Facebook classifies Myanmar as a high risk site
Facebook designated Myanmar as a temporary high-risk site after a coup earlier this week, saying it was removing any calls to bring arms and protecting posts critical of the country's military.
Facebook Asia Pacific's director of policy, Rafael Frankel, summed up his response to the coup in a letter to employees.
Frankel has pledged to employ a number of products that have been used in the past in Myanmar and during the US elections, to ensure that the platform is not used to spread disinformation, incite violence, or coordinate harm.
A spokesperson for the platform said: We are closely monitoring political events in Myanmar as they develop and are taking additional steps to stop misinformation and content that may spark further tensions at this time.
He added: This includes removing disinformation that delegitimizes the results of the November elections, along with hate speech and other disinformation.
Facebook said it is taking temporary measures to limit the spread of content that praises or supports post-election violence, and automatically cuts content that is likely to violate the rules while moderators make a decision about removing it.
According to reports, Frankel said: Facebook is protecting the accounts of activists and journalists, as well as important information about what is happening on the ground.
Facebook is also trying to track which pages have been seized by the military, and the Wall Street Journal writes that Facebook has banned a military television network page, and Frankel said it is working to stop misinformation and content that could spark more tensions.
In 2018, Facebook deleted several military accounts that helped incite genocide against the country's Rohingya Muslim minority after the United Nations issued a report condemning Facebook's slow and ineffective response.
However, Facebook's censorship board recently lifted one ban on an anti-Muslim post in Myanmar, saying it did not live up to hate speech.
The high-risk interim location rating is not new, as it was applied to Washington, D.C. on January 6 after supporters of former president (Donald Trump) tried to overturn the US election results.