The case Meta has fought tooth and nail to stop
An update on our Facebook murder case – launched now over 1300 days ago, during which time Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta has fought tooth and nail to avoid responsibility, and refused to take action to address the harm it has caused.
Abrham Meareg has brought this case against Facebook’s parent company Meta for its role in the murder of his father in Ethiopia in 2021.
Professor Meareg Amare Abrha, a chemistry professor at Bahir Dar University, was murdered outside his family home by masked gunmen after calls for his death – along with his photo and address – were posted on Facebook.
Abrham’s desperate pleas for the posts to be removed were ignored. Instead, Facebook promoted the deadly posts via its profit-maximising algorithm.
Since then, while Abrham has doggedly pursued justice, Facebook has refused to even apologise.
Represented by Kenyan legal organistion Katiba Institute and supported by Foxglove, he is asking the court to order Meta to stop promoting viral hate, demote violent incitement, employ sufficient content moderators in relevant languages, create a restitution fund for victims of violence incited on Facebook, and apologise for his father’s death.
Yesterday, we had a court hearing in Nairobi, Kenya, Facebook’s regional hub of operations at the time of the murder – a step forward towards finally seeing Facebook held accountable in a court of law.
Meta has caused appalling harm around the world, playing a central role in the incitement of hatred and violence from Ethiopia to Myanmar and beyond, and this is the case it really doesn’t want to happen.
Last year Meta argued that Kenya does not have jurisdiction to hear the case, but was rightly sent packing by the High Court judges.
“Mark Zuckerberg may imagine that justice begins and ends at the US border,” Abrham said at the time. “I am happy that the court has demonstrated today that is not the case.”
Still determined to dodge accountability, though, Meta then appealed to the Court of Appeal, arguing that the case cannot be herd.
We are now 1300 days into a case Mark Zuckerberg could have ended years ago by doing the decent thing and apologising to Abrham, learning from Meta’s mistakes, and taking concrete steps to make his platform more safe.
This shameful behaviour shows more clearly than ever that he simply does not care about the terrible harm his products cause.
We expect the result from Nairobi in the coming months.
More to come as events unfold.