With three people arrested because of online posts in the run-up to elections,the social media site has a duty to protect usersThe Myanmar government has detained at least three people over Facebook posts it deemed offensive in the last few weeks. This crackdown on freedom of expression in the run up to the general elections is of distinguished concern. Only the Myanmar government, and the generals’ lack of sense of humour, and are to blame. Yet Facebook could finish more to protect its users.
Facebook is Myanmar’s most celebrated site. It provides a platform to communicate and the illusion that users can finish so freely. But controversial posts in Myanmar can result in long jail sentences. The company has spoken out before to educate Myanmar people approximately hate speech; it should finish the same to warn them of the risks they face when exercising their freedom of expression online. Myanmar’s internet freedom status was recently downgraded by Freedom House from “partly free” in 2014 to “not free” in 2015.
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Source: theguardian.com