Facebook is being sued for not removing content that encourages hatred towards some African countries. Two Ethiopian researchers and a Kenyan human rights group are responsible for opening this action.
The petition, filed in the Supreme Court of Kenya, accuses the social network of profiting from harmful posts as this type of content attracts user views, according to CNET. The lawsuit also alleges that the Facebook engaged in discriminatory treatment of African users and violated human rights.
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The plaintiff of the lawsuit says that the big social network is not investing enough resources in its content moderation facilities in the country and has failed to take measures for this in the same way as is done in the US, which would reduce the spread of dangerous posts in Africa. “The result is that some units are left in ruins, while others are proactively protected,” the petition said. "That amounts to discrimination."
Abrham Meareg, one of the people who filed the suit, is an Ethiopian citizen residing in Minnesota. He alleges that Facebook played a role in his father's death, Meareg Amare Abrha, who died last year.
Amare was a professor at Bahir Dar University and was under attack for being Tigranyan, an ethnic group in Ethiopia that human rights organizations say has been the target of an ethnic cleansing campaign, i.e. the forcible removal of ethnic groups from an area after the beginning of a two-year civil war in 2020. Facebook did not act quickly and some harmful posts are still online today.
"I am seeking justice for the millions of my African patriots hurt by Facebook's profit - and an apology for the murder of my father," Meareg said in a statement.
Fisseha Tekle, legal adviser to Amnesty International, a non-governmental organization that defends human rights, and the legal group Katiba Institute are also suing Meta. Tekle also dealt with hate speech and other harmful posts on Facebook and was unable to return to visit his family in Ethiopia, as he “lives in constant fear that something bad might happen to him even in Nairobi,” he said in the lawsuit.
Meta claims not to allow hate speech on Facebook or its other social network, Instagram. “We have invested heavily in teams and technology to help us find and remove this content,” a Meta spokesperson said in Unicado. “Feedback from local civil society organizations and international institutions guides our safety and integrity work in Ethiopia.” The social network employs workers with “local knowledge and experience” and continues to develop its “capabilities to capture radical content” in the most widely spoken languages in Ethiopia, the spokesperson said.
The company said last year that its top priority was protecting users in Ethiopia, but apparently it's not doing a good job. Furthermore, a leaked internal document shows Meta workers questioning whether this app is being used in developing countries.
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