It was yet another unwelcome development for Mark Zuckerberg’s technology titan Meta, the parent company of Facebook.  The High Court of Kenya has found that the US-based entity can be sued over its alleged role in disseminating content that incited violence in neighbouring Ethiopia.  While the case can be heard in Kenya, the essential harm is alleged to have taken place during the 2020-2022 civil war in Ethiopia’s northern region of Tigray.

Ethiopians Abrham Meareg and Fisseha Tekle, the latter a former Amnesty International researcher, along with The Katiba Institute, charge Meta with promoting harmful content from November 2020 to November 2022.  Meareg, alleges that his father Meareg Amare Abrha, an academic then in the employ of Bahir Dar University, was killed outside his home in 2021 in the saturating aftermath of threatening, inciting posts on Facebook.  These included details about where he lived, along with false allegations of corruption and the provision of assistance to the Tigrayan People’s Liberation Front.  Tekle, for his part, faced a hail of hateful posts and activity on Facebook for his human rights work in Ethiopia.

As

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