Timezone:
5–6pm AEDT (UTC+11), 12.30–1.30pm MMT, 11.30am–12.30pm IST
VENUE:
The dialogues in the series will be held in hybrid mode, ie in-person on the ANU Campus, and virtually on zoom.
- IN-PERSON: Seminar Room B 3.104, Level 1, HC Coombs Building, 9 Fellows Road, ANU, Acton, ACT, 2601
- ONLINE: Zoom. Once you register here, you will receive access to the online event page in Eventbrite where you will find the join link for the zoom meeting. Please select the relevant ticket, in-person or online, according to your preferred attendance mode.
For more information on the MRC 2023 Dialogue Series please see the MRC website
You can subscribe to the ANU Myanmar Research Centre mailing list here.
We look forward to seeing you there.
Facebook and genocide: On the importance of new evidence for Meta’s contributions to violence against Rohingya in Myanmar
For the broad public increasingly critical of technology companies, the Rohingya genocide in Myanmar has come to illustrate the evils of Facebook and its parent company, Meta. At the same time, the Myanmar case has become an influential template for understanding the dangers of social media, past, present, and future, as well as developing solutions. Yet this template is strikingly narrow: it has been limited to content that negatively characterizes the victim group, such as through hate speech and misinformation. As a result, most extant analysis has excluded other processes that scholarship on genocide has also shown to be significant: practices aimed at constructing not the victims of genocide but those who are supposed to support it.
This paper, therefore, analyzes some of these practices as they involved Facebook in Myanmar, offering new interpretations of publicly available evidence and drawing on observations from work in Myanmar during 2012-15. It then concludes by discussing the relevance of these initial findings for ongoing efforts to pursue restitution and accountability and proposes concrete questions that could be taken up in these efforts as well as by scholars and practitioners.
Please see the link for the working paper on the topic.
SPEAKER:
Matt Schissler is a Visiting Fellow in the Department of Political and Social Change at ANU and a PhD Candidate in the Department of Anthropology, University of Michigan. He also worked as a member of local civil society organizations from Myanmar from 2007 to 2015.
CHAIR:
Samuel Hmung, ANU
If you have any questions about this talk, please write to Nick Cheesman at nick.cheesman@anu.edu.au or Samuel Hmung at samuel.hmung@anu.edu.au.
The ANU Myanmar Research Centre Dialogue Series is a conversation concerning current research on Myanmar aimed at providing scholars with an opportunity to present their work, try out an idea, advance an argument and critically engage with other researchers. International and Myanmar researchers from any discipline are invited to contribute. The Dialogue Series is particularly seeking to provide a space for early career researchers wishing to receive constructive feedback. Each dialogue is one hour long, including a 30-minute presentation followed by a 30-minute Q&A. As a hybrid series, the Dialogues are presented in both virtual and in-person format, hosted by the ANU Myanmar Research Centre.