KATHMANDU: Facebook said on Wednesday that it had banned Myanmar’s military and military-controlled state and media entities from its platforms, weeks after the military overthrew the country’s fragile democratic government.
The move plunged the social network directly into Myanmar’s post-coup politics — and left little question that it was picking sides in a pitched political battle.
Facebook acted after facing criticism for years over how Myanmar’s military has used the site, including to incite hatred against the country’s mostly Muslim Rohingya minority group. Since the coup earlier this month, which ousted the civilian leader Daw Aung San Suu Kyi and returned Myanmar to full military rule, the military has repeatedly shut off the internet and cut access to major social media sites, including Facebook.
The social network took the Myanmar military’s main news page and another state TV network page offline a few days ago. It also took down the official accounts of senior Myanmar military leaders who were linked to the Rohingya violence in 2018. But plenty of other military-linked pages were still online.
Text and picture courtesy: The New York Times