Thread by @BuzzFeedNews

Sri Lankan officials say Facebook has failed to address the problem of users advocating violent hate speech on the platform. Our investigation shows how Facebook ignored the problem for years.

buzzfeed.com/meghara/we-had…

Calls for violence against minorities that started on Facebook ended with violence, homes and businesses set on fire. In some incidents, it even led to deaths.

By now, you’re familiar with the ways Facebook has come up short on addressing problems.

Add this to the list: For years Sri Lanka's government pleaded with Facebook to take down hateful speech. They say Facebook has done nothing.

Facebook is used everyday by people with massive followings who share hateful memes, threats, and vlogs targeting the country’s Muslim minority. Sometimes, those anti-Muslim extremists urge people to go out and riot.

Sri Lanka is not the only place where Facebook has been used this way — Facebook has repeatedly been accused of failing to act on users advocating for violence against minorities in South Sudan and ethnic cleansing in Myanmar.

It’s not like Facebook is unaware of how the platform could be used — in an internal 2016 memo, a Facebook VP acknowledged the possibility the platform could be used to spur violence.
buzzfeed.com/ryanmac/growth…

Last month, as mobs burned Muslim-owned shops and homes in central Sri Lanka — and anti-Muslim extremists used Facebook to encourage this — the Sri Lankan government decided to take action.

Here’s where Sri Lanka is unique: the government took an extreme measure — they blocked Facebook and the messaging app it owns, WhatsApp.

Did the ban work? Unclear. Google searches for “VPN” spiked at the time.

What it DID do, though, was spur action from Facebook. Almost immediately after Facebook and WhatsApp were blocked, the company sent a delegation of policy officials to the country to try to smooth things over with the government.

Government officials say it was the highest-level delegation from Facebook that had ever visited on official business. During Facebook’s visit, the government unblocked social media.

Ethnic tensions in Sri Lanka predate the social network.

But we spoke to Muslims who say once Facebook became overwhelmingly popular in the country, particularly with the younger generation, they saw anti-Muslim stories being amplified in a way they hadn’t been before.

Our investigation reveals that Facebook ignoring the problem was directly related to growing hate speech on the platform, and the real-life violence it led to.

buzzfeed.com/meghara/we-had…