FB bans Myanmar army chief over rights abuses

Yangon : Facebook banned Myanmar’s army chief and other top military brass after a UN investigation recommended they face prosecution for crackdown on Rohingya Muslims.

The site is the prime source of news and information for many in a country that only recently came online following nearly half a century of military rule. But it has also been a platform for the army and Buddhist hardliners to spread hate speech and incendiary posts against the stateless Rohingya and other minorities. The site aired support for the military’s bloody “clearance operations” last year that forced some 700,000 Rohingya over the border into Bangladesh.

“We are banning 20 Burmese individuals and organizations from Facebook -- including Senior General Min Aung Hlaing, commander-in-chief of the armed forces,” the platform said, adding that it wants to prevent them from using the service to “further inflame ethnic and religious tensions”. Facebook has some 18 million accounts in the country of 51 million people.