Facebook erased the Myanmar military main page on Sunday (February 21) in accordance with its standards prohibiting incitement to violence, the day after the deaths of two protesters when police opened fire on a demonstration against the February 1 coup .
“In line with our global guidelines, we have removed Facebook’s Tatmadaw True News Information Team page for repeated violations of our community standards prohibiting incitement to violence and coordinating harm,” a Facebook representative said in a statement .
The Myanmar military is known as the Tatmadaw. The True News page was unavailable on Sunday (February 21).
The military spokesman did not respond to a Reuters call for comment.
Two people were killed in Mandalay, Myanmar’s second city, on Saturday when police and soldiers fired at protesters demonstrating against the overthrow of the elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi. This is the bloodiest day in more than two weeks of demonstrations.
Facebook has teamed up with civil rights activists and democratic political parties in Myanmar in recent years to fight back against the military after facing severe international criticism for not containing online hate campaigns.
In 2018, it banned Army Chief Min Aung Hlaing – now the military ruler – and 19 other senior officers and organizations, and removed hundreds of pages and accounts kept by military members for coordinated spurious conduct.
Before the November elections, Facebook announced it had shut down a network of 70 fake accounts and pages owned by military personnel who posted either positive content about the army or criticism of Suu Kyi and her party.
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