Facebook’s argument to avoid African justice

• Facebook owner Meta is having its lawyers argue against a potential case in the Kenyan High Court.
• The case alleges that Facebook’s algorithm actively promotes ethnical violence and killings, specifically during the Ethiopian Tigray War of 2020.
• The petition seeks to change Meta’s algorithms, how it moderates content and to force Meta to create a $1.6 billion victim’s fund.

Lawyers from Facebook’s parent company have been arguing against a petition looking to get the Kenyan High Court to sue Meta over allegations that its social media algorithms promote war, ethnic violence and killings.

The Kenyan High Court is apparently mulling over the decision after two Ethiopian refugees, Kenyan civil society organisation The Katiba Institute brought the case forward, accusing Facebook and Meta of actively promoting content that led to ethnically-charged violence and killings during the Ethiopian Tigray conflict from 2020 to 2022.

Human rights group Amnesty International is also supporting the accusation and for Meta to be sued in Kenya. The group covered extensively the Rohingya Massacre in Myanmar in 2017, finding that Facebook was used as the platform of choice for spreading hate speech and inciting the killings of more than 25 000 people.

It is one of seven human rights and legal organizations involved as interested parties in the case.

The petition was brought to the court by Abrham Amare, who said in 2022 that he holds Meta personally responsible for the death of his father in an ethnically charged murder that was incited on Facebook.

Amare alleges that despite asking Facebook to remove posts calling for the death of his father, University Professor Mearag Amare, for days, Meta’s slowness to act led to more posts calling for violence against his father to be circulated, eventually leading to his murder.

Joining the petition is Fisseha Tekle, an Amnesty International employee, as well as tech-justice organization Foxglove. The group is represented by Nzili and Sumbi Advocates.

“The petitioners argue that the Facebook platform’s algorithmic recommendation systems prioritized and promoted inciteful, hateful and dangerous content on its platform during the conflict, contributing to significant human rights violations,” writes Amnesty International.

“The Kenyan court will decide if it has jurisdiction to hear the case.”

Response of the Facebook owner

According to Amnesty, Meta’s legal team has argued that the case should not be heard in Kenya, but rather in the United States since Meta is registered in the US. They also argue that the alleged human rights violations occurred in Ethiopia and therefore cannot be heard in Kenya. 

Lawyers representing Amare and the rest of the petitioners argue instead that the case should be heard in Kenya, among other reasons, because the content moderation operation reviewing Facebook content from Ethiopia was located in Kenya, the case can be brought to the Kenyan High Court.  

Meta is also facing another potential lawsuit in the East African country over allegations that it crushed an upcoming union of African Facebook moderators working in Kenya and unfairly fired over 260 of them.

“Communities and individuals impacted by corporate human rights abuses committed by multi-nationals often struggle to access justice and effective remedies because of jurisdictional, practical and other legal challenges,” Amnesty argues.

“As a result, Amnesty International is advocating for an approach to both cases that is informed by human rights obligations and corporate responsibilities that ensure justice and accountability.” 

Earlier this year, Amara and his lawyers were looking for $2 billion in damages from Meta. Amnesty now says that the petition instead seeks to stop Facebook’s algorithms from recommending such content to Facebook users, to change Meta’s content moderation practices, and to compel Meta to create a $1.6 billion victim’s fund.

[Image – Photo by Alex Haney on Unsplash]

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