In the course of my research for this paper, I was surprised to learn that Facebook’s motto was, until 2018, ‘Move Fast, Break Things.’ Given all that has gone on in Myanmar, in part because of how Facebook’s platform was appropriated, it feels tragically poignant.

As I understand things, and as Warofka pointed out (see Part III), there were some language-script hurdles with Burmese that certainly impeded the detection of hate-speech, as well as its effective monitoring. While I acknowledge this and appreciate Facebook’s admission of its various failures, it’s difficult not to feel that these problems should have been anticipated before Facebook started transforming and profiting from a country such as Myanmar that has been in a state of de facto civil war for 70 years.

In this context, I propose that commentators spend less time discussing the digital literacy of Myanmar’s netizens and start asking questions about the wisdom of Facebook’s business maturity instead. In establishing their (virtual) presence, Facebook failed to do adequate research into the country they wish to exploit. If they did, Facebook might have had a fair chance of understanding the complex dynamics of the Union’s distinct ethnic groups (as well as the tensions therein), the country’s linguistic range, Naypyidaw’s political fragility as it entered the transitional period, the army’s dominance, the rise of (Buddhist) nationalism, and thought more deeply about the impact of their liberating platform in a land that buckled under intense censorship for decades. Sure, no company could be expected to adequately prepare for so many unknowns and variables, but in hindsight, comparisons with the British East India Company would not be entirely unwarranted for the brazen way in which Facebook Inc. set up shop in Myanmar. Zuckerberg did not command thousands of infantry nor advanced warships, but nonetheless went to Myanmar with the same intention as the EIC: to extract resources. In the modern world, Facebook is not seeking Myanmar’s traditional riches like teak, amber, jade, rubies, oil, and natural gas, but information, data, and advertising space. The 21st century does, however, ask more of its international companies and correspondingly demands greater social responsibility.

Cutting to the bone then: while Facebook has made several important changes that should be congratulated, many challenges remain, particularly, as I have argued in Part III, greater efforts to include other ethnic languages. If Facebook’s services are indeed extended to those ethnic groups whose main language is not Burmese, it will no doubt be expensive precisely because they too, like the Bamars, could potentially use the platform for their own hate-speech and misinformation. Facebook will therefore have to hire relevant language teams to monitor non-Bamar text, images, and audio; engineer specific AI; and pay for any surplus outsourcing of services. This would make things much fairer and help to assuage Burmese/Bamar dominance.

But where should Facebook draw the line in deciding which ethnic languages to include? Would adding Shan, for example, be enough of a token effort? Should Menlo Park’s teams extend linguistic accessibility to Myanmar’s main groups? Or would every one of those 100 languages require representation (and in the process doubling the languages Facebook currently caters for)?

There is a risk of precedent setting here: Myanmar is not the only multiethnic, multi-linguistic country in the world. Would others not clamour for inclusion? Could Facebook reasonably deny them the right to be represented in their own tongue on their site? I think not, and to be fair, the barn door is already open: in addition to French, Facebook extended their service in France to provide their service to Bretons and Corsicans.

No doubt it would cost a small fortune to bring more linguistic inclusivity to Myanmar’s extensive ethnic landscape. While Facebook may have lacked a good dose of wisdom before entering this particular Southeast Asian market, the vaults at Menlo Park are full: the company’s reported net income for 2017 was $15.9 billion – strikingly, the equivalent of about 25% of Myanmar’s entire GDP.

It was morally right that the UN, international actors, humanitarian groups, journalists, and others, shone the spotlight on Facebook’s operations in Myanmar, most commonly over the company’s role in bellowing the hate-speech that poisonously grew on its platform and came to manifest itself as deadly violence in Rakhine State. The tragic fate of the Rohingya will likely be tied to Facebook’s activities for some time. However, this work chiefly argues that while the company’s part in the alleged genocide of the Rohingya is deeply disturbing, it was not intentional. In contrast, Zuckerberg’s neocolonial outpost in Myanmar risks, in my view, being both conscious and responsible for something much worse than hate-speech: the de facto participation of the State’s policy of Burmanisation through Facebook’s exclusively Bamar-friendly platform. This needs to be addressed immediately by expanding the provisions for additional ethnic languages on the site.