If Facebook doesn't address hate speech before the country's general elections, it will be suspended from the country. The company has a week to fix the problem, which included the approval of ads for ethnic cleansing. The human rights organizations are calling on Facebook to suspend all advertising in the country.
The National Cohesion and Integration Commission said that Facebook was in violation of the country's laws.
They have allowed themselves to be a breeding ground for hate speech and misinformation.
Last week, Facebook issued a press release saying it had cracked down on harmful content in the country. Human rights groups said that the company approved ads in both English and Swahili that were meant to inflame ethnic violence in the country.
Global Witness and Foxglove said Thursday that a third test had shown that Facebook couldn't detect language that could lead to violence. The groups said that Meta approved ads on Facebook that called for the rape and beheading of people from different ethnic groups.
Foxglove director Cori Crider said that if Mark Zuckerberg sat on his hands, it would make it clear that for him, and for Facebook, American lives mattered.
The results of the Global Witness/Foxglove tests proved to be in line with the findings of the NCIC.
There are steps Facebook can take to reduce the risk to the election in the country. Crider pointed to steps taken by the platform after the U.S. insurrection.
“Facebook is in violation of the laws of our country.”Global Witness said in a statement that it chose not to publish the exact language used in the tests conducted on Facebook, but described the ads as "dehumanising."
The groups tested the language by using the Facebook ad system to remove posts before they were seen by other users.
Global Witness said that after Facebook became aware of the tests, the company published a press release detailing the various measures it has taken to ensure a safe and secure general election in the country.
Meta claims to use a combination of artificial intelligence, human review and user reports to tackle harmful content and said that it is partnering with civil society organizations to ensure a safer experience.
Global Witness submitted additional ads to find out if Facebook had made improvements that would better detect hate in ads. Facebook didn't pass those tests.
Global Witness said the ads were approved once again.
Meta has taken "extensive steps" to detect hate speech on the platform, and is intensifying these efforts ahead of the Kenyan national elections, according to a statement from a Meta spokesman. They said that despite these efforts, they know that there will be examples of things we miss or we take down in error.
The team that monitors for such errors is part of the Meta organization.
Global Witness and Foxglove have called for a suspension of all advertising in the country.
The safety of the election in Kenya is more important than the election in the US. The most dangerous features on the platform were restricted after January 6. They have stopped running ads before. We now know that Facebook did not invest in safety measures for ads in the country.
A new president and members of the National Assembly will be elected on August 9, 2022.
A comment from a Meta spokesman was added after publication.
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