Press Release - Despite the risk of violence around the upcoming Kenyan election, our new investigation conducted in partnership with legal non-profit Foxglove finds Facebook appallingly failed to detect hate speech ads in the two official languages of the country: Swahili and English.
Earlier this year a Kenyan Government agency tasked with addressing inter-ethnic violence found that hate speech on social media platforms in 2022 had increased 20 percent and warned of their misuse to spread"ethnic hate speech and incitement to violence". Facebook was All of this points to a broken system. For one of the world's wealthiest companies, with staggering reach and a responsibility not to facilitate division and harm, Facebook can and should do better.
Facebook was going to do much more to tackle hate on its platform - including widening what is considered 'hateful' in ads. But our repeated findings — in Myanmar, Ethiopia and now Kenya — raises serious questions about whether these commitments were followed through, particularly in all parts of the world.
Importantly, this is not the fault of the individual content moderators, who all too often are asked to undertake deeply traumatising work - including in Kenya - with scant regard for their mental health and decent working conditions.
While the EU is taking a lead globally to regulate Big Tech companies and force meaningful oversight -- including requiring the platforms to assess and mitigate the risk that their services allow hate speech to flourish -- platforms should also be acting of their volition to protect their users fully and equally.
"At Meta, we know we have an important responsibility when it comes to helping people participate in elections and to ensure safe, secure, and free elections" -Get the latest in African news delivered straight to your inbox
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