FB blacklists Myanmar hardline Buddhist group

YANGON: Facebook has blacklisted a group of Myanmar Buddhist hardliners including monks notorious for bilious hate speech against Rohingya Muslims, the company said on Thursday, as it scrambles to show it is tackling inflammatory content.

The social media company plays an outsized role in a country that has only recently come online and boasts 18 million accounts among the population of around 50 million people. UN investigators have said that Facebook has morphed into a "beast" in the country and that hate speech and incitement to violence against the Rohingya are rampant on the site.

Some 700,000 Rohingya have fled a violent army crackdown in Myanmar to Bangladesh since August last year -- after years of increasingly violent and angry discourse against the minority, much of it playing out on Facebook.

In response, Facebook this week has undertaken its highest-profile visit yet to Myanmar. It banned the Buddhist nationalist movement Ma Ba Tha from its platform, as well as a pair of prominent monks known for stoking hatred towards the Rohingya.

"They are not allowed a presence on Facebook, and we will remove any accounts and content which support, praise or represent these individuals or organisations," said Content Policy Manager David Caragliano.

Extremist monks Parmaukkha and Thuseitta join their fellow firebrand clergyman Wirathu on the blacklist, after he was banned in January. Activists have criticised the platform for responding too slowly to reports of malicious posts, with some content being shared by users for more than 48 hours before being removed.