On February 4, 2023, Loyola Genocide Justice Clinic (LGJC) Director Rajika Shah presented a report prepared by clinic students Meighann Mahoney ‘22, Sarina Piliguian ‘22, and Tamar Thomassian ‘21, with additional assistance provided by Angelina Sophonpanich ‘22, titled “International Liability for Social Media Companies in Artsakh.”
The all-day conference, "In the Shadow of Territorial Conflict Symposium: Legacies of Soviet-era Media Control and Speech Norms,” was held at Southwestern Law School. The event, sponsored by the peer-reviewed Journal of International Media and Entertainment Law (JIMEL), included panel speakers Ambassador Robert Avetisyan, Dr. Andrei Richter and Michael Epstein.
This symposium examined the role of media institutions, government censorship, and social media speech norms in armed conflicts between Armenia and Azerbaijan in 2020 and 2022 in connection with Artsakh (Nagorno-Karabakh). These conflicts are tragic examples of long-running ethnic and geo-political disputes that became flashpoints for war and aggression after the Soviet Union collapsed.
The report prepared by Loyola Genocide Justice Clinic and presented by LGJC Director Rajika Shah, concludes that there is a decades-long history of international criminal accountability for mass media publishers, and social media companies were well aware of the potential for serious, widespread violence as a result of hate speech disseminated on their platforms. Additionally, social media companies, like Facebook, made little effort to eliminate and stop the spread of hate speech and misinformation when they were fully aware. The UN Independent Fact-Finding Mission on Myanmar (IIFFM) will focus on Facebook's central role in the Rohingya massacres, hopefully signaling a positive turning point in international attempts to hold social media platforms accountable.
The full report “International Liability for Social Media Companies in Artsakh" will be published in a forthcoming issue of JIMEL.