Facebook has deleted the main page of the Myanmar military, citing its standards prohibiting the incitement of violence, a day after two protesters were killed when police opened fire at a demonstration against the February 1 coup.
“In line with our global policies, we’ve removed the Tatmadaw True News Information Team Page from Facebook for repeated violations of our Community Standards prohibiting incitement of violence and coordinating harm,” a Facebook representative said in a statement.
The Myanmar military is known as the Tatmadaw. Its True News page was no longer available on Sunday.
Two people were killed in Myanmar’s second city, Mandalay when police and soldiers fired at protesters demonstrating against the overthrow of the elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi.
Facebook in recent years has engaged with civil rights activists and democratic political parties in Myanmar and pushed back against the military after coming under heavy international criticism for failing to contain online hate campaigns.
In 2018, it banned army chief Min Aung Hlaing, now the military ruler and 19 other senior officers and organisations, and took down hundreds of pages and accounts run by military members for coordinated inauthentic behaviour.
