Facebook deletes main page of Myanmar military

Facebook on Sunday deleted the page of Myanmar military. The action was taken in accordance with its standards of prohibiting incitement of violence, it said. This has come just a day after two protesters were killed after police opened fire at a demonstration.

"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.

Myanmar military's Truer News page was no longer available on Sunday. Reuters said that military spokesperson did not respond to phone calls.

Two people were killed in Myanmar's second city Mandalay on Saturday when police and soldiers fired at protesters demonstrating against the overthrow of the elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi, emergency workers said, the bloodiest day in more than two weeks of demonstrations.

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.

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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.

Ahead of November elections, Facebook announced it had taken down a network of 70 fake accounts and pages operated by members of the military that had posted either positive content about the army or criticism of Suu Kyi and her party.

(With Reuters inputs)