Facebook Parent company Meta has been slammed with a lawsuit in a Kenyan court, following accusations that the social media company ignited political and ethnic violence throughout the Tigray war.
Facebook, which is reportedly used by more than 6 million people in Ethiopia, was revealed to be a key avenue through which the dehumanization of Tigrayans spread.
The platform has been held responsible for so many deaths during the war, due to claims that it failed to employ adequate safety measures which led to the death of 500,000 Ethiopians in the war.
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The suit calls for Meta to put in the necessary measures to eliminate hateful content on its platform and also put in place adequate content moderators to ensure that the platform is void of hate speech or anything that instigates violence.
One of the petitioners who is a Tigrayan revealed that his father was killed after being targeted in a series of Facebook posts, despite his appeal to Facebook to bring down the post which they never responded. He said, “I hold Facebook personally responsible for my father’s murder.
Several others have voiced out that Facebook is more interested in making profit at the expense of the safety of lives and communities.
They disclosed that the social media giant company has enough tools to adjust its algorithms to eliminate hate speech, rather it treated the matter with levity, noting that it doesn’t hold the African region in high regard.
One of the petitioners said, “Big Tech must put respect for human rights at the forefront, design AI in a way that puts people first not profit, and resource that hub properly.
“Not investing adequately in the African market has already caused Africans to die from unsafe systems. We know that a better Facebook is possible because we have seen how preferentially they treat other markets.
“African Facebook users deserve better. More importantly, Africans deserve to be protected from the havoc caused by underinvesting in the protection of human rights.”
The petitioners have therefore asked the court to order the establishment of a victims’ fund of over $2 billion, with the court dispersing the funds on a case-by-case basis.
Also, they’ve asked the court to compel Facebook to declare that its algorithms will no longer promote hateful, inciteful, and dangerous content and demote it wherever found.
In a response to the accusations, Meta said, “We have strict rules which outline what is and isn’t allowed on Facebook and Instagram. Hate speech and incitement to violence are against these rules and we invest heavily in teams and technology to help us find and remove this content.
“Our safety and integrity work in Ethiopia is guided by feedback from local civil society organizations and international institutions. We employ staff with local knowledge and expertise, and continue to develop our capabilities to catch violating content in the most widely spoken languages in the country, including Amharic, Oromo, Somali, and Tigrinya.”
This is not the first time Meta has been called out for its role in inciting hate speech or violence in a country.
Amid the ongoing Russian-Ukraine war, Russian officials said that Meta should be held responsible for inciting war amid its ongoing invasion of Ukraine which they labeled as an extremist organization.
This led to Moscow banning Meta products after authorities accused the company of tolerating “Russophobia”, making its social media platforms inaccessible to Russian users without the use of a VPN.