Facebook has been a part of our daily life for several years back.
In Myanmar, the number of social media users has increased from 7 million in 2015 to 21 million in 2020. Coupled with the increase in the number of social media users, it is getting harder and harder for people to distinguish between correct news and fake news on social media platforms.
Fake news, hate speech, and disinformation on popular social media platforms are rampant in this misinformation age, causing challenges for the world’s countries.
With the development of Facebook and other social media and information technology, the world becomes a global village. The people in every part of the world contact and exchange information with each other in a timely manner. However, with the freedom to use social media, there are dark sides and bright social media sides.
Fake news, hate speech, and disinformation on popular social media platforms are rampant in this misinformation age, causing challenges for the world’s countries.
Some standards of the Facebook social network have prohibited hate speech, bullying and threatening online. FB has also banned posts connected with terrorism and threats and has protected personal data, and urged the users to respect people’s individual rights. It has also invited the reports on violating its rules by users. When our country is experiencing unrest, the hate speech and posts which violate the Facebook standards and rules have caused the conflicts bigger. Despite facing a great danger of unrests nationwide, the country’s internet connection has been working for communications of the people, except sometimes.
With the unrest, about 80 per cent of the Facebook users in our country have turned to social media’s dark side. According to human psychology, what people see on the social media platform amplifies fake news and hate speech. We must prevent using its platform to undermine the rule of law and community peace by tackling fake news and releasing correct information. We need to be on the alert about their potential to disrupt the community peace. We need to prevent them, and when they occur, we need to be quick to react.
The most important and effective way is avoiding hate speech of one kind of another and following the Facebook standards not to cause conflicts in communities.
