Is Facebook’s bias a source of concern for Myanmar’s 2020 election?

Is Facebook’s bias a source of concern for Myanmar’s 2020 election?
Union Election Commission's supervisors at the Aung Nan Yeik Thar Ward poll booths during the 2018 by-election on November 3.
Union Election Commission's supervisors at the Aung Nan Yeik Thar Ward poll booths during the 2018 by-election on November 3.
Published 11 February 2020
San Moe Tun - Translated by Kywe Wa Dana Tun

 

“There are plans to form a group that will monitor words being said on Facebook, to remove words that will impede or harm the election, and to delete words that can be classified as hate speech. We’ve discussed these matters with Facebook’s representatives. We have talked it over to either delete items that they found to meet this criteria and have also asked Facebook to also remove items that we submit to them.”

Such were the words of U Myint Naing, a member of the Union Election Commission (UEC), at a press conference held at the UEC office on February 6.

Three key points from what he said include: 1) a committee will be formed to monitor Facebook posts 2) Discussions were made to remove content that will harm the election and promote hate speech and 3) agreement was made to delete posts that Facebook found to be harmful and to delete posts at the request of the UEC .

Perhaps the most interesting point is the third one because an agreement has been made in which Facebook and the UEC would essentially have the authority to delete posts that it found to be harmful to the election.

So what exactly did the UEC discuss with Facebook? What posts are classified as harmful to the election? What will constitute ‘hate speech’? Much of this is mired in ambiguity.

If Facebook does not officially clarify its position on this matter and goes on a removing spree before the election period, the fairness and integrity of Facebook will definitely be questioned by all.

 

What has Facebook prepared?

According to Sarah Oh, Facebook’s Program Manager for Southeast Asia’s information team, “Facebook will be learning from past events like the US election in order to make better decisions for future elections.”

She met with the media in Yangon at Novotel on August 5, 2019.

At that press conference, Facebook claimed that it has been preparing for the 2020 election since 2019 by employing over 100 Myanmar language speaking staff that will be able to sift through all written content, according to Rafael Frankel, Facebook’s Director of Public Policy for Southeast Asia. 

He also said that the employed Myanmar staff have all been ultra-familiarized with Facebook’s community standards and are qualified to review whether content is in line with said standards. He further claims that services of third parties will also be utilized to decide between true and false news, which will be decided based on Facebook’s  community standard.

 

Community Standards under fire

When it comes to the Community Standards held so dear by Facebook, it is a growing point of contention for many as more and more users continue to criticize Facebook over temporary suspensions and permanent removals or bans of pages and user accounts.

Amongst the many posts that were banned, several were posts that belonged to political commentators, activists, and politicians.

Back in December last year, Facebook temporarily restricted the posting and sharing capabilities of an account belonging to Dr Yan Myo Thein, a political analyst and commentator. He claims that despite being punished, he still does not know which community standard he might have breached. 

“Facebook had taken more actions against me at 2:51 pm today. The pages and groups that I manage or are a part of are now closed to me in terms of updating a post or sharing one until 2.51 pm, January 2, 2020. I fail to understand which of my posts infringed Facebook’s Community Standards. I am writing this post so that my comrades and friends are able to seriously consider this matter,” said Dr Yan Myo Thein on his social media account on December 30, 2019.

Regarding this matter, he says that Facebook needs to be more open and transparent with its users. 

“If I want to share any of my posts via my phone to a group, I cannot because my facebook account continues to be restricted. I cannot share as much as I want. I can do so on a computer but if it's via the mobile application, I can probably share around only 10 posts. Facebook doesn’t notify me about this at all. Facebook must openly communicate with its users,” he said.

Another user named U Aung Phyo also had his account temporarily banned for a photo comment he left on another post. 

“Even if a person adheres  to Facebook Community Standards, negative factors -- such as 1) removal of posts due to reporting by a group of people, 2) bad translation and lack of proficiency in the Myanmar language by the regional facebook team, and 3) the regional team’s personal bias and corruption -- impacts a user’s right to express his/her opinion. Because of these reasons I believe Facebook has diverged greatly from the values of its founder, Mark Zuckerberg,” said Aung Phyo.

While many of these cases exist, there are also plenty of pages and posts that clearly violate these Community Standards but continue to exist on the platform. It isn’t surprising that more people are beginning to question Facebook’s censorship policies.

U Zaw Moe Kyaw, another political analyst, had openly questioned this matter.

“Some posts get fiercely and concisely blocked and deleted. Examples are the word “Bengali ”,criticisms toward the NLD, criticisms toward the leaders, criticisms of religions, and criticisms of the country. Some news and factual videos are even getting censored. What exactly is Facebook’s censorship policy?” said Zaw Moe Kyaw.

 

Is Facebook biased for hate speech?

A prominent choice by Facebook’s effort against hate speech in Myanmar is the usage of the term “kalar”. Facebook will either issue a warning or suspend the account if a person uses that word.

Temporary or permanent bans have been issued  on accounts that belong to nationalist monks as well as to accounts that regularly use profanities against Muslims. 

What’s worse, Facebook officially declared on August 2018 that they would be terminating the  accounts belonging to Commander-in-Chief Senior General Min Aung Hlaing, the office of the Commander-in-Chief as well as Myawaddy, which resulted in an aggregate termination of 20 accounts.

Facebook claims that those accounts were in direct breach of Community Standards.

On October 15 2018, Facebook announces the permanent termination of 10 accounts and 13 pages that were related to the military and are fake accounts. That was the second time in a little over a month that accounts in relation to the military were being banned.

