May 12, 2021
An opinion editorial by ICJ’s Commissioner, Rodrigo Uprimny. He presents seven measures to overcome the serious crisis Colombia is facing. He argues that authorities must make efforts to de-escalate violence and, in turn, escalate the protection of human rights.
The current crisis is severe. In a few days, more than 30 people have died, several of them from police bullets. There are also numerous disappeared persons. And there have been acts of extreme criminal vandalism, such as the attempt to incinerate several police officers inside a police station.
Apart from the severity, the crisis is complex. It is a result of a combination of old and new tensions, which have been accumulated and exploded due to a tax-reform bill proposal. But despite the complexity and severity, which make the crisis challenging to resolve, or perhaps precisely because of that, it is necessary to take measures to prevent the situation from getting worse.
The Government and political and social leaders must make efforts to deescalate violence. This requires escalating human rights, putting them at the centre of crisis management. So I propose seven measures oriented in that direction.
First, the president and, in general, all high-level government official must unequivocally condemn abuses by law enforcement officials. They must state that these acts will not be tolerated and will be investigated and punished. Unfortunately, those statements have not occurred.
Second, the organizers of the protests and those of us who share the protests must condemn not only the police abuses but also the acts of violence in the protests.
Third, the Office of the Ombudsperson and the Office of the Inspector General must remember that they are independent from the Government. They must take their independent role seriously. They must fulfil their constitutional function of defending human rights and denouncing abuses committed by authorities.
Unfortunately, despite the commitment of their officials, the interventions of these organizations have been weak due to the closeness of the Ombudsman and the Inspector General to the Government.
Fourth, authorities must identify and punish those who commit vandalism in the protests, especially against other people. At the same time, they must guarantee the right to peaceful protest, without stigmatizing the protest, and avoiding any excess in the use of force.
Thus, fifth, the Government and law enforcement officials must strictly comply with the ruling of the Supreme Court handed down in September 2020. In the ruling, the Supreme Court protected the right to peaceful protest and ordered authorities to refrain from stigmatizing the social protest and to adopt protocols to avoid excesses in the use of force.
Nevertheless, the ruling has not been applied in the ongoing protests. That is why several human rights organizations, including Dejusticia, filed a formal petition (incidente de desacato) against the Government.
Sixth, the Office of the General Prosecutor must investigate all violence committed during these protests, including those committed by the police, because if the crime is clearly contrary to the constitutional function of the law enforcement agencies, the case must go to the ordinary jurisdiction, in accordance with constitutional jurisprudence and with article 3 of Law 1407.
Seventh, the support of international human rights organizations should be sought. Consequentially, instead of obstructing the verification work of the Office in Colombia of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, as the Deputy Foreign Minister tried to do, the Government should facilitate the presence of other international bodies, such as the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights.
These measures and others of a similar nature, which put human rights at the centre of the crisis management, would help de-escalate the ongoing violence. At the same time, these measures would facilitate the necessary conversations to reach genuine national agreements on the ways to confront the underlying problems and tensions that fuelled the protests.
Notes:
Commissioner Uprimny is also Researcher at Dejusticia and member of the UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights.
This op-ed was first published in Spanish in El Espectador on May 9, 2021
May 12, 2021 | Editorial, Noticias
En esta columna de opinión, el Comisionado de la CIJ, Rodrigo Uprimny, presenta siete medidas para superar la grave crisis que atraviesa Colombia, y para que el Gobierno y los líderes políticos hagan esfuerzos por desescalar la violencia y, a su vez, escalar la protección de los derechos humanos.
Esta crisis actual es muy grave. En pocos días han muerto más de 30 personas, varias de ellas por balas de la policía. Hay además numerosos desaparecidos. Y ha habido actos de vandalismo criminal extremo, como el intento de incinerar en un CAI a varios agentes de la policía.
Además de grave, esta crisis es compleja pues resulta de una combinación de tensiones viejas y nuevas, que se han acumulado y explotaron con ocasión del proyecto de reforma tributaria. Pero a pesar de su complejidad y gravedad, que hacen que la crisis sea difícil de resolver, o tal vez precisamente por eso, es necesario tomar medidas para evitar que se agrave más.
