Facebook Inc. FB 1.42% banned a Myanmar military television network page following Monday’s coup, the social media giant’s latest move in a country where its platform has been connected in previous years to physical violence.
A page for the television network has since at least early last year posted photos that publicize efforts of the nation’s military, drawing likes from more than 33,000 people, before it was removed late Monday. Facebook first removed the Myawaddy television network from its platform in 2018 as part of a crackdown on hundreds of pages, groups and accounts—some tied to Myanmar’s military—that it said had abused its services, but a page promoting the station later reappeared.
After The Wall Street Journal asked Monday why the Myawaddy page was operational given its earlier ban, Facebook removed it and it now displays a message saying “This Page Isn’t Available.”
A spokesman for the military didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment on the page’s removal. A separate Facebook page for announcements from the military wasn’t banned in 2018 and remains operational.
The head of Myanmar’s military, Gen. Min Aung Hlaing, took charge of the country Monday from its civilian-run government after the military detained elected leader Aung San Suu Kyi and other members of her party in a Monday morning raid.
Myanmar Coup
Facebook is “closely monitoring political events in Myanmar as they unfold “and is taking steps to ”stop misinformation and content that could incite further tensions,” Rafael Frankel, a Facebook public policy director, said. The company is also removing misinformation that delegitimizes the outcome of November’s election, Mr. Frankel said. Facebook is also eliminating content that praises and supports the coup, content that incites or encourages violence, and calls to bring weapons to locations across Myanmar. Ms. Suu Kyi’s party won the November contest by a landslide.
Facebook around the world is dealing with thorny issues of how to moderate content as it copes with the enormous amount of material posted to its platform and widening political divides in many countries. In the U.S. it has drawn criticism and praise from different sides for its decision to ban former President Donald Trump, and has taken steps to police the debate over the election results.
Myanmar is an especially sensitive market, analysts say, because of Facebook’s history in the Southeast Asian nation.
United Nations investigators in 2018 released a report calling for Gen. Min Aung Hlaing to be prosecuted for his role in a military campaign the previous year that killed 10,000 Rohingya minority and sent some 700,000 fleeing across the border to Bangladesh.
Facebook then said it was banning the pages, groups and accounts, including those associated with Gen. Min Aung Hlaing and Myawaddy television. It acknowledged its slow response to a torrent of anti-Rohingya hate speech and misinformation on the platform in Myanmar.
Facebook’s ban on Gen. Min Aung Hlaing remains in place. The military spokesman didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment on that.
Facebook enjoys great popularity in Myanmar, a developing and long-isolated country where internet access has boomed in recent years. The platform is considered by many citizens to be synonymous with the internet itself. It is used for socializing, dating, keeping in touch with family, and more.
Of the more than 50 million people in Myanmar, 27 million are Facebook users who can be reached by advertisers, according to online reference library DataReportal.
Facebook’s digital advertising revenue in Myanmar is “maybe not a huge chunk of Facebook’s overall revenue, but not to be sneezed at either,” said Simon Kemp, founder and chief executive of digital consulting firm Kepios. While the company mines a much smaller amount of money per advertising click in the country compared with the U.S., “that’s still tens of millions of dollars,” he said.
Write to Newley Purnell at [email protected]
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