An Increasingly Anti-Rohingya Climate Fuelled by a Complicit Facebook

Over one million Rohingya have faced decades of statelessness, discrimination, violence, and repression in Myanmar.

The Rohingya are a predominantly Muslim minority ethnic group who reside in the Rakhine State in western Myanmar. Having been denied citizenship in 1982, they are one of the largest stateless populations in the world. Most Rohingya fled the government’s systematic rape, burning of homes, and ethnic cleansing in 2017, seeking refuge in neighbouring countries.

Bangladesh is home to the largest Rohingya population. Over one million Rohingya reside in the country, mostly concentrated in refugee camps in the southeast. In Cox’s Bazar, there are almost 950,000 Rohingya refugees spread throughout 33 camps. Those living in camps face dire conditions—malnutrition due to food shortages, disease outbreaks due to crowded living spaces, and lack of educational opportunities, alongside exploitation, criminal activity including drug and human trafficking, and violence, including Gender Based Violence. These conditions have only exacerbated as more Rohingya have fled the Rakhine State following the military coup in 2021.

Now, the Rohingya are not only facing deteriorating conditions within camps, but also an increasingly xenophobic rhetoric. In early September, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina expressed that the Rohingya were a ‘big burden’ on her country. She highlighted that their stay in Bangladesh was only temporary and clarified that she was working on a plan for the repatriation of the Rohingya to Myanmar.  

This displeasure with the presence of the Rohingya has not been only at a government level. Media outlets have frequently framed refugees as terror threats and as burdens on resources. One popular online news outlet published an article titled, ‘How long will Bangladesh be punished for its benevolence?’ Another article related the Rohingya to a ‘cancerous tumour.’ Negative media portrayal has increased to such a large degree that former UN rights chief Michelle Bachelet stated, ‘I am very worried about increasing anti-Rohingya rhetoric in Bangladesh, stereotyping and scapegoating Rohingyas as the source of crime and other problems.’

The anti-Rohingya rhetoric has also been picked up by Bangladeshis living near the refugee camps. A local group campaigning against Rohingya presence in the region routinely express that the Rohingya have overstayed their welcome and urge immediate repatriation.

There has also recently been an anti-Rohingya shift in Malaysia. In the past six months, Malaysia has forcefully repatriated 2,000 Burmese asylum seekers, including a particularly large number of Rohingya. On October 6th, Malaysia deported over 100 Myanmar nationals who were seeking protection through the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). These deportations have been widely coordinated with the Myanmar embassy in Kuala Lumpur.

Many of those repatriated had serious concerns for their safety and were deported without an assessment of the risk they may face upon their return, which is a breach of international law. Under international law, the principle of non-refoulement prohibits returning people to a country where they may face persecution, torture, or other grave human rights violations. Kyaw Hla, a Rakhine officer who defected from the Myanmar Navy and fled to Malaysia, was deported and jailed upon his return.

The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk has criticised the move, saying, ‘With rising levels of violence and instability, and the collapse of the Myanmar economy and social protection systems, this is simply not the time to be returning anyone to Myanmar.’ He added that this was especially the case for those with specific concern, particularly political activists and military defectors.

The deportations are taking place in an increasingly hostile environment for refugees in Malaysia. In July, the government launched a program which required all refugees to replace their UNHCR cards with biometric ID cards. There has also been talk of shutting down the UNHCR office in Malaysia.

Aside from governments, the anti-Rohingya rhetoric has largely been adopted and exacerbated by Facebook. In a recent report, Amnesty International found that Meta, formerly named Facebook, ‘substantially contributed’ to the atrocities committed against the Rohingya. The report: The Social Atrocity: Meta and the right to remedy for the Rohingya details how Meta was aware of Facebook’s algorithms encouraging the spread of anti-Rohingya content in Myanmar as early as 2012 but failed to act. Mets profits when Facebook users stay on the platform as long as possible. Facebook gets people to stay on the platform longer by suggesting inflammatory and hateful content which often incites violence, hostility, and discrimination. 

Amnesty International’s Secretary General said, ‘In the months and years leading up to the atrocities, Facebook’s algorithms were intensifying a storm of hatred against the Rohingya which contributed to real-world violence.’ She further added, ‘While the Myanmar military was committing crimes against humanity against the Rohingya, Meta was profiting from the echo chamber of hatred created by its hate-spiralling algorithms.’ In other words, Meta has disregarded the risk its algorithms pose to human rights and has continued to prioritise profit over safety.

A similar situation is unfolding in the Middle East. A new repatriation scheme in Lebanon has advocated for the return of Syrian refugees. Though the program is allegedly voluntary, there is concern surrounding its coercive nature, as Syrian refugees are not in a position to make informed decisions about their return. Additionally, with a raging civil war continuing to disrupt the lives of civilians, Syria, like Myanmar, is still unsafe for returnees. In the past, an Amnesty International report found that returnees had been subject to detention, torture, and rape, among other violations.

Similarly, as Facebook has been credited for the increase in anti-Rohingya sentiment, the video hosting service TikTok has been found to encourage anti-Syrian rhetoric. Furthermore, as Facebook profited from the spread of anti-Rohingya content, TikTok has profited immensely from livestreams where Syrian refugee children have begged for donations. A BBC investigation recently found that TikTok has taken up to 70% of the proceeds from given donations.

In an era where technology and social media continue to play a central role in our daily lives, it is important to keep in mind the implications of using such platforms. In order to help refugees such as the Rohingya, it is important not only to adopt policies to improve living conditions in camps and to advocate against repatriation, but also to push the parent companies of social media platforms such as Facebook and TikTok to increase transparency and monitoring to ensure that their history with the Rohingya and other refugee groups does not repeat itself in Myanmar or anywhere else around the world.

 Image courtesy of Soe Zeya Tun via Reuters, © 2017, some rights reserved.

The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the wider St. Andrews Foreign Affairs Review team.