Poison If You Don’t Know How to Use It: Facebook, Democracy, and Human Rights in Myanmar

Abstract

<jats:p> Internet access in Myanmar has exploded from less than 1 percent in 2001 to more than 30 percent in 2018 and of those who have access, 40 percent list Facebook as their primary source of news. Coinciding with Facebook’s diffusion in Myanmar is a sharp increase in violence toward minority groups—especially the Rohingya. A U.N. Fact-Finding mission found Facebook was used to spread hate and facilitate the persecution of the Rohingya. But we know little about how people in Myanmar actually use Facebook, how they acquire and evaluate the information they find on the platform and whether they see disinformation or extreme speech. Furthermore, we lack information about the sentiments that Facebook users and non-users express about the Rohingya and how they view Facebook’s role in inter-ethnic conflict. We use interviews to address these questions. We find that people in Myanmar use Facebook for a variety of reasons, that they look at international and domestic sources, and encounter many different kinds of information—including extreme speech—on the platform. Most people also told us that they prefer sources that confirm their views. </jats:p>

Stewardship of global collective behavior

“…Ongoing crises in digital spaces have generated substantial momentum and insight toward stewardship. Misinformation poses grave threats including the spread of conspiracy theories, rejection of recommended public health interventions, subversion of democratic processes, and even genocide (90,107,157,158). In response, communication scholars have adopted decades-old theories of propaganda and mass communication to understand disinformation and media manipulation online (154,159,160).…”

An empirical analysis of the use of agricultural mobile applications among smallholder farmers in Myanmar

“…Farmers considered “Facebook” as an agricultural mobile app where they can obtain agricultural information. Whitten‐Woodring, Kleinberg, Thawnghmung, and Thitsar (2020) reported that Facebook has the potential to influence decisions and has become a primary source of news in Myanmar. In Myanmar, Facebook is also used as a search engine and has become an essential app on every phone, with many people using it on a daily basis (Leong, 2017).…”

Digital Threats to Democracy: Comparative Lessons and Possible Remedies

“…Since 2016, it has become clear that disinformation is not simply a foreign threat; that successful campaigns are waged by domestic purveyors of disinformation and, indeed, depend heavily for their success on networks of communication that include traditional media organizations, such as tabloid newspapers (Chadwick et al 2018), radio stations, and cable news (Benkler et al 2018). Moreover, hate and toxicity are used by partisan activists and supporters to intimidate and silence political opponents in ways that disproportionately affect traditionally marginalized groups (Sobieraj 2019; Udupa et al 2020; see also Whitten-Woodring et al 2020 in this special issue). Mass electorates are increasingly concerned with the spread of misinformation and disinformation (as documented in this special issue by Koc-Michalska et al 2020), to the point that many doubt whether news can be trusted, question whether truth can be discerned in public debate, or withdraw from the news altogether to stay out of trouble (Vaccari and Chadwick 2020).…”

“…The use of digital media by organized groups and ordinary citizens to spread hate speech is another potential threat to democracy. The complex relationship between digital media and human rights is the subject of Whitten-Woodring and colleagues’ (2020) contribution, which focuses on Myanmar. The authors conducted in-depth interviews and focus groups to understand news consumption and social media use patterns in a country marred by genocide and where Facebook played a controversial role in enabling hate speech against Rohingya Muslim minorities.…”

“…The interviews also reveal that Facebook played a somewhat two-faced role in the Rohingya genocide—enabling those who wanted to report the atrocities to circumvent government censorship but also serving as a vehicle through which various groups spread hate speech against the Muslim minority. Whitten-Woodring et al (2020) highlight relevant differences between Facebook users and nonusers. Those who use Facebook are exposed to a greater variety of news sources, which sometimes makes it difficult to decide what to believe but is mostly interpreted in accordance with one’s preexisting views.…”