Facebook apologises for ‘misuse of platform’ that led to Sri Lanka’s deadly anti-Muslims riots in 2018

Facebook’s poor track record on human rights in international markets has been a black mark on the company for years

This is not the first apology: Facebook previously acknowledged its lack of action in curbing hate speech against Rohingya in Myanmar

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Members of Citizens Against Racism protest attacks on Sri Lankan Muslims in 2018. Photo: EPA

Published: 11:29am, 13 May 2020Updated: 11:30am, 13 May 2020

Facebook’s lack of a serious response to signs of abuse on its platform in Sri Lanka may have helped stoke deadly violence in the country in 2018, according to an investigation of the social network’s operations there.

The company has released a summary of the findings, along with other independent assessments of the service’s impact on human rights in Indonesia and Cambodia.

“We deplore this misuse of our platform,” the company said in a response to the Sri Lanka report. “We recognise, and apologise for, the very real human rights impacts that resulted.”

Facebook also highlighted actions it has taken to address the problems, including hiring content moderators with local language skills, implementing technology that automatically detects signs of hate speech and keeps abusive content from spreading, and trying to deepen relationships with local civil society groups.

The report on Sri Lanka details Facebook’s failure to respond to almost a decade of warnings about misuse of its platform from groups within the country. In 2018, a viral video falsely purporting to show a Muslim restaurateur admitting to mixing “sterilisation pills” into the food of Sinhala-Buddhist men may have contributed to unrest and physical harm.

Facebook’s poor track record on human rights in international markets has been a black mark on the company for years. As it expanded rapidly, it staffed local operations in far-off countries with skeleton crews or not at all, making it unresponsive to the specific forms of local manipulation, according to the reports.

Facebook’s decision to design algorithms that encourage more engagement also made it vulnerable to disinformation and incitement to violence. Human rights advocates have pushed the company to release assessments like the ones it shared on Tuesday.

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