7sleepers: Facebook

Posted on Facebook, November 24 2017

I’ll be deleting my two Facebook accounts soon, this one and my personal account. I believe that Facebook is complicit in the #Rohingya genocide and I want no part of it. Facebook also owns Instagram, so that account will be deleted as well.

All of the big tech companies are amoral and often downright evil, but Facebook is extremely influential in Myanmar and it’s pretty certain that they are actively promoting government propaganda and actively silencing dissent. They are emboldening the powerful, imperiling the powerless, and fueling a fiery epidemic of murderous bigotry. If Zuckerberg ever had a conscience it seems to have rotted with greed.

Deleting my accounts might seem like a futile act, perhaps the digital equivalent of lighting a candle to stop a war. But to paraphrase A.J. Muste, I don’t light a candle to change the world. I light a candle so the world won’t change me.

I’m still online, of course, on my website and Twitter and a few other social media platforms.

I hope we all cross paths again soon. And I pray that it will be a better world when we do.

• Daily Beast, September 18 2017: “Facebook Silences Rohingya Reports of Ethnic Cleansing.”
• The Guardian, September 20 2017: “Facebook bans Rohingya group’s posts as minority faces ethnic cleansing.”
• The Times, September 22 2017: “Facebook bans Rohingya group after complaints from Burma.”
• Newsweek, October 2 2017: “Why is Facebook censoring Rohingya accounts of the genocide?”
• Mashable, October 24 2017: “Social media is fueling hatred in Myanmar, a nation wracked by ethnic cleansing.”
• New York Times, October 27 2017: “A War of Words Puts Facebook at the Center of Myanmar’s Rohingya Crisis.”
• New York Times, October 29 2017: “Forget Washington. Facebook’s Problems Abroad Are Far More Disturbing.”
• Washington Post, December 8 2017: “Fake news on Facebook fans the flames of hate against the Rohingya in Burma.”
• Quartz, December 18 2017: “Facebook’s power to undermine democracy is getting stronger, and it’s fueling oppressive regimes.”
• The Atlantic, December 20 2017: “Could Facebook Be Tried for Human-Rights Abuses?”
• The Guardian, December 23 2017: “Aung San Suu Kyi once called for a free press. Now, the dead are used for fake news.”
• The Intercept, December 30 2017: “Facebook Says It Is Deleting Accounts at the Direction of the U.S. and Israeli Governments.”
• Winnipeg Free Press, January 15 2018: “Facebook’s role in the Rohingya genocide.”
• Courthouse News, January 24 2018: “California Lawmaker Says Facebook Complicit in Vietnamese Suppression.”
• Fortune, February 12 2018: “Unilever Threatens to Pull Ads from Facebook.”
• Reuters, March 13 2018: “U.N. investigators cite Facebook role in Myanmar crisis.”
• Asia Times, March 26 2018: “Is Facebook contributing to genocide in MyanmaR.php?”