Facebook said Thursday that it has banned the military in Myanmar from using its platforms with immediate effect.
“Events since the February 1 coup, including deadly violence, have created a need for this ban,” Facebook said in a blog post. “We believe the risks of allowing the Tatmadaw (Myanmar Army) on Facebook and Instagram are too great.”
The military took power this month after claiming that fraud was waged in an election on November 8 by Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy (NLD), which detained her and many of the party leadership.
At least three protesters and one policeman were killed during violent riots.
The US tech giant has said it also bans all “Tatmadaw-linked commercial entities” from advertising on its platforms.
The decision to ban the army in Myanmar is said to be due to ‘extremely serious human rights violations and the clear risk of future military-initiated violence in Myanmar’, as well as the army’s repeated history of violating Facebook. rules, also since the coup.
The military government could not be immediately reached for comment.
Meanwhile, members of a group supporting the Myanmar military junta attacked and injured people protesting in Yangon on Thursday. At least several people were injured in the attacks in Myanmar’s largest city.
Photos and videos on social media showed the attacks and injured people in downtown Yangon as police stood there without intervening. The attackers fired pendulum shots and carried iron bars, knives and other sharp tools.
Facebook is widely used in Myanmar and was one of the ways the junta communicated with people, despite an official move to ban the platform in the early days of the coup.
Facebook has been working with civil rights activists and democratic political parties in Myanmar for the past few years, pushing back against the military after facing international criticism for not containing online hate campaigns.
Facebook plays an extraordinary role in Myanmar, where for many residents it is synonymous with the internet. U.S. investigators say Facebook has allowed the platform to be used by radical Buddhist nationalists and members of the military to incite a campaign of violence against the Muslim Rohingya minority, of which 700,000 in 2017 against the army fled. I
The junta has been trying to block Facebook and other social media platforms since its takeover, but efforts have proved ineffective. For more than a week it is also access to the internet from 1 hour
The military says it has seized power because the election in November last year was marked by widespread voting irregularities, a claim refuted by the state election commission, whose members have since been replaced.
The junta said it would rule in a state of emergency for a year and then hold elections again.