Meta, the parent company of Facebook, has taken action by pulling down violent, hateful, and inciteful posts on the popular social media platform related to the ongoing Bawku conflict following an investigation by GhanaFact.
For over three years, a violent chieftaincy conflict has had Bawku (located near the tri-border area of Ghana, Togo and Burkina Faso) in a chokehold, and a close to one-year-long open-source digital investigation by GhanaFact has found several accounts involved in inciting violence and spreading hate speech which is exacerbating the chieftaincy conflict.
According to Meta’s Public Policy Manager in charge of Sub-Saharan Africa, Farai Morobane the “posts [were] violating its Community Standards,” in an email response to GhanaFact after seven days of alerting Facebook to more than 100 posts that showed a pattern where actors in the conflict were weaponizing the platform.
Meta warns Facebook users as part of its Community Standards against posting “threats that could lead to death (and other forms of high-severity violence) and admission of past violence targeting people or places” as part of its policy on violence and incitement.
With 5.6 million Facebook users in Ghana, constituting 85% of all social media users, the platform of choice continues to play a significant role in the ongoing Bawku conflict even though many of the tactics and techniques employed by the actors in the conflict are in clear violation of Facebook’s community standards – the guidelines for what is and is not allowed on Facebook.
Meta touts its range of policies and products, including human moderators, AI algorithms and content rating by third-party fact-checkers, as initiatives that help to detect and flag hate speech, violent/graphic content and mis/disinformation.
That notwithstanding, in the Bawku situation, GhanaFact has noticed that to avoid triggering the platform’s algorithms, the two feuding sides are using coded language/hate speech (Kusasis are labelled pigs, and Mamprusis are labelled monkeys), as well as local languages (Kusaal, Mampruli, Moole), while not much has been seen of Facebook’s human moderators over the period to stop the abuse of the platform.
Some of the posts taken down
Meta said about a third of the flagged posts by GhanaFact (29 in total) were deemed to have violated their community standards.
Here are some of the posts that were taken down:
“The unknown gun men said I should inform the general public that they are going to burn another bus before we settle the matter,” a Facebook user said in a post on July 21, 2023.
“Kusasis will never stop the attack… you monkeys think that we have forgotten of you right. Nah. You will soon hear from us on our roads. Block and kill still continues.” A Facebook user posted on August 1, 2023.
Laced with pig imojis, on August 3, 2023, another user of the popular social media platform posted that: “Kusasi pigs. You called a heavy rainfall for yourselfs. Burkina Faso Bittou people awaits you. If you dare try to pass Mogamme Road. Dey would await you at Nouaho. Even if you try your possible best and cross Mognori road. Dey would await for you at Zekezeke junction. Let’s see what happens next. Sunkira Ruwa”
Posts still standing
GhanaFact is however concerned by Meta’s refusal to take action against subtle and sometimes explicit threats and hateful rhetorics related to the conflict partly because of the lack of understanding of the local context.
“If mamprusis can travel far to binduri to do this, then we have to carry acid with injection equipment so we can inject the enemy with acid to wish them farewell, we also need their heads to be given to our gods,so cut the heads when it is possible,” a Facebook user partly posted on August 23, 2023, and the platform claims it does not reach the threshold of contravening its community standards.
Another Facebook post that Meta has refused to take action on said: “The Mmoaa are confused. U will beg for mercy soon.”
“No movement of motorist around Alhaji Amadu Dori’s building to Imam conner from tomorrow. The road is closed and anybody found on that line should be treated as a threat to the innocent. It’s a warning,” a user of the popular social media platform known to belong to one of the feuding sides posted on Facebook.
Meta has come under significant scrutiny in the past following concerns it allows and maintains inciteful, hateful and dangerous content on the Facebook platform.
In 2022, two Ethiopians sued the company, seeking compensation for victims of hate and violence allegedly fuelled by the social media giant.
In Ghana, the Bawku conflict has claimed hundreds of lives so far and GhanaFact’s research has successfully mapped the key tactics and techniques employed on social media platforms to perpetuate violence in Bawku, including doxxing, parading of dead victims as human trophies, threats against journalists, hate speech, and malicious use of AI (Full report here).
By: Rabiu Alhassan
