Meta faces a $2.4bn (£1.8bn) lawsuit accusing the Facebook owner of inflaming violence in Ethiopia after the Kenyan high court said a legal case against the US tech group could go ahead.

The case brought by two Ethiopian nationals calls on Facebook to alter its algorithm to stop promoting hateful material and incitement to violence, as well as hiring more content moderators in Africa. It is also seeking a $2.4bn “restitution fund” for victims of hate and violence incited on Facebook.

  • non_burglar@lemmy.world
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    2 days ago

    And to think people hailed Facebook and other online services so much in the Arab Spring of 2010 that someone in Egypt named their kid Facebook.

    “Power corrupts” seems to be universal with humans.

    • ZILtoid1991@lemmy.world
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      2 days ago

      They saw how people used it during the Arab Spring, and thought “what if we used it to overthrow our democracies and install people doing our biddings?”.

      (Can someone check Curtis Yarvin’s public writings if he ever done so?)

  • one_fot_mon@lemm.ee
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    2 days ago

    I hope this pressure leads to just getting rid of algorithms altogether. It’s like intentionally giving everyone their own personal echo chamber. How are people ever going to be open to different ideas if they’re constantly being pigeonholed by their browsing behaviour? How will they ever have opportunities for practicing critical thinking if everything is spoonfed to them? How many real human beings have we unintentionally ignored online because an algorithm decided they weren’t interesting enough to us? These are all things that have the potential to prevent a tragedy. Humans are capable of being more than the sum of their clicks if we let them.

    The world is bigger than our own interests and I think it deserves even just a crumb of our attention too. Then maybe the world can become a little less devastating.

    • TheTechnician27@lemmy.world
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      2 days ago

      I hope this pressure leads to just getting rid of algorithms altogether.

      And other things spoken by someone who never learned what an algorithm is.

      • itslilith@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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        8 hours ago

        It’s pretty obvious from context that they’re talking about content personalization algorithms. They ain’t talking about binary search

    • lumony@lemmings.world
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      2 days ago

      You don’t need algorithms to have an echo chamber.

      Just look at the mod abuse that goes on on some of these forums.