How death of Tigrayan scholar could force Facebook to pay $2 billion in compensation

ADDIS ABABA - The Social media giant Meta which owns Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp could be forced to part with $2 billion in compensation, it has been established, should a lawsuit challenging the death of an Ethiopian scholar of Tigray origin go through in one of the world's most anticipated epic legal tussle.

Professor Meareg Amare Abreha, 60, died in one of the cruelest death, in what is linked to a hateful message an aggressor wrote on Facebook at the peak of the civil war in Ethiopia's Tigray region in 2021. He was killed by unknown people at Bahir Dar, the capital of the Amhara region in November 2021 aged 60.

At the time of his unprecedented murder, he was a professor of Analytical Chemistry at Bahir Dar University. His son, Abraham Meareg, claims the death may have been triggered by a hateful post made by a Facebook user identified as BDU Staff, which possibly relates to perhaps a staffer at his institution.

And now Abraham Meareg along with a host of others, are plaintiffs in a $2 billion lawsuit filed in neighboring Kenya and supported by Foxglove, a non-profit campaign group that believes had Facebook taken swift measures, Prof. Meareg would be alive today.

“We firmly believe that had the posts been taken down immediately, or caught by a filter and taken down, the Professor would still be alive,” Rosa Curling, Director at the Foxglove, told Addis Standard.

The director believes the post whose owner had over 50,000 followers, triggered the death of the renowned scholar given that it stayed up for weeks while another one was just pulled down last week. The lawsuit establishes the connection of algorithmic functions that favors fanning viral content giving nonequivalent emphasis of care to avert their repercussions.

“Sadly, ‘engaging’ posts are often violent or shocking, because people react to them, share them, and comment on them. All those reactions mean the Facebook algorithm promotes the post more and can make hate posts and violence go viral, and spread even further. This is why we say that Facebook is deadly by design,” Rosa said.

In their prayers, Abraham Meareg and his fellow petitioners, are now demanding that the court orders Facebook to stop promoting viral hateful content that can lead to violence, citing the insurrection at Washington DC, adding that the $2.4 billion compensation would go to victims of viral hate speech which may result from the social media giant.

Meareg was born in 1961 in the Axum town of Tigray and then pursue Chemistry which saw him teach at a secondary school. Later after his release from prison, he would teach various schools where he held several administrative positions within the Amhara state.

He would earn a Ph.D. in Analytical Chemistry which saw him start teaching research at Bahir Dar University, a station he stayed at until last year, despite asking for early retirement which was rejected by his employer over his critical services to the institution.

While at the university, Abraham says, their father made significant contributions to the research by authoring 7th to 10th-grade textbooks along with editing several others.

He publicized twenty-eight chemistry-related research and thoughtful laboratory findings and reports. And as a major and co-researcher, he published over 46 scientific articles and executed six projects in addition to other six scientific articles that have been published after he was assassinated.

As a result of his successive contributions, in 2017 he was promoted to Associate Professor and then promoted to full Professorship on February 1, 2021, at Bahir Dar University being one of the three full Professors of Analytical Chemistry in Ethiopia and the one and only at Bahir Dar University, the Addis Standard reports.

Prior to his death, reports suggest, armed police officers had gone to search for him in the university and the house after the viral post but it happened that he had traveled to Addis Ababa. The Facebook post labeled him a sympathizer of Tigray People's Liberation Front [TPLF] which was at loggerheads with the government until last month when a peace deal was signed in Nairobi and Pretoria.

The post came at the time any person believed to be an associate of TPLF was subjected to torture in Amhara, Afar, and Addis Ababa. Despite surrounding to the police, he would be assassinated even after the police failed to charge him formally.

“One of the murderers, covered with a mask, managed to approach him and fired two shots, the first hitting our beloved father’s right leg and followed by the second fatal shot on his right chest…”

On 3 November 2021, he was gunned down in front of his house at midday. On the same day, our father was at the university to process some documents for his retirement, and he met with the academic Vice President of Bahir Dar University. The family has learned that the assassination was orchestrated by both state and non-state actors.

One of the murderers, covered with a mask, managed to approach him and fired two shots, the first hitting him on the right leg and followed by the second fatal shot on his right chest ending his life at the scene. Few people who took the risk to take him to the hospital were unfortunately prevented by the militant group prohibiting emergency aid, or even covering his body.

The three assassins swiftly took his private Yaris car, license plated 80771 AA 2; it was a gift from his children given to him in 2013. Nobody was allowed to pick him up, and his body was on the ground for seven hours until the municipal men buried him in an unmarked grave. The family was not allowed to bury him.

Further, the report notes that the renowned professor of Tigray origin was buried without a coffin after his body was retrieved from a local morgue. His death is directly linked to the Facebook post which came at the time Tigrayans were undergoing unprecedented ordeals away from home following the TPLF battle with the national army.

GAROWE ONLINE