We’re a group of Rohingya youth, students and people living in a refugee camp in Cox’s Bazar and we’re here to you to tell you our story.

We were forced to flee a genocide of our people in Myanmar in 2017. Violent hate speech against the Rohingya was allowed to run rampant across Facebook. Facebook knew it was being used to incite violence – and chose to do nothing about it.

Now we’re calling on Facebook to help repair some of the damage it caused, by funding the community education programmes we’ve designed and set up in our camps. But so far, the social media company - with a yearly revenue of roughly $117 billion - has refused our request.

In response, we have filed a formal complaint with the international body charged with ensuring corporations around the world respect human rights in their business practices. Now, if we show this body as well as Facebook that thousands of people around the world are watching how our case unfolds, we can bring the Rohingya one step closer to justice.

As Facebook has refused to engage and consider paying for the educational programme in our camp, we’re looking to Ireland to help. As a group, we have submitted a complaint in Ireland because Facebook is headquartered there.

Facebook has been let off the hook for the damage its algorithms have caused. They enabled the spread of hate, disproportionately damaging minority communities like ours in Myanmar. A lot of the policies rolled out in our country back in 2017 came from Facebook HQ in Ireland as head of Facebook’s international operations.

It’s no secret that Facebook has gotten some bad press of late, and it knows it's now under the microscope for years of prioritising profits over the safety of people on its platform. If they feel the pressure from people everywhere, we’ll have a much better shot at them coming to the table with us. Add your name and share this widely. 

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