El Gobierno y los líderes políticos y sociales deben hacer esfuerzos por desescalar la violencia, para lo cual es necesario escalar los derechos humanos, poniéndolos en el centro del manejo de la crisis. Propongo entonces siete medidas orientadas en esa dirección.
Primero, el presidente y en general todo el alto Gobierno deben condenar inequívocamente los abusos de la Fuerza Pública y señalar que esos actos no serán tolerados y serán investigados y sancionados. Infortunadamente esas declaraciones no han ocurrido.
Segundo, los promotores del paro y quienes compartimos la protesta debemos condenar no sólo los abusos policiales sino también los actos de violencia en las protestas.
Tercero, la Defensoría y la Procuraduría deben recordar que son instituciones independientes del Gobierno y que deben tomar en serio y cumplir su función constitucional de defender los derechos humanos y denunciar los abusos de las autoridades. Infortunadamente, a pesar del compromiso de sus funcionarios, las intervenciones de esos organismos han sido débiles por la cercanía de sus jefes con el Gobierno.
Cuarto, las autoridades deben detectar y sancionar a quienes en las protestas comenten actos vandálicos, especialmente contra otras personas, pero garantizando la protesta pacífica, sin estigmatizarla, y evitando cualquier exceso en el uso de la fuerza.
Por esa razón, quinto, el Gobierno y la Fuerza Pública deben cumplir estrictamente la sentencia de tutela de la Corte Suprema de septiembre 2020, que al amparar el derecho a la protesta pacífica ordenó a las autoridades que se abstuvieran de estigmatizar la protesta y que adoptaran protocolos para evitar excesos en el uso de la fuerza.
Pero esa sentencia no ha sido cumplida en estas protestas, por lo cual los peticionarios de esa tutela, que fue apoyada por varias organizaciones de derechos humanos, entre las cuales está Dejusticia, presentaron un incidente de desacato contra el Gobierno.
Sexto, la Fiscalía debe investigar todas las violencias ocurridas en estas protestas, incluidas las de la policía, pues si el delito es claramente contrario a la función constitucional de la Fuerza Pública, el caso debe ir a la justicia ordinaria, conforme a la jurisprudencia constitucional y al artículo 3 de la Ley 1407.
Séptimo, debemos buscar el apoyo de organismos internacionales de derechos humanos. Por eso, en vez de obstruir la labor de verificación de la Oficina en Colombia de la Alta Comisionada de Derechos Humanos de Naciones Unidas, como intentó hacer la viceministra de Relaciones Exteriores, el Gobierno debería facilitar la presencia de otras instancias internacionales, como la Comisión Interamericana, para que nos ayuden a enfrentar la crisis.
Esas medidas y otras del mismo carácter, que ponen los derechos humanos en el centro del manejo de la crisis, ayudarían a desescalar las violencias, lo cual facilitaría al mismo tiempo los necesarios diálogos en la búsqueda de acuerdos nacionales genuinos para enfrentar los problemas y las tensiones subyacentes que alimentaron estas protestas.
Notas:
El Comisionado Uprimny también es Investigador en Dejusticia y miembro del Comité de Derechos Económicos, Sociales y Culturales.
Esta columna se publicó por primera vez en El Espectador el 9 de mayo de 2021.
May 12, 2021
Peru has persistently failed to deliver accountability for enforced disappearances and extra-judicial killings, found the ICJ in a report released today.
The baseline study Perú: Desapariciones Forzadas y Ejecuciones Extrajudiciales, Estudio de línea de base (published in Spanish) identifies key obstacles to accountability for serious human rights violations in Peru, particularly for crimes under international law committed during the country’s internal armed conflict (1980-2000).
“There can be no sustainable peace without justice, and providing accountability and ending impunity demand committed implementation of judicial and non-judicial mechanisms”, said Sam Zarifi, Secretary General of the ICJ.
“It is worrisome that the human rights agenda is not a priority for the national government or the justice system. Considering that a new president will be elected soon, it is crucial that the new national government takes measures to prioritize human rights among the public policies. In particular, measures to improve criminal accountability and to provide full and effective reparation to victims should be adopted by the new government as an urgent matter,” he added.
