A war has opposed the Tigrae’s dissenting authorities to the Ethiopian Federal Government for Warm since November 2020. Facebook and Instagram’s parent company is accused of having contributed to rekindling ethnic rivalries.
mo12345lemonde with AFP
New legal procedure against Meta. A non -governmental organization (NGO) Kenyan and two Ethiopian individuals filed, Wednesday, December 14 in Nairobi, Kenya, a complaint against the Facebook and Instagram parent company. They accuse him of inaction in the face of hatred speeches in Africa, leading in particular to the murder of a university professor in Ethiopia at war.
The complaint relates to two cases relating to the Tiger war, which has opposed the dissident authorities of this northern region of Ethiopia to the Federal Government forces since November 2020 and has rekindled ethnic hatreds, especially towards Tigreans.
One of the complainants is an Ethiopian academic of Tigerian origin, Abrham Meareg, whose father, professor of chemistry at the University of Bahir Dar (North West), was shot down on November 3, 2021 following publications slanderous and calling for murder on Facebook. Despite several reports, these messages have never been removed by the platform. Another complainant is an Ethiopian member of Amnesty International, Fisseha Tekle, living in Kenya since 2015. Author for the NGO of several reports on human rights violations during the conflict, he was the victim of online harassment.
The complainants, including the Kenyan Association for the Defense of Human Rights Katiba, claim that Meta modifies the Facebook algorithm which, according to them, makes hate speeches viral. “Violent, hateful and dangerous messages meet all the criteria of the messages that [this algorithm] seeks to prioritize: they arouse conversation, cause reactions and shares and motivate a back and forth in the comments section”, notes the complaint , consulted by the agency France-Presse (AFP).
They also denounce Facebook’s failure to moderate the content reported in its Nairobi pole, which covers a large area of East Africa and Southern representing 500 million inhabitants. They thus echo the remarks made by Frances Haugen, the former Facebook employee behind the leak of internal documents known as “Facebook Files”, which had said it feared “the destructive impact” that d ‘Have the platform on an Ethiopian company already extremely polarized. Fears justified in particular by the difficulties of the company in moderating the messages emanating from groups expressed in local languages, such as amharic, tigrinya, oromo or somali.
“discrimination “
Since the publication of “Facebook Files”, Meta has asserted her efforts in Ethiopia, especially for the June 2021 elections: a follow -up team, partnerships with NGOs or the limitation of the “district” of contents of content friends of friends, as had already been done in Burma or Sri Lanka.
Some publications aimed at MM. Fisseha Tekle and Abrham Meareg are still online, according to the complaint. For complainants, this difference in moderation from one country to another is a form of “discrimination” towards the African continent, taking as comparison the rapid actions taken by the platform in the United States during the attack on The Capitol of January 6, 2021. Contacted by AFP, the company META was not reachable in the immediate future to respond to these accusations.
The complainants also request the creation of a “compensation fund” of 200 billion Kenyan shillings (approximately 1.6 billion dollars) for victims of hatred and violence incited on Facebook.
A year ago, other proceedings were engaged against Meta for similar reasons. In their complaint in collective appeal, a group of refugees Rohingyas, Muslim ethnic minority which fled the persecution in Burma, accuses the social network of not having taken measures against the speeches of hatred against them. They demand an amount of $ 150 billion (132 billion euros).