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21 Chi. J. Int'l L. 83 (2020-2021)
How Social Media Companies Could Be Complicit in Incitement to Genocide

handle is hein.journals/cjil21 and id is 87 raw text is: How Social Media Companies Could Be Complicit in Incitement to Genocide Neema Hakim* Abstract This Comment examines whether social media companies risk international criminal Iability when they provide a plaform for direct and public incitement to commit genocide. To answer this question, this Comment makes three findings of law. First, pursuant to the Rome Statute, the Genocide Convention, and caselaw from the International Milita y Tribunal at Nuremberg and the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, incitement to genocide is a crime, not a mode of liabiliy. Second, the mens rea for complicity, according to the Rome Statute, is knowledge, if the crime in question is coordinated by a group (for example, a social media campaign to incite genocide). Third, while corporations generaly cannot be subjected to international criminal Iability as distinct entities, individuals conducting business on behal of a corporation are susceptible to liability. This Comment applies the foregoing legal principles to employees at social media companies at various levels of the corporate hierarchy, at times through the example of Facebook in Myanmar. Ultimately, this Comment concludes that individual employees at social media companies may be complicit in incitement to genocide where certain legal requirements are satisfied. This conclusion compels a broader discussion about reforming international criminal lava to stem the global propagation of disinformation, where such propagation constitutes incitement to genocide. J.D. Candidate, 2021, The University of Chicago Law School. The author wishes to thank his partner Barbara Silva for her endless love, faith, and support. The author also wishes to thank the entire Chicago Joural ofInternationalLaw editorial staff for their extensive review, his editor Christine Liu for her guidance, and Professor Adam Chilton for his advisement. 83

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