In December 2022, Ethiopian researchers Fisseha Tekle, Abrham Maereg and Kenyan rights group the Katiba Institute filed a lawsuit against Meta in Kenya’s High Court. The case seeks fundamental changes to the way that Facebook’s algorithms fuel viral hate and violence.
The case accuses Facebook of causing hate and violence to go viral in pursuit of advertising profits. It also alleges the company has failed to hire enough content moderation staff for the languages covered by its Nairobi content moderation hub.
Meta’s failure to deal with these core safety issues has fanned conflict and killed people, the case alleges – especially in Ethiopia’s civil war, which has claimed some 600,000 lives. It also accuses Facebook’s moderation failures of causing the murder of Professor Meareg Amare, Abrham Meareg’s father.
The case is what is called a constitutional petition filed in the high court in Nairobi, Kenya (Facebook’s East African content moderation hub). The case is being brought in Kenya because it’s the epicentre for content moderation for the entire region – where decisions are made that affect the lives of hundreds of millions of people.
The demands in the case are:
You can read more here and you can read the legal papers in the case here.
Nairobi, the capital of Kenya, is the location for Facebook’s hub for content moderation for East and Southern Africa, an area home to about 500 million people.
Content moderation is the process of deciding whether content posted to Facebook is safe to remain on the platform, and removing content that violates its rules.
Content from the Ethiopian war is moderated in the Nairobi hub. That's where the changes need to be made to stop Facebook being used as a weapon for spreading violence and destruction in Ethiopia.
You can sign and share the petition calling on Facebook to make the changes the petitioners are asking for and put an end to Facebook’s role feeding hatred and violence throughout the world.