Poison If You Don’t Know How to Use It: Facebook, Democracy, and Human Rights in Myanmar

Internet access in Myanmar has exploded from less than 1 percent in 2001 to more than 30 percent in 2018 and of those who have access, 40 percent list Facebook as their primary source of news. Coinciding with Facebook’s diffusion in Myanmar is a sharp increase in violence toward minority groups—especially the Rohingya. A U.N. Fact-Finding mission found Facebook was used to spread hate and facilitate the persecution of the Rohingya. But we know little about how people in Myanmar actually use Facebook, how they acquire and evaluate the information they find on the platform and whether they see disinformation or extreme speech. Furthermore, we lack information about the sentiments that Facebook users and non-users express about the Rohingya and how they view Facebook’s role in inter-ethnic conflict. We use interviews to address these questions. We find that people in Myanmar use Facebook for a variety of reasons, that they look at international and domestic sources, and encounter many different kinds of information—including extreme speech—on the platform. Most people also told us that they prefer sources that confirm their views.