Kenya can try Meta, parent company of Facebook, over allegations the social media platform failed to stop the spread of hateful content during a civil war in Ethiopia, a court said Friday.
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Two Ethiopian citizens and a local NGO accuse Facebook of promoting harmful content during the 2020-22 war between Ethiopia’s federal government and rebels in the Tigray region.
Abrham Meareg says his father, a university professor, was killed following posts on Facebook in November 2021, while Fisseha Tekle, an Amnesty International researcher, says he was targeted with hate speech over his work.
Meta had argued that it could only be tried in the United States.
But the Kenyan court ruled on Thursday that it had jurisdiction, in part because Facebook’s content moderators were based in Kenya at the time. The ruling was published on Friday.
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The case raises “fundamental concerns on acts or omissions that may have been made regarding content posted on Facebook Platform by content moderators based in Kenya that may impact on observance of human rights beyond Kenya,” the court said.
It said Kenya would look at the extent to which social media platforms and their algorithms should be held accountable when human rights violations have occurred.
“These are matters of general public importance relating to protection of fundamental rights and freedoms in the digital era,” the court said.
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“Today’s ruling is a positive step towards holding big tech companies accountable for contributing to human rights abuses,” said Mandi Mudarikwa, head of strategic litigation at Amnesty International, among the global organisations supporting the case against Meta.
“The idea of looking at countries outside the US and Europe as mere markets where profits can be made in the absence of accountability must be challenged,” she added.
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Meta is appealing the decision, Amnesty said.
The company said it did not wish to comment when asked by AFP.
In 2021, a Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen cited Ethiopia as an example of a country where violence had been “amplified by social media”.
Facebook has long struggled to tamp down hate speech there due to the dozens of different dialects spoken among Ethiopians, she said.
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