Submission to the Securities and Exchange Commission on Meta’s Violation of Security Laws Concerning Facebook’s Role in the Atrocities Against the Rohingya in 2017

 

Amnesty International, the Open Society Justice Initiative and Victim Advocates International (collectively, the “Submitting Entities”) make this submission on behalf of Sayed Ullah, known as Maung Sawyeddollah, a Whistleblower, to provide information on Meta’s role in the atrocities perpetrated against the Rohingya people of Myanmar in 2017, which the United States government has classified as genocide, to present facts concerning Meta’s conduct, and to identify representations to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and to public investors that appear to have violated federal securities laws.

 

The Submitting Entities and the Whistleblower urge the SEC to open a formal investigation to determine the full extent and scope of Meta’s securities law violations. At the time of the events in question, the company was registered as Facebook, Inc. This submission will use the current name of Meta for the company while referring to its social media platform as Facebook.

 

The Facebook platform was a central vehicle in the proliferation of hate speech that contributed to the atrocities committed against the Rohingya in Myanmar in 2017, which was classified as genocide1 and crimes against humanity by the U.S. government. Two facts transform the conduct of Meta from a moral failure into a violation of U.S. securities laws:

 

• First, from at least 2013, when civil society and researchers began alerting the company, Meta knew or at a minimum recklessly disregarded that its algorithmic systems were at risk of supercharging the spread of hate speech in Myanmar, but consistently made incomplete statements on this issue which failed to disclose this material fact to the SEC and to investors, and on several occasions actively misrepresented relevant information.

 

• Second, Meta knew or at a minimum recklessly disregarded that from 2013 onwards its content- moderation systems were inadequate to the task of preventing and removing hate speech in Myanmar that could foreseeably contribute to the atrocities against the Rohingya, but consistently made incomplete statements on this issue which failed to disclose this material information to the SEC and shareholders, and on several occasions actively made misrepresentations on this matter. As described in detail below, civil society activists and researchers alerted Meta staff every year in 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016 and 2017, before the widespread attacks against the Rohingya began in August 2017, about the heightened risk that Facebook could contribute to potential mass violence, with some of them warning about the risk of genocide. However, these warnings were effectively ignored by Meta, which failed to take sufficient action to properly mitigate these risks.

 

Meta made misrepresentations on these issues in the 10-K Filings for the financial years 2015 and 2016. It stated that the company sought to identify “undesirable accounts” which violated Facebook’s terms of service, and it failed to fully report on the risks in Myanmar, even though the situation could (and eventually did) cause reputational damage stemming from negative publicity