Facebook purges more Myanmar accounts for misrepresentation

BANGKOK — Facebook has announced its third and biggest purge of military-linked accounts in Myanmar, where critics have charged that the social network did too little to block inflammatory material that fueled communal hatred, particularly against the country’s Muslim Rohingya minority.

Facebook in a press release posted online Wednesday says it has removed 425 Facebook Pages, 17 Facebook Groups, 135 Facebook accounts and 15 Instagram accounts in Myanmar for engaging in “coordinated inauthentic behavior,” meaning they misrepresented who was running the provocative accounts. Facebook alleges the military is behind the accounts.

Some 700,000 Rohingya fled their homes in western Myanmar since last year in response to a brutal counterinsurgency campaign by the military, which has been accused of massive human rights violations. /ee