Facebook has removed the page of a Myanmar monk once dubbed the “Buddhist Bin laden” for his incendiary posts about Muslims, the company confirmed, as it faces pressure to clamp down on hate speech.
Wirathu, a prominent face of Myanmar’s Buddhist ultra-nationalist movement, had amassed hundreds of thousands of followers on the network, using it as a platform to attack Muslims, singling out the stateless Rohingya minority.
Nearly 700,000 Rohingya have fled to Bangladesh since last August following a military crackdown in Rakhine state that has been likened to ethnic cleansing by the US and the UN, but which has been applauded by Myanmar nationalists online.
A Facebook spokesperson told late yesterday that Wirathu’s page had been removed.
“Our Community Standards prohibit organisations and people dedicated to promoting hatred and violence against others”, a Facebook spokesperson said in an email.