Meta must reform its business practices to ensure Facebook’s algorithms do not amplify hatred and fuel ethnic conflict, Amnesty International said today in the wake of a landmark legal action against Meta submitted in Kenya’s High Court.
“The spread of dangerous content on Facebook lies at the heart of Meta’s pursuit of profit
Flavia Mwangovya, Deputy Director, East Africa, Horn and Great Lakes Region
The legal action claims that Meta promoted speech that led to ethnic
violence and killings in Ethiopia by utilizing an algorithm that
prioritizes and recommends hateful and violent content on Facebook. The
petitioners seek to stop Facebook’s algorithms from recommending such
content to Facebook users and compel Meta to create a 200 billion ($1.6
billion USD) victims’ fund. Amnesty International joins six other human
rights and legal organizations as interested parties in the case.
“The spread of dangerous content on Facebook lies at the heart of
Meta’s pursuit of profit, as its systems are designed to keep people
engaged. This legal action is a significant step in holding Meta to
account for its harmful business model,” said Flavia Mwangovya, Amnesty
International’s Deputy Regional Director of East Africa, Horn, and Great
Lakes Region.
One of Amnesty’s staff members in the region was targeted as a result of posts on the social media platform.
“In Ethiopia, the people rely on social media for news and
information. Because of the hate and disinformation on Facebook, human
rights defenders have also become targets of threats and vitriol. I saw
first-hand how the dynamics on Facebook harmed my own human rights work
and hope this case will redress the imbalance,” said Fisseha Tekle,
legal advisor at Amnesty International.
Fisseha Tekle is one of the petitioners bringing the case, after
being subjected to a stream of hateful posts on Facebook for his work
exposing human rights violations in Ethiopia. An Ethiopian national, he
now lives in Kenya, fears for his life and dare not return to Ethiopia
to see his family because of the vitriol directed at him on Facebook.
Because of the hate and disinformation on Facebook, human rights defenders have also become targets of threats and vitriol.
Fisseha Tekle, petitioner
Fatal failings
The legal action is also being brought by Abraham Meareg, the son of
Meareg Amare, a University Professor at Bahir Dar University in northern
Ethiopia, who was hunted down and killed in November 2021, weeks after
posts inciting hatred and violence against him spread on Facebook. The
case claims that Facebook only removed the hateful posts eight days
after Professor Meareg’s killing, more than three weeks after his family
had first alerted the company.
The Court has been informed that Abraham Meareg fears for his safety
and is seeking asylum in the United States. His mother who fled to Addis
Ababa is severely traumatized and screams every night in her sleep
after witnessing her husband’s killing. The family had their home in
Bahir Dar seized by regional police.
The harmful posts targeting Meareg Amare and Fisseha Tekle were not
isolated cases. The legal action alleges Facebook is awash with
hateful, inciteful and dangerous posts in the context of the Ethiopia
conflict.
Meta uses engagement-based algorithmic systems to power Facebook’s
news feed, ranking, recommendations and groups features, shaping what is
seen on the platform. Meta profits when Facebook users stay on the
platform as long as possible, by selling more targeted advertising.
The display of inflammatory content – including that which advocates
hatred, constituting incitement to violence, hostility and
discrimination – is an effective way of keeping people on the platform
longer. As such, the promotion and amplification of this type of content
is key to the surveillance-based business model of Facebook.
Internal studies dating back to 2012 indicated that Meta knew its
algorithms could result in serious real-world harms. In 2016, Meta’s own
research clearly acknowledged that “our recommendation systems grow the
problem” of extremism.
In September 2022, Amnesty International documented how Meta’s algorithms proactively amplified and promoted content which
incited violence, hatred, and discrimination against the Rohingya in
Myanmar and substantially increasing the risk of an outbreak of mass
violence.
“From Ethiopia to Myanmar, Meta knew or should have known that its
algorithmic systems were fuelling the spread of harmful content leading
to serious real-world harms,” said Flavia Mwangovya.
“Meta has shown itself incapable to act to stem this tsunami of hate.
Governments need to step up and enforce effective legislation to rein
in the surveillance-based business models of tech companies.”
Deadly double standards
The legal action also claims that there is a disparity in Meta’s
approach in crisis situations in Africa compared to elsewhere in the
world, particularly North America. The company has the capability to
implement special adjustments to its algorithms to quickly remove
inflammatory content during a crisis. But despite being deployed
elsewhere in the world, according to the petitioners none of these
adjustments were made during the conflict in Ethiopia, ensuring harmful
content continued to proliferate.
“Meta has failed to adequately invest in content moderation in the Global South
Flavia Mwangovya
Internal Meta documents disclosed by whistle-blower Frances Haugen,
known as the Facebook Papers, showed that the US $300 billion company
also did not have sufficient content moderators who speak local
languages. A report by Meta’s Oversight Board also raised concerns that
Meta had not invested sufficient resources in moderating content in
languages other than English.
“Meta has failed to adequately invest in content moderation in the
Global South, meaning that the spread of hate, violence, and
discrimination disproportionally impacts the most marginalized and
oppressed communities across the world, and particularly in the Global
South.”
Source: AI
