Court allows case of promoting Ethiopia violence against Facebook to proceed

A major victory for two Ethiopian nationals in their quest to hold Facebook accountable.

A Kenyan court ruled Thursday that Meta, the company that owns Facebook can be sued in the east African country in a case of fueling ethnic violence in neighboring Ethiopia in 2021.

Meta had argued that courts in Kenya did not have jurisdiction over the case.

Facebook's content moderators were based in Nairobi during a conflict in Ethiopia's north which lasted from 2020 to 2022 that saw a spike in hateful content and misinformation on the social media platform in the eastern Africa country.

One of the victims was a university professor who was murdered in his home after threatening posts were published on Facebook.

The claimants, the son of the murdered professor and a former researcher at Amnesty International want Meta to pay $2.4bn to victims of hate and violence incited on Facebook.

A 2022 analysis by the Bureau of Investigative Journalism and the Observer found that Facebook was letting users post content inciting violence through hate and misinformation, despite being aware that it was fuelling tensions in Tigray.