A new complaint filed against the technology company headed by Mark Zuckerberg claims that Meta Platforms allowed violent and bigoted remarks from Ethiopia to proliferate on Facebook, escalating the nation’s horrific civil war.
Two scholars from Ethiopia as well as the Kenyan rights organisation Katiba Institute filed the complaint on Tuesday in Kenya. According to the lawsuit against Meta, Facebook’s recommendation algorithms amplified violent posts in Ethiopia, including a number of violent posts that appeared before the murder of one of the researchers’ fathers.
The complaint detailed Facebook posts from October 2021 that made racial disparaging remarks towards plaintiff Abrham Meareg’s father.
The messages demanded the elderly man’s demise and provided his address. Abrham Mearag, one of the plaintiffs, reported them to Facebook, but the company declined to remove them promptly or in some cases at all, the lawsuit alleged.
It further said that the company failed to exercise reasonable care in training its algorithms to identify dangerous posts and in hiring staff to police the content for the languages covered by its Nairobi-based regional moderation hub.
Post Your Comments