Facebook has removed a post from Ethiopia’s prime minister for violating its policies against inciting violence.
On Sunday, Abiy Ahmed called on citizens take up arms to block the advance of the rebel Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF).
The TPLF has fought a year-long campaign against government forces, capturing key towns in recent days.
Facebook has been criticised for failing to do more to stop its platform being used to incite violence.
In the post, Mr Abiy said that the rebel advance was “pushing the country to its demise,” and he urged citizens to “organise and march through [any] legal manner with every weapon and power… to prevent, reverse and bury the terrorist TPLF”.
A spokesperson for Facebook, whose parent company recently rebranded to Meta, told the BBC: “We were made aware of a post by Ethiopia’s Prime Minister and removed this for violating our policies against inciting and supporting violence.
“At Meta, we remove content from individuals or organizations that violates our Community Standards, no matter who they are.”
In a massive leak of documents last month it was revealed that Facebook had been warned that its platform was being used by armed groups in Ethiopia to incite violence against ethnic minorities.
Speaking to a US Senate hearing in October, whistleblower Frances Haugen said that the company was “literally fanning ethnic violence” in conflict zones such as Ethiopia due to its failure to properly police its services outside of the US.
Thousands of people have been killed by the conflict in Ethiopia, millions more have been displaced and hundreds of thousands are facing famine conditions, according to the UN.
The war broke out on 4 November last year, when Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy ordered a military offensive against regional forces in Tigray.
He claimed that his government did so in response to an attack on a military base that housed government troops.
The TPLF has been designated a terrorist organisation, while it says it is Tigray’s legitimate government.
BBC
O boy! O boy! From one slipping slope into another. The only thing left for Facebook is to designate Abiy and his administration a terrorist organization. This thing is getting more confusing by the day. How about those among us who call those upright people of Amhara ‘fascists’ and my equally upright Oromos ‘extremists’? Where is the even-handedness here by Facebook? I had given up Twitter on this issue. ‘Oromo extremists’ and ‘Genocidal Amhara fascists’ are spewed around on Twitter like a busy sprinkler in July. What is very difficult for me to understand individuals who are using such incendiary term(these are not illiterate people by well read lawyers) is how they go home and sleep well after posting these. They should know very well that such remarks can put millions of innocent citizens in danger. They are making the effort of some of us who try to avert runaway suspicion and hate between the two giant ethnic groups. I don’t know what Twitter is thinking. It is just tone deaf and careless. Make money at any cost whether the other guys are dead or alive is the way business is conducted these days, I guess. Sad but true.
It is good that FB did remove itas its public appearances and calls are very timid compared to what the gravity the country is facing. A true leader does not need nonswnse stupid Facebook message to convey a call to already eager population to fight for their country.Adwa did not need Facebook or even TV to move th whole country. If is smart and courageous enough can show them the middle finger by expulsing all NGOs out and starting to use DDT for treating malaria and other illness at scale. He should look for native solutions to all our countries problems as the west at only interested in controlling Africans all the way down to birth rates.
Who? Facebook. You mean Meta. We are witnessing the new norm for censorship. While letting millions to belittle each other, plan a suicide pack, cheat and glean many around the globe through its so called social media, it is now clear for us Facebook is the big brother that is watching over us. How pathetic are these trillionaires?
The Prime Minister is fighting against evil. The evil that kills and destroys anything in its path. Will Zuckerberg delete the USA calling for the destruction of Nazi Germany during world war II? Will he erase the documented fact that around 6 million Jews have been killed by the sadistic Nazi soldiers? No. He will not.
What is at stake here is in this so called modern era the freedom of speech is taken away by big business. Big companies that control news outlet are so big they are much stronger than the government leading the country. It is high time people need to wake up and fight these electronic surveillances by big companies.
Facebook does not produce anything worth a dime for society. They created a stage for morons to be a pony of its economic exploits. Using sophisticated information and gleaning methods the only commercial value Facebook sell is your private and open conversation. That is their bread and butter. It is now known the world is adding to various algorithms, AI and other Internet of things a new extraction method called Metaverse. In simple terms, what Metaverse does is wrapped in a virtual world it will be predicting the future aided by augmented reality so it can smell your coffee while it is still brewing on top of your kitchen table. It will sort which brand of coffee you are drinking and bombard you with commercials without ceasing. Of course it does much more than my simple example. Hey folks we are on rollercoaster ride hang tight. It is all vanity! When you wake up from your day dreaming mind spinning so called social media binge there will not be any medication to soothe your pain.
What Facebook and other social media (trust me there is nothing social in these platforms) are doing is building a house of cards when one wakes up it will be gone. Just take the absence of Electricity. It will do it. Are we civilized? Nope. We are more savages than the cave man. Just take a look what we are doing to each other. The deletion of the Ethiopian PM posting is another way of diminishing the truth. Good Job Facebook!