The petitioners want Meta to invest more heavily in content moderation focused on Africa, Latin America and the Middle East, particularly in countries that are vulnerable to war, conflict, ethnic cleansing and genocide. Picture: BLOOMBERG
The petitioners argue that the public needs protection from Facebook’s “woeful failure to address violence on its platform” and its design that “promotes and prioritises hateful, incitement and dangerous content”, according to court filings.Meta, which generated revenue of $117.9bn in 2021, uses a recommendation algorithm on Facebook that promotes content that users are more likely to interact with to hold people’s attention.
In a sworn affidavit, Maereg argues that reports to Facebook about hate speech related to the civil war in Ethiopia, particularly against Tigrayans such as his family, were not acted on. He mentioned a specific post where a photo of his father was posted in October 2021 with a message making unfounded accusations, that attracted comments calling for violence against him.