Rohingya refugees have sued the US platform Facebook for 150 billion dollars (133 billion euros) in damages.

The lawsuit, which was filed in a court in California on Monday, said the company's algorithms encouraged disinformation and extremist ideas that lead to violence in the real world.

This destroyed the lives of hundreds of thousands of Rohingya.

“Facebook is like a robot programmed with a single task: to grow,” reads the court document. "The indisputable reality is that the growth of Facebook, fueled by hatred, division, and misinformation, has left hundreds of thousands of Rohingya shattered lives."

The majority Muslim ethnic group in Myanmar faces widespread discrimination.

The Rohingya are seen as invaders, although they have lived in the Asian country for generations.

In a military campaign that, according to the UN, amounted to genocide, hundreds of thousands of Rohingya were driven across the border into Bangladesh in 2017.

Since then, they have lived there in huge refugee camps under precarious conditions.

Many Rohingya remaining in Myanmar are exposed to violence and state repression by the ruling military junta.

Disinformation and hatred

The lawsuit argues that Facebook's algorithms trick vulnerable users into joining increasingly extreme groups.

This could be "exploited by autocratic politicians and regimes".

Civil rights movements have long accused Facebook of not doing enough to prevent the spread of disinformation and hatred on the internet.

The debate recently got a boost from the revelations by former Facebook employee Frances Haugen.

Under US law, Facebook and its parent company Meta are largely protected from liability for content posted by their users.

The Rohingya lawsuit, which anticipates this defense, argues that Myanmar laws - which do not recognize such a disclaimer - should prevail in this case.