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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Technology
Alex Hern UK technology editor

Meta faces $1.6bn lawsuit over Facebook posts inciting violence in Tigray war

Mercy Mutemi and two other lawyers
Kenyan lawyer Mercy Mutemi (centre) speaks to the media after filing a lawsuit against Meta in Kenya, where the Facebook owner’s sub-Saharan operations are based. Photograph: Yasuyoshi Chiba/AFP/Getty

Meta has been accused in a lawsuit of letting posts that inflamed the war in Tigray flourish on Facebook, after an Observer investigation in February revealed repeated inaction on posts that incited violence.

The lawsuit, filed in the high court of Kenya, where Meta’s sub-Saharan African operations are based, alleges that Facebook’s recommendations systems amplified hateful and violent posts in the context of the war in northern Ethiopia, which raged for two years until a ceasefire was agreed in early November. The lawsuit seeks the creation of a $1.6bn (£1.3bn) fund for victims of hate speech.

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