A New Lawsuit Accuses Meta of Enabling Hateful Posts in Ethiopia Conflict

A new lawsuit has accused Meta Platforms of enabling violent and hateful posts from Ethiopia to flourish on Facebook, inflaming Ethiopia’s bloody civil war. The two Ethiopian researchers and the Kenyan rights group the Katiba Institute filed the lawsuit against Meta. It alleges Facebook’s recommendations systems amplified violent posts in Ethiopia, including several that preceded the murder of the father of one of the researchers.

A New Lawsuit Accuses Meta of Enabling Hateful Posts in Ethiopia Conflict

According to the lawsuit, the company failed to exercise reasonable care in training its algorithms to identify dangerous posts and in hiring staff to police content for the languages covered by its regional moderation hub in Nairobi.

Meta spokesperson Erin McPike said that hate speech and incitement to violence were against the rules of Facebook and Instagram.

“We invest heavily in teams and technology to help us find and remove this content,” McPike added. “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” Ethiopia.

According to Reuters, the suers are asking the court to order Meta to take emergency steps to demote violent content. Also, to increase moderation staff in Nairobi and create restitution funds of about $2 billion for victims of violence incited on Facebook.

Thousands have died and millions have been displaced in the conflict that erupted in 2020 between the Ethiopian government and rebellious forces from the northern Tigray region.

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