POLICY
POLICY
POLICY
Torrent of criticism pelts Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey for his Myanmar comments
Twitter Inc. Chief Executive Jack Dorsey has found himself in deep water after going on a 10-day meditation retreat in Myanmar and promoting the country as a tourist destination.
“The people are full of joy and the food is amazing,” Dorsey (pictured) told his 4 million-plus followers, a comment some people thought crude seeing as though hundreds of thousands of Rohingya refugees have had to flee the country amidst violence.
Dorsey then waxed lyrical about Vipassana meditation and the practice of getting to know the inner self. He talked about his sparse accommodation and a routine of waking up at 4 a.m. to meditate.
“The highlight of my trip was serving monks and nuns food, and donating sandals and umbrellas,” he wrote. “This group of young nuns in Mandalay and their chanting was breathtaking and chilling.”
Dorsey’s seemingly sprightly mood and positive comments induced critics to call him “tone-deaf” in the face of atrocities that have led to about 700,000 Rohingya refugees fleeing the country and the United Nations accusing the military of genocide.
“I’m no expert on meditation, but is it supposed to make you so self-obsessed that you forget to mention you’re in a country where the military has committed mass killings & mass rape, forcing hundreds of thousands to flee, in one of today’s biggest humanitarian disasters?” tweeted Andrew Stroehlein, the European media director of Human Rights Watch.
“This thread left me utterly speechless,” said al-Jazeera correspondent Mohammed Jamjoom. “I’ve interviewed dozens of #Rohingya #refugees who shared horrific details of atrocities committed against them by #Myanmar’s military. It was only in Oct that the head of a UN fact finding mission said genocide was ongoing in #Rakhine.”
Others mentioned how social media has played a part in sometimes spreading vile hate speech in Myanmar and other countries across the world. Dorsey was accused of “reckless willful ignorance” regarding the promotion of tourism in a country where such atrocities have so recently taken place.
Dorsey has not responded to this barrage of criticism, but according to the BBC he has promised to track the many comments.
Photo: JD Lasica/Flickr
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