A class action lawsuit filed against Facebook in Kenya this week accuses the social media giant of fueling political violence in Africa by allowing hate speech to run wild on its platform. The suit also seeks more than $2 billion in damages while demanding substantial changes to the company’s content moderation practices.

One of the plaintiffs in the suit is an Ethiopian professor named Abrham Meareg who says that his father was killed last year by militants who were incited to violence by content on Facebook. His father was also a well-known professor who belonged to a minority ethnic group. According to Meareg, Facebook allowed multiple posts with threats and misinformation about his father to remain up on the site despite his flagging them for removal. Mearag says that these posts amounted to a “death sentence” for his father.

“Facebook is a big gun, social media platform in Ethiopia,” Meareg told NBC News. “Facebook knows the platform is used for genocide, ethnic cleansing, extrajudicial killings. And intentionally, due to their deliberate dismissal of the consequences and harm, they just prefer to focus on their profit-making.”

According to experts, Facebook has a much harder time dealing with hate speech and misinformation in areas where multiple languages are spoken and in active conflict zones. However, as cases like this indicate, the company will have to get much better at it if it wants to prevent more violence.

Recommended Resources

Choose what the experts use: award-winning cybersecurity you can trust and rely on.

Surf the web truly incognito. Try Bitdefender Premium VPN, the ultra-fast VPN that keeps your online identity and activities safe from hackers, ISPs and snoops.

System Mechanic 14 – Make your computer run like new. Winner of 200+ Editor’s Choice awards!