While Facebook has been consistently restricting nationalist monks and military-related accounts, it had so far failed to take action against users, pages, and posts that openly derogates Buddhism and Buddhists.

Political analyst and ex-member of parliament U Ye Tun (Thibaw) says Facebook is biased in its actions.

“I see it as unfair. They stand on the side of those that believe Muslims in Myanmar are being oppressed and had seemingly only employed those that are prejudiced towards that point of view when deciding on Community Standard breaches.”

There also are plenty of questions being raised about the usage of explicit language in criticism. The major opposition USDP’s spokesperson U Thein Tun Oo claims that in particular, posts that strongly criticize the ruling NLD party get shut down quickly while negative posts against other political parties are ignored.

“Let’s analyze hate speech. They don’t seem to regard derogatory comments against the USDP as hate speech. Try swearing at the ruling party. It won’t take long before the notice for infringement of community standards arrives. It looks like they’re working for the ruling party,” said Thein Tun Oo.

 

The example - Dr Thet Thet Khine

One of the most notable examples is Dr. Thet Thet Khine, an ex-member of the NLD and MP, whose interview video was taken down.

On November 1, 2019, People Media interviewed and posted said interview’s video on Facebook. It was subsequently taken down the very next day. On November 2, Facebook flagged the video as breaching community standards.

The 9 minutes long interview video of the outspoken, ex-NLD MP was titled along the lines of “Not right or wrong but like or dislike” in which she discussed some internal party affairs and also criticized that the current government’s outlook was lacking, particularly in economics.

The Daily Eleven Newspaper contacted Facebook over the removal of the video and the reply by Facebook was that it was not a matter of community standard breach but due to intellectual property rights.

But Facebook allowed the video online again after it had checked and determined that the video was, in fact, not breaching any rules. It was confirmed by People Media on November 3. 

This case alone brings many questions regarding Facebook’s murky censorship policies.

 

Monitored by the government

The transport and communications ministry had formed a Social Media Monitoring Team to keep an eye on happenings on Facebook as well as other social media platforms. 

On February 7, 2018, the ministry announced that the team was formed to investigate and act on attempts that seek to undermine national security through social media platforms. 

When asked by MP Dr Maung Thin on the budget, tasks and goals that were to be achieved by said team and whether it was in accord with budget usage policies of the President’s Office, the ministry also clarified in the parliament that it had spent Ks 6.424 billion in terms of both hardware and software for the Social Media Monitoring Team.

The deputy minister for transport and communication also replied that the monitoring team will be inspecting content that will adversely affect the behavior of children and youths, undermine and threaten rule of law, national security, and peace. The team will also work to educate the public as well as prevent harmful and dangerous activity by cooperating with service providers as well as Facebook itself. 

On June 6, 2018, Facebook representatives met with representatives from the Ministry of Information held discussions regarding content that are harmful to children, hate speech, and social media education efforts that would be done in coordination with Facebook. 

Not too long after the meeting with the Ministry of Information, many Facebook accounts that regularly criticize the government, including the account of Facebook Blue Mark holder ex-MP U Hla Swe, were removed. During that period, many users speculated that Facebook had acted at the urging of he information ministry. It was later denied by the ministry on June 8, 2018.

At the media meet on June 8 at the Sedona in Yangon, Facebook had vouched that even though they had cast out users that were critical of the government, everything was done with international standards.

Facebook’s Policy Director Mia Garlick said on that day that Facebook values equality and that for its 18 million users, every report gets reviewed and punished if found to be in breach of community standards. 

Until now, there have been no clarifications and detailed answers to what it discussed with the government except the promise that Facebook will look into the motives behind the spread of hate speech.

 

Fairness required

The 2020 general election is only months away. As it stands, Facebook will continue to play a critical role because of the fact that the UEC has said that fake and other harmful news on Facebook will be removed at its request.

UEC member U Than Htay had confirmed that they will monitor and report false news to  Facebook. UEC member U Myint Naing also confirmed this agreement between the UEC and Facebook.

Facebook bears, to a varying amount, partial responsibility for the election to be free and fair because many expect manipulations and foul play through the media of Facebook. Many believe that the likelihood of restricting the reach of news media organizations and censoring posts of news organizations is high. 

It has so far been proven that there are many consistency errors with Facebook’s community standards such as the quashing of differing opinions, amongst other breaches of democratic rights. Many election observers express worry as there are no guarantees that Facebook will be used to oppress opposition parties and other dissenters to the current ruling party.

USDP’s spokesperson U Thein Tun Oo believes it will create a massive gap between the parties. Dr Yan Myo Thein believes Facebook must be fair and truly adherent to their own Community Standards and that the removal of so-called fake news must not hurt the public’s rights to freedom of speech. 

Dr Yan Myo Thein says, “Honestly, Facebook needs to freely exercise actions based on their community standards and those decisions must not be partial toward those in power. Facebook must remove fake and harmful news as well as hate speech but must also observe freedom of speech.”

If Facebook was to repeat the same thing again as it did with hate speech, the 2020 election will not be free and fair. 

One other thing we must keep in mind is the risk posed on the freedom of the press by utilizing Facebook.

For now, we can only wait and observe whether Facebook will do its best to be unbiased. We head toward the 2020 election in the hope that the elections will be free and fair.

“People will believe in Facebook’s and NLD’s integrity more. Of course, if they were to misbehave, the trust from the public will continue to decline,” said ex-MP Ye Tun (Thibaw).