Against a backdrop of ongoing impunity in the country, the ICJ found victims’ rights are not upheld despite the fact they are recognized under the domestic legal framework.
The justice system has handed down less than 100 criminal verdicts on human rights cases related to the armed conflict. The figure is surprisingly low considering that human rights violations and abuses were widespread and systematic during the armed conflict.
In relation to extrajudicial killings alone, the Truth Commission (Comisión de la Verdad y Reconciliación) documented 7,334 cases. In the case of enforced disappearance, the General Direction for the Search for Disappeared Persons (Dirección General de Búsqueda de Personas Desaparecidas) has documented 21,793 cases.
The study also examined other challenges such as the lack of implementation of reparation programmes, the slow progress in the search for the disappeared, and inadequate domestic legislation on the use of force by law enforcement officers.
Among others, the study recommends Perú should take the following steps:
- Improve the investigation and prosecution of serious human rights violations. To do so, among other measures, Perú should appoint judges and prosecutors exclusively dedicated to these crimes. Similarly, the Prosecution Office should consider not taking a case-by-case approach to investigations. Rather, it should follow a more systematic approach to identifying criminal patterns.
- Guarantee victims’ rights during criminal proceedings. Judicial authorities should ensure that victims can participate in each stage of the criminal proceedings. This is particularly important for videoconferencing hearings. Similarly, victims should have effective access to legal advice from the early stages of the criminal justice process.
- Improve the search for the disappeared. The national government must provide sufficient human and financial resources to ensure that the General Direction for the Search for Disappeared Persons may perform its mission adequately. At the same time, better coordination between the General Direction and the Prosecution Office is necessary. In addition, more effort should be applied to improve victims’ understanding of the Law on the search for disappeared persons (Law 30470).
Background
The baseline study was produced as part of the ICJ’s regional project addressing justice for extrajudicial killings and enforced disappearances in Colombia, Guatemala and Perú, sponsored by the European Union. The baseline study is available in Spanish.
The ICJ has long been monitoring laws, policies and practices concerning the investigation and prosecution of serious human rights violations and abuses in Perú, including enforced disappearances and extrajudicial killings, as part of its efforts to promote accountability, justice and the rule of law around the world.
The project is implemented under the ICJ’s Global Accountability Initiative, which has also produced baseline studies for Colombia, Eswatini, Nepal, Myanmar, Venezuela, Cambodia, Tajikistan and Tunisia.
Contacts:
Kingsley Abbott, Director of Global Accountability & International Justice. Email: kingsley.abbott(a)icj.org
Carolina Villadiego Burbano, Legal and Policy Adviser, Latin America, and Regional Coordinator of the Project. Email: carolina.villadiego(a)icj.org
Rocío Quintero M, Legal Adviser, Latin America. Email: rocio.quintero(a)icj.org
Download
Peru-GRA-Baseline-Study-Publications-Reports-Thematic-reports-2020-SPA (full report in Spanish, PDF)
May 12, 2021
La CIJ ha encontrado que Perú ha fallado de manera persistente en la investigación, judicialización y sanción de los responsables de desapariciones forzadas y las ejecuciones extrajudiciales que se han cometido en el país, según los hallazgos contenidos en un informe que hoy se publica.
El estudio de línea de base Perú: Desapariciones Forzadas y Ejecuciones Extrajudiciales, Estudio de línea de base identifica obstáculos que impiden la rendición de cuentas penal en casos de graves violaciones de derechos humanos en Perú, en particular por crímenes internacionales cometidos durante el conflicto armado interno (1980-2000).
Al respecto, el Secretario General de la CIJ, Sam Zarifi, afirmó que “no puede haber paz sostenible sin justicia y rendición de cuentas. Acabar con la impunidad requiere la implementación decidida de mecanismos judiciales y no judiciales”.
