How Facebook Is Complicit in Myanmar's Genocidal Attacks on Minorities

NON-COOPERATION in GENOCIDE TRIAL: In June, The Gambia — a small West African country that brought unprecedented charges against Myanmar at the ICJ — had filed a request at a U.S. federal court seeking some critical information from Facebook that could hold Myanmar accountable for its alleged misconduct against the Rohingya during “clearance operations” in 2016 and 2017.

It specifically asked for “documents and communications from Myanmar military officials” and information from several other pages and accounts that Facebook had taken down (and preserved) in 2018 after a U.N. fact-finding mission indictedthe social media company for playing a ‘“determining” role in the genocide against Rohingya Muslims.

If The Gambia’s legal team at the ICJ is able to procure these critical documents, they could prove beyond reasonable doubt that Myanmar security forces used targeted violence against the Rohingya Muslims with specific “genocidal intent.” This is a necessary precondition to show that Myanmar violated the Genocide Convention 1948, to which it is a state party.

Facebook, however, rejected the request earlier this month. It told the U.S. court that The Gambia’s request was “extraordinarily broad” and would mean providing “special and unbounded access” to accounts.

Yet, according to a recent report in Time, The Gambia’s request was anything but “extraordinarily broad,” since it specifically named “17 officials, two military units and dozens of pages and accounts.”

Facebook also argued that The Gambia’s request is “in violation of U.S. law, specifically a section of the Stored Communications Act (SCA).” Time report posited that argument is invalid because the SCA doesn’t protect “unlawful actions of state actors.”