Rohingya Refugees Seek Reparations from Facebook

UN human rights experts that chronicled Facebook’s role in spreading hate speech in Myanmar concluded that it played a “determining role” in the genocide against the Rohingya people. Facebook’s own investigation into the situation also found fault with the company’s practices, and made various recommendations for how it should develop a human rights strategy to protect against such things from happening again. 

Today, we’re going to hear from a refugee from the violence, who is with other Rohingya refugees in a camp in Cox's Bazar, Bangladesh, as well as three human rights advocates. And we’ll learn about another complaint filed by sixteen Rohingya youth to Ireland’s Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, the OECD, that argues that Facebook violated the OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises by allowing its platform to be used to incite violence against them and their community. The remedy sought by these refugees is for Facebook to divest from a portion of its 2017 profits and provide remediation for their community in the form of educational activities and facilities in Cox’s Bazar.

Please note that the connection to Cox’s Bazar was not perfect- if you have any trouble making out a word here or there, you can refer to the transcript at the Tech Policy Press website.