De igual manera, Zarifi remarcó que “es preocupante que la agenda de derechos humanos no sea una prioridad para el gobierno nacional o para el sistema de justicia. Por esto, dado que pronto habrá elecciones presidenciales, es crucial que el nuevo gobierno adopte medidas para priorizar los derechos humanos en las políticas públicas, particularmente aquellas encaminadas a mejorar la rendición de cuentas en materia penal, así como la reparación plena y efectiva de los derechos de las víctimas”.
En el informe, la CIJ concluyó que, en el contexto de impunidad por las graves violaciones de derechos humanos que existe en Perú, los derechos de las víctimas no son garantizados a pesar de estar reconocidos en el marco jurídico nacional. En efecto, el sistema de justicia penal ha dictado menos de 100 sentencias en casos de violaciones de derechos humanos relacionados con el conflicto armado.
La cifra es sorprendentemente baja dado que las violaciones y los abusos fueron generalizados y sistemáticos durante el conflicto. Por ejemplo, solo en relación con las ejecuciones extrajudiciales, la Comisión de la Verdad y Reconciliación documentó 7.334 casos. Y en el caso de la desaparición forzada, la Dirección General de Búsqueda de Personas Desaparecidas ha documentado 21.793 casos.
La Línea Base también expone otros desafíos, como la falta de implementación de los programas de reparación, el lento avance en la búsqueda de personas desaparecidas y el deficiente marco jurídico nacional respecto de la regulación del uso de la fuerza por parte de la Policía.
Adicionalmente, el documento ofrece recomendaciones para que se mejore la protección de los derechos de las víctimas por parte de las autoridades. Entre estas recomendaciones están:
- Mejorar la investigación y el enjuiciamiento de las graves violaciones de derechos humanos. Para ello, entre otras medidas, Perú debe designar jueces y fiscales dedicados exclusivamente a la investigación y el juzgamiento de estos delitos. Además, la Fiscalía debería considerar un enfoque de investigación más sistemático que le permita identificar patrones delictivos, en lugar de un enfoque caso por caso.
- Garantizar los derechos de las víctimas durante el proceso penal. Las autoridades judiciales deben garantizar que las víctimas puedan participar en cada etapa del proceso penal. Esto es particularmente importante en las audiencias virtuales. De manera similar, las víctimas deben tener acceso efectivo a asesoría legal desde las primeras etapas del procedimiento penal.
- Mejorar la búsqueda de personas desaparecidas. El gobierno nacional debe proporcionar recursos humanos y financieros suficientes para que la Dirección General de Búsqueda de Personas Desaparecidas cumpla con su misión de manera adecuada. Al mismo tiempo, la Dirección y la Fiscalía de la Nación deben fortalecer sus acciones de coordinación. Igualmente, se deben realizar mayores esfuerzos de promoción y divulgación de los contenidos de la Ley de búsqueda de personas desaparecidas (Ley 30470) entre las víctimas.
Antecedentes
Este informe se produjo como parte del proyecto regional de la CIJ “Promoviendo justicia para ejecuciones extrajudiciales y desapariciones forzadas en Colombia, Guatemala y Perú”, patrocinado por la Unión Europea. El informe está disponible en español.
La CIJ ha monitoreado durante varios años las leyes, políticas y prácticas relacionadas con la investigación y el enjuiciamiento de graves violaciones y abusos de los derechos humanos en el Perú, incluidas las desapariciones forzadas y las ejecuciones extrajudiciales. Lo anterior como parte de su esfuerzo para promover la rendición de cuentas, la justicia y el estado de derecho en el mundo.
El proyecto se implementa bajo la Iniciativa de Rendición de Cuentas de la CIJ, que también ha producido informes para Colombia, Eswatini, Nepal, Myanmar, Venezuela, Cambodia, Tajikistan y Tunisia.
Contacto:
Kingsley Abbott, Director de la Iniciativa Global de Rendición de cuentas de la CIJ. Email: kingsley.abbott@icj.org
Carolina Villadiego Burbano, Asesora Legal para América Latina y Coordinadora regional del proyecto. Email: carolina.villadiego@icj.org
Rocío Quintero M, Asesora Legal para América Latina de la CIJ. Email: rocio.quintero@icj.org
Peru-GRA-Baseline-Study-Publications-Reports-Thematic-reports-2020-SPA
May 12, 2021
An opinion piece by Jenny Domino, Associate Legal Adviser, ICJ Asia-Pacific Programme.
