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The US Commission on International Religious Freedom warned Facebook for not doing enough to protect Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar from hate speech.
The independent federal commission slapped the social media giant on Friday in a report titled “Protecting Religious Freedom,” which more widely urged regulators of online speech to respect their rights to religious expression.
The six-page report stated that Facebook’s “failure to respond to provocations against Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar” was an example of “inadequate response” by the social media giant.
Myanmar’s military crackdown on Rohingya Muslims in 2017, including alleged mass murders and rapes, has driven more than 700,000 Rohingya into exile in neighboring Bangladesh. The refugee crisis and the reported attacks against the Rohingya, which human rights groups say are genocide, continue to this day.
Facebook’s parent company Meta did not immediately respond to a Washington Times request for comment.
The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, a document passed by the 1976 United Nations, protects freedom of religion or belief as well as freedom of expression, Friday’s report said. Conflicts arise when religious freedom of expression is classified as “hate speech” by those who object to the views expressed.
“Maintaining a high threshold for limiting speech is essential to the protection of both freedom of expression and freedom of religion,” the document said. Encouragement to genocide should be regulated, but governments “cannot demand that social media companies restrict expressions that states cannot directly ban,” he said.
Among the recommendations in the report, USCIRF suggests that the federal government should publicly take note of “social media abuses by foreign governments that create an environment hostile to freedom of religion and freedom of expression” in bilateral talks and the State Department’s annual International Religious Freedom Report.
Agencies should “promote counter-speech” on US government social media accounts to combat hate speech and fund programs to develop “early warning mechanisms” to combat hate speech.
“The US government can play a vital role in ensuring that social media companies uphold human rights and freedom of religion,” the fact sheet said, and urged the US to work with other governments to promote social media companies’ responsibility to comply with international human rights. law.
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