How social media was weaponized in Ethiopia’s Tigray War | DW Documentary

the tagra war was one of the bloodiest conflicts in recent history Facebook has been accused time and time again of stoking ethnic tensions in Ethiopia social media had a lot of roles like one is calling for violence that’s why it was one of the atrocious was we have seen in the uh in the last few decades the onslaught of violence claimed the lives of half a million people Massacre them kill without Mercy you must murder them ruthlessly does Facebook put profit and Market power above the lives of human beings countless hate posts are still online they kill someone or maybe let’s go and burn these religious places like temples or mosques also pointing out someone’s house like someone is like hiding here let’s go and uh kill him or kill her how could The Social Network that promised people an open and interconnected World become a weapon used by warmongers and perpetrators social media is one of the hate speech instigators because people use it wrongly without us you wouldn’t even like to go on Facebook for one second I’m hatred is one of the most important factors to win a war we must have it delete delete delete delete delete delete delete delete delete delