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As Aaron Sorkin’s new movie The Social Reckoning hits the nation’s multiplexes, detailing the story of whistleblower Frances Haugen’s incendiary leaks about Facebook, Abrham Meareg finds himself caught up in a real life courtroom drama with Mark Zuckerberg’s company about failures which he says led to the death of his father in Ethiopia.
Abrham speaks proudly about his dad, Meareg Amare Abrha, a chemistry professor at Bahir Dar University, explaining in an interview with the Byline Times Podcast that “he was a leading figure in establishing one of the biggest science labs in in Ethiopia” and whose research was internationally recognised. Despite this, Abrham says, “he was quite a humble guy, a down-to-earth personality.” But when civil war broke out in 2021, the professor was falsely identified on Facebook as a supporter and funder of militant Tigrayans. Worse, details of his university department and home address were published online, alongside this poisonous disinformation. Although other users of the social platform rushed to deny the claims made against him, a second post the following day encouraged readers to ‘drink his blood.’
“As soon as I learned about the posts, I just kept reporting it to Facebook, using the online reporting mechanism, so as to capture their attention and to remove those posts,” Abrham recalls. “In my part of the world, disinformation is not just misleading, it is dangerous and deadly.” But Facebook, he says, “just kept ignoring my warnings.” Three weeks later, the professor was followed home by masked men on motorbikes and shot dead as he tried to enter the family home. In a bitter postscript, Abrham recalls that eight days after his father’s murder, the company belatedly responded. “They sent me a message saying that the posts were violating their community standards”.
He is now pursuing legal action against Facebook’s owner Meta in Kenya, where the company’s regional moderation hub is based. Abrham is being supported by tech campaigners Foxglove, who successfully argued last year that the courts in Nairobi have jurisdiction over the case, although Meta are now appealing that judgment. Foxglove’s co-executive director Martha Dark said, “they’ve been trying for years to argue that they shouldn't be held to account in Kenya, and that's now sitting in the court of appeal, and we're awaiting a decision on that any day now.”
At the time of killing, Dark says, “Facebook had about 25 content moderators for Ethiopia, and they spoke just three of the 86 Ethiopian languages. So when you put what Abrham is saying in that context, Facebook simply didn't have the content moderators to be able to moderate the platform in a way that kept it safe.” She argues that “Facebook and Meta's very clear choice has been to optimise and promote content that they think will will keep people's eyeballs on platforms, and ultimately result in more revenue” from advertising.
In the same year as Abrham lost his father, Frances Haugen – the subject of Sorkin’s film – identified herself as the source of leaks to the Wall Street Journal, which revealed that the company knew it was promoting misinformation and hate speech in order to pursue profits, despite being aware it was having dangerous real-world effects. Haugen told the US Senate in October 2021 that Facebook’s algorithms, based on how many engagements a post receives, were “literally fanning ethnic violence”.
Facebook didn’t respond to Byline Times’ request for a response to this article, but has previously said: “We employ staff with local knowledge and expertise and continue to develop our capabilities to catch violating content in the most widely spoken languages in [Ethiopia], including Amharic, Oromo, Somali and Tigrinya." It maintains that Ethiopia is a high priority, even though less than 10% of the population uses Facebook.
Abrham Meareg, meanwhile, still hasn’t received the apology he’s demanding from Zuckerberg, but is relishing the prospect of eventually having his day in court. “It's loud and clear that Facebook is directly responsible for the death of our father by inciting hate and disinformation,” he said. “The cause and the consequences are crystal clear, and it was confirmed by those perpetrators. They were quoting what they saw on Facebook, so as to defend their cruelty. Our dad needs a public apology from Facebook for their misdeeds and ignorance, and even though nothing will bring our dad back, they should pay a restitution fund. We don't want to hear of any other family or any other innocent people suffering the same or worse than us. They have to present clear algorithm changes and invest in their moderators.”
Watch the Byline Times Podcast with Abrahm Meareg and Martha Dark in conversation with Adrian Goldberg here.