Ethiopians sue US tech giant Meta over hate speech inflaming Tigray civil war

Two Ethiopians have filed a lawsuit against Facebook’s parent company, Meta, over hate speech accusing the US tech giant of enabling violent and hateful posts from Ethiopia to flourish on Facebook, inflaming the country’s bloody civil war in Tigray region.

Filed in Kenya, home to the platform’s content moderation operations related to Ethiopia, the lawsuit was brought by two Ethiopian researchers and Kenyan rights group the Katiba Institute. The lawsuit alleges Facebook’s recommendations systems amplified violent posts in Ethiopia, including several that preceded the murder of the father of one of the researchers. The company not only failed to exercise reasonable care in training its algorithms to identify dangerous posts, it allowed and even promoted them on the social media platform amid heated rhetoric over their country’s deadly Tigray conflict, the lawsuit says.

The lawsuit, also backed by Kenya-based legal organization the Katiba Institute, seeks the creation of a $1.6 billion fund for victims of hate speech. While Facebook spokesman told the media they could not comment on the lawsuit because they haven’t received it, the company shared a general statement: “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.”

The legal case filed against Meta carries echoes of accusations the company has faced for years of atrocities being stoked on its platforms, including in Myanmar, Sri Lanka, Indonesia and Cambodia. The company has acknowledged being “too slow” to act in Myanmar and other conflicts.