On Feb. 24, 2021, three weeks after Myanmar’s military (the Tatmadaw) staged the coup that changed the course of Myanmar’s future, Facebook announced it was banning all “remaining” military and military-controlled state and media entities from Facebook and Instagram, including ads from military-linked commercial entities. To this end, Facebook said it would use the United Nations Fact-Finding Mission on Myanmar’s (FFM) 2019 report on the military’s economic interests in identifying relevant commercial entities. Though Facebook had removed military accounts and pages in the past for their involvement in human rights violations– most notably the account of State Administration Council chairperson, Senior-General Min Aung Hlaing, in 2018– the company’s 2021 decision went much further by indefinitely suspending military and military-related accounts and pages regardless of content or behavior.
In other words, contrary to popular opinion, former President Trump’s account was not the first high-profile account to be indefinitely suspended by Facebook. Commander-in-Chief Min Aung Hlaing’s de-platforming was described as “unprecedented” in 2018, but outside of Myanmar watchers, it garnered little global attention, much less debate.
The 2021 de-platforming of the Tatmadaw offers a renewed opportunity to engage with how Facebook – and other powerful platforms – should do their part to deal with authoritarians and human rights-violating institutions like the military in Myanmar. Facebook’s act to de-platform the Tatmadaw was the culmination of incremental steps taken by the company in response to the “emergency situation” unfolding in Myanmar since the coup. For example, on Feb. 11, Facebook decided to “significantly reduce” the distribution of false content emanating from military accounts and pages still operating on the platform, but stopped short of an immediate outright ban. And it had previously declined to ban the entire military’s presence on its platform despite it being implicated in the Rohingya human rights crisis. At each of these moments, Facebook took action too late, and too incrementally, to avert harm – harm that the platform knew was imminent and which its very design facilitated. Facebook’s history in Myanmar highlights the broader problems with content moderation in vulnerable contexts, and it should serve as a cautionary lesson to companies that wish to prevent their platforms from facilitating atrocities.
A Dance of De-Platforming and Platforming
The coup was not made overnight. Experts observed that the groundwork had been carefully laid months before the coup to delegitimize the results of Myanmar’s November election. The Tatmadaw’s social media presence formed a key part of the plan to control the narrative surrounding the poll, one the Tatmadaw later invoked to justify the power grab.
Facebook’s latest de-platforming decision removed the infamous “Tatmadaw True News Information Team,” which was the military’s official Facebook page, and Major General Zaw Min Tun, the military’s spokesperson. It also included the MRTV and MRTV Live “news” pages. According to Facebook, these pages repeatedly violated its prohibition on incitement to violence and coordinating harm.
As was locally reported last year, the Tatmadaw set up the “True News” page in June 2020 to provide “accurate news” ahead of the November election. This factor is crucial for analyzing the present, as the military has alleged voter fraud as a pretext for the coup. The Tatmadaw has so far attempted to justify its actions – including the unlawful use of lethal force, arbitrary arrests of protestors, democratically elected leaders, journalists, and celebrities, shutdown of independent media, and denial of the nationwide calls to respect the people’s vote – ironically under the guise of protecting “democracy.” The pages most recently banned by Facebook were used to disseminate the Tatmadaw’s false narrative on election fraud and enabled it to lay the groundwork for the coup.
One may wonder why the Tatmadaw True News Information Team and Zaw Min Tun were allowed on Facebook in the first place. Indeed, I asked this question here last year upon the creation of the page. To recall, Facebook banned Min Aung Hlaing and other generals in 2018 for their involvement in serious human rights violations in Myanmar. As found by the FFM then, the Rohingya and other ethnic minorities suffered the brunt of these violations, some of which constituted crimes under international law. As regards speech that could be expected to incite violence or discrimination, the FFM specifically found that Facebook, along with other forms of media, “enabled the spread of … hateful and divisive rhetoric” targeting the Rohingya in a country where, as the FFM observed, “Facebook is the Internet” (para. 1345). Given the platform’s dominance in the country, the FFM found it “unsurprising that propagators of hate speech resort[ed] to Facebook to wage hate campaigns, amplify their message, and reach new audiences.” The platform was also “widely used to spread misinformation … by government officials and the Tatmadaw” (para. 1346).
