Press Release - Meta, the parent company of Facebook, contributed to serious human rights abuses against Ethiopia's Tigrayan community, Amnesty International said in a new report published today.
Meta, the parent company of Facebook, contributed to serious human rights abuses against Ethiopia's Tigrayan community, Amnesty International said in a new report published today., shows how Meta has once again failed to adequately curb the spread of content advocating hatred and violence, this time targeting Tigrayans during the November 2020 to November 2022 armed conflict in northern Ethiopia.
These failures ultimately contributed to the killing of Tigrayan university chemistry Professor Meareg Amare. Amare was killed by a group of men after posts targeting him were posted on Facebook on 3 November 2021.The Facebook posts contained his name, photo, place of work, house address and claimed that he was a supporter of the Tigrayan People's Liberation Front , accusing him of stealing large sums of money. These allegations were denied by his family.
"The mass dissemination of these posts incited violence and discrimination targeting the Tigrayan community, pouring fuel on what was already an inflamed situation with significant ethnic tensions," Agnès Callamard. "As someone who has been in Ethiopia for a long time, I can say that Facebook is making communities more vulnerable to conflict with each other," said Gelila.
In 2018, Meta pivoted the Facebook news feed algorithm around a new metric called"MSI" or"Meaningful Social Interactions", in a supposed attempt to"fix Facebook". Urgent, wide-ranging reforms are needed to ensure that Meta does not contribute again to these harms in Ethiopia or in yet another country.
My name is Abrham Meareg, and my father was Professor Meareg Amare Abrha of Bahir Dar University, Ethiopia. He was a well-respected university professor in Ethiopia. He was also a family man with a wife and four children. We were a happy family living among the Amharic-speaking community even though we were Tigrayan. My father was living with the Amharic speaking people for 40 years with absolute peace and respect. His national stature made him a target.
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