YANGON: Facebook has banned four insurgent groups fighting against Myanmar’s military from its social network, the company said on Tuesday, saying it wanted to prevent offline harm by removing groups it branded “dangerous organizations.”
The US-based social media giant says it has removed hundreds of accounts, pages and groups for links to Myanmar’s military, or misrepresentation, since last August.
The action came after Facebook was criticized for not doing enough to prevent violent and hate-filled content spreading on its platform, which grew hugely popular in Myanmar just as conflicts in the country escalated.
The Arakan Army, the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army, Kachin Independence Army and the Ta’ang National Liberation Army were banned, Facebook said in a statement on Tuesday, adding it would remove “praise, support and representation” of the groups.
“In an effort to prevent and disrupt offline harm, we do not allow organizations or individuals that proclaim a violent mission or engage in violence to have a presence on Facebook,” the company said.
The bans targeted only some of the ethnic minority insurgent groups in Myanmar that have battled for autonomy in conflicts that have raged on and off since shortly after Myanmar’s independence from Britain in 1948.
The four groups named by Facebook have not signed a government-led cease-fire agreement and have frequently clashed with the armed forces in recent years.
One group, the Kachin Independence Army, is one the strongest of the country’s insurgent groups and occupies territory in the north.
Another, the Arakan Army, has been engaged in fighting in the west since December that has displaced more than 5,000. It launched attacks last month that killed 13 Myanmar border police.
Facebook said there was “clear evidence that these organizations have been responsible for attacks against civilians and have engaged in violence in Myanmar, and we want to prevent them from using our services to further inflame tensions on the ground.”
Mong Aik Kyaw, a spokesman for the Ta’ang National Liberation Army, confirmed the group’s page was down, but declined to comment on Facebook’s reasoning.
The removal would restrict the group’s ability to “inform the public” about its activities, he said.
The other three groups were not immediately available for comment.
Some accounts related to Myanmar’s armed forces were first removed last August after a UN fact-finding mission called for top Myanmar generals to be prosecuted for what it said was a campaign of mass killings and gang rape against the Rohingya Muslim minority carried out with “genocidal intent.”
In 2017, the military led a crackdown in Myanmar’s Rakhine State in response to attacks by Rohingya insurgents, pushing more than 730,000 Rohingya to neighboring Bangladesh, according to UN agencies.
A Reuters special report in August found that Facebook failed to promptly heed numerous warnings from organizations in Myanmar about social media posts fueling attacks on minority groups such as the Rohingya.
Facebook targets ‘dangerous’ armed groups in latest Myanmar bans
Facebook targets ‘dangerous’ armed groups in latest Myanmar bans
- The US-based social media giant says it has removed hundreds of accounts, pages and groups for links to Myanmar’s military, or misrepresentation, since last August
- The action came after Facebook was criticized for not doing enough to prevent violent and hate-filled content spreading on its platform
Lebanon’s official media scale back Hezbollah coverage after Cabinet ban
- Information Minister Paul Morcos instructs outlets to comply with government decision
- Journalists, social media urged to avoid content that could provoke hate speech, incitement
BEIRUT: Lebanon has begun implementing a Cabinet decision taken earlier this month to ban Hezbollah’s security and military activities by scaling back coverage of the group on official media platforms.
The measure, which was described in political circles as a significant and bold step, came after decades during which news about the party and the speeches of its leaders were published verbatim and broadcast live through official media outlets, like the state-run National News Agency, TV station Tele Liban and Radio Lebanon.
“No one is imposing censorship,” an official source told Arab News.
“Rather, there is a commitment to the decisions of the state. It is no longer possible for a speech that attacks the Lebanese government and the state to be published through its official media outlets.”
Information Minister Paul Morcos issued a circular instructing directors of official media outlets to comply with the government’s decision to ban the broadcast of speeches or statements by Hezbollah Secretary-General Sheikh Naim Qassem and statements issued by the group’s armed wing, particularly when they contain criticism of the state.
Morcos also ordered that Hezbollah statements be handled in the same manner as those issued by other political parties, meaning they should not be published verbatim. He further instructed media outlets to avoid using the term “Islamic resistance,” except when it appears directly within Hezbollah statements.
The first manifestations of the decision were Tele Liban’s abstention from live broadcasting a speech by Qassem and a statement made on Tuesday by lawmaker Mohammed Raad, who heads the Hezbollah parliamentary bloc.
The group’s supporters described the move as an attempt “to restrict the resistance, Hezbollah and its leadership in the official media.”
Some argued on social media that preventing the use of terms like “resistance” or “holy warriors (Mujahedin)” and replacing them with expressions such as “Hezbollah” and “fighters” was “aimed at brainwashing and stripping the party of its resistance identity.”
During a Cabinet session on Thursday, Morcos raised the issue of content circulating on social media that incites murder and sectarian strife. This comes against the backdrop of the war that Hezbollah waged from Lebanon against Israel on March 2, without state approval, which led to a sharp division in Lebanese public opinion.
Morcos, who is also Cabinet spokesperson, said after the session that what was being published “exceeds the bounds of freedom of opinion, the press and expression.”
Prime Minister Nawaf Salam considered it to fall under the penal code, specifically regarding crimes that harm national unity, he said, and that “we are against strife in all its forms.”
Morcos also urged journalists, influencers and social media users to remain aware of the sensitivity of the current situation and to avoid content that could provoke strife, hate speech or incitement.
He acknowledged, however, that, according to a legal study, he has no authority over social media, even on media-related matters.
“The Ministry of Information does not exercise a guardianship role and lacks judicial police powers,” he said.
“These authorities rest with the public prosecution offices, which are overseen by the minister of justice and fall within the domain of criminal law and criminal prosecution.”
The ban was agreed during a Cabinet session on March 2, after Hezbollah launched six rockets from Lebanese territory toward northern Israel, the first such attack since the November 2024 ceasefire, prompting retaliatory strikes.
The Cabinet reaffirmed that “the decision of war and peace rests exclusively with the Lebanese state and its constitutional institutions,” and called on Hezbollah to hand over its weapons to the state while limiting its role to political activity within the legal and constitutional framework.
