinese government.
If you look at the theoretical side, China is actually demonstrating damage control. The land that was once a colony of East Turkemnistan --Xinjiang-- is described as being fine. Damage control is the control of damage or chaos. This is a common concept carried out by various political elites after the chaos caused by their political practices. Under these conditions, the mass media is the ultimate instrument.
Chinese propaganda and Twitter contradict the fact that efforts to eliminate the Uighur race to give place to ethnic Han - who are actually immigrants - are real. A fact that has been proven by the investigations of many global journalists.
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