As I explained last year, Facebook neither attributed its 2018 de-platforming decision to the 2018 FFM report or any of its Community Standards, despite the latter supposedly being the governing law on the platform. Moreover, although select military officials were de-platformed, civilian government officials equally found by the FFM to have disseminated hate speech against the Rohingya were still allowed to remain on the platform with apparently little to no consequence. More importantly in the present context, only select military accounts were permanently suspended rather than the entire military, without any explanation for this particular strategy. The Tatmadaw television network, Myawaddy, was in fact banned in 2018 but allowed to reappear until banned again in the wake of the coup. It was at least in part as a result of these gaps that the Tatmadaw was able to set up accounts such as the Tatmadaw True News Information Team. Even now, Facebook has inexplicably decided to allow at least 23 other pages and profiles “controlled and/or operated by the Tatmadaw” (without specifying which ones) to continue operating, only opting to significantly reduce the distribution of their content.
What Is Proportionate?
It is apparent by now that Facebook’s lack of clarity and consistency in its 2018 de-platforming decision has returned to haunt it in 2021. Both Zaw Min Tun and the Tatmadaw True News Information Team that Facebook platformed in 2020 figured prominently in the coup that has derailed Myanmar’s fragile path to democracy. And Zaw Min Tun remains the military junta’s spokesperson, now leading the Information Team of the State Administration Council.
As a non-State actor, Facebook has the corporate responsibility to respect human rights under the U.N. Guiding Principle on Business and Human Rights (UNGPs), which includes adherence with the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR). Article 19 of the ICCPR requires the application of the principles of necessity and proportionality to any measure limiting the right to freedom of expression. This would mean imposing the least intrusive yet necessary means in regulating expression to achieve a legitimate aim. The aims that are legitimate are themselves narrow, including the protection of national security, public health and morals, public order, and the rights of others. The application of these standards to social media platforms seeking to regulate users’ speech, including State actors’ speech, has generated robust debate, but the U.N. Special Rapporteur on freedom of expression notes that platforms have an arsenal of tools to proportionately address problematic content. De-platforming or permanent account suspension of a user is the most extreme response.
In March this year, Facebook released its Corporate Human Rights Policy, wherein it formally committed to respect human rights as laid out in key international instruments. The non-profit BSR recommended adopting such a policy in 2018 in its human rights impact assessment of Facebook’s operations in Myanmar. An important component of this commitment is a clarification on Facebook’s de-platforming approach to world leaders of illiberal and authoritarian regimes, as I initially raised here and here. Such a commitment also demands ongoing human rights due diligence to enable understanding of the wider history and context of the places where Facebook operates, instead of only considering the immediate circumstances surrounding a tragic event. This contextual familiarity is critical to inform questions of risk and to apply the standards of legitimacy, proportionality, and necessity, which are necessarily fact-based.
In the context of Myanmar, a comprehensive ban on military and related accounts appears to have been warranted for some time, given the well-documented and egregious violations with which these accounts have been associated. The FFM reports in 2018 and 2019, Facebook’s own de-platforming decision in 2018, years of widely documented human rights violations in Myanmar, the assortment of international legal proceedings concerning these human rights violations, the prevalence of military-controlled state media, the state of censorship in the country, and other considerations all support a blanket ban on military-linked accounts. Facebook has in fact been moderating Myanmar military-linked accounts under its Coordinated Inauthentic Behavior policy continuously since its initial 2018 actions.
Instead, Facebook’s decisions to (i) platform the Tatmadaw True News Information Team and Zaw Min Tun in 2020, (ii) belatedly reduce distribution of military-related content ten days after the coup, and (iii) wait until the third week of the coup to indefinitely suspend military and related accounts do not seem to be a sufficient response. Facebook justified the indefinite ban in the third week of the coup by invoking four factors:
The Tatmadaw’s history of exceptionally severe human rights abuses and the clear risk of future military-initiated violence in Myanmar, where the military is operating unchecked and with wide-ranging powers.
The Tatmadaw’s history of on-platform content and behavior violations that led to us repeatedly enforcing our policies to protect our community.
Ongoing violations by the military and military-linked accounts and Pages since the February 1 coup, including efforts to reconstitute networks of Coordinated Inauthentic Behavior that we previously removed, and content that violates our violence and incitement and coordinating harm policies, which we removed.
The coup greatly increases the danger posed by the behaviors above, and the likelihood that online threats could lead to offline harm.
Factors 1 and 2 were true long before the coup, while Factors 3 and 4 were true in the first week of the coup as much as in the third week. This is also not the first time that the Tatmadaw disregarded the people’s vote. Further, rumors of a coup spiked in late Jan. this year, prompting diplomatic missions in Myanmar to release a joint statement urging the military to recognize the election results.
Facebook’s responses had also been partially preempted: By Feb. 24, Facebook and other social media platforms were already banned in Myanmar as part of the military junta’s series of network disruptions which, since the coup on Feb. 1, has involved internet and mobile network shutdowns and social media and website bans. Despite the local social media ban, however, Facebook’s decision still carried weight as many people within Myanmar continue to access the platform through virtual private networks (VPN).
Overall, Facebook’s response particularly pales in comparison to its relatively swift action to de-platform former President Trump soon after the U.S. Capitol riots and then refer the matter to the Facebook Oversight Board. Although abhorrent, the violence at the U.S. Capitol was mild compared to the scale of violence called for and facilitated by military-linked Facebook accounts in Myanmar. And the threat to democracy posed by the Jan. 6 insurrection was dwarfed by the actual overthrow of democracy on Feb. 1 in Myanmar and the international crimes several years earlier during the Rohingya crisis. These contrasts reveal a broader problem with Facebook’s approach to content moderation in the most fragile contexts.
A Global Conversation Centered On At-Risk Populations
Facebook’s inconsistent and often-belated de-platforming approach in Myanmar should invite deeper reflection on the parameters of social media access provided to world leaders of illiberal and authoritarian regimes. In its decision on the Trump ban, the Facebook Oversight Board made a policy recommendation to Facebook to “publicly explain” the applicable rules when imposing account-level sanctions against influential users, including its strikes and penalties process. Facebook should take up this recommendation and clarify how it enforces such policies abroad. This problem is also not unique to Facebook. Other platforms such as TikTok and YouTube have respectively moderated Tatmadaw soldiers and video channels for violent content, but have been vague about these content decisions.
Further, beyond formally committing to provide access to remedy in line with the UNGPs, social media companies should explore how various forms of remedy and reparation (including compensation, rehabilitation, and satisfaction in the form of public apologies, memorials, and truth-telling) ought to be made available to communities in Myanmar affected by the adverse human rights impacts that their technology or business operations have engendered. As suggested by Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh, this would include engaging with human rights victims, responding clearly and promptly to requests, providing free internet access to refugee camps, and using their influence to promote an open internet, especially in the region where majority of their users are located.
The U.S. government can also play an important role by considering the global impact of domestic legislation applicable to American platforms before such companies are implicated in atrocities elsewhere. For instance, as I suggested here, talks of reforming Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act would be benefitted by discussions on how the safe harbor provision affects users in varying political contexts, which, in turn, can affect U.S. foreign policy.
As the world ruminates on the Facebook Oversight Board’s recent decision on Trump’s de-platforming, the international community must realize that other countries have needed this kind of intervention long before de-platforming became an issue in liberal democracies. As news from Myanmar continues to shock and inspire, it is time to center the lived experience of at-risk populations, caught between a rock and a hard place, in conceptualizing how online speech ought to be governed in an interconnected world. Let’s not wait for democracy – no matter how imperfect – to unravel before noticing the signs.
First published in Just Security on 11 May: https://www.justsecurity.org/76047/beyond-the-coup-in-myanmar-the-other-de-platforming-we-should-have-been-talking-about/
