An Ethiopian man whose father was killed during the country’s war has joined a lawsuit against Meta seeking $1.6 billion from Facebook’s parent company for allegedly encouraging hate speech in Africa.
The case filed in Kenya’s high court on Wednesday by two people and a human rights group says Meta responded inappropriately to hateful content on its platform, especially in relation to the war in Ethiopia’s northern Tigray region.
One petitioner said that his father, a Tigrayan, had been the target of racist posts on Facebook before his murder in November 2021, and that the social media giant had not moved quickly to remove the posts.
“If Facebook had stopped the spread of hate and moderated posts correctly, my father would still be alive,” said Abrham Meareg, who is also a Tigrayan and an academic like his father.
“I will take Facebook to court so that no one suffers like my family has ever suffered again. I seek justice for millions of my fellow Africans hurt by Facebook speculation, and an apology for my father’s murder.”
His lawyer, Mercy Mutemi, said Facebook took a month to respond to Abrham’s requests to remove the content.
“Why did it take over a month to remove a post calling for someone’s murder?”
Mutemi said that Facebook acknowledged that the content violated community standards, but a year later, one of the violent posts was still online.
Another petitioner is Fisseha Tekle, an Ethiopian researcher for Amnesty International and a Tigrayan, who has written about the war and faced a torrent of abuse online.
The international community has condemned hate speech and dehumanizing rhetoric during the two-year conflict, in which all sides have been accused of atrocities amid warnings of ethnic cleansing.
‘Inhumane’ working conditions
Meta spokesman Ben Walters said the company had not yet received the lawsuit, but that it had “strict rules outlining what is and is not allowed on Facebook and Instagram.”
“We have removed misinformation where there is a risk that it could contribute to long-term physical harm,” he told AFP in a statement.
“In Ethiopia, we have identified and are removing a number of pre-reviewed harmful claims and out-of-context images that make false allegations about the perpetrators, severity or targets of violence in Ethiopia.”
The Katiba Institute, a Kenyan rights group and another petitioner in the lawsuit, is seeking changes to Facebook’s algorithm.
Inciting, hateful and dangerous posts “spark conversations, attract reactions and actions, as well as spur back-and-forth discussions in the comments section,” read the petition seen by AFP.
He also accused Meta of “inhumane” working conditions for its overstretched content moderators in Nairobi tasked with overseeing eastern and southern Africa, a vast region encompassing 500 million people.
The petitioners claim this resulted in “systematic discrimination” against African Facebook users, citing the platform’s quick response compared to the attack on the US Capitol by supporters of former US President Donald Trump, on January 6, 2021.
The petitioners ask the court to establish a compensation fund of 200 billion Kenyan shillings ($1.6 billion) for victims of hate and violence incited on Facebook.
In late 2021, Rohingya refugees sued Facebook for $150 billion, alleging that the social network failed to stop hate speech directed against them.
The Rohingya, a majority Muslim minority, were forced out of Myanmar in 2017 into neighboring Bangladesh by security forces in a crackdown that is now the subject of a UN genocide investigation.
AFP is involved in a partnership with Meta which provides fact-checking services in Asia-Pacific, Europe, the Middle East, Latin America and Africa.
© Agence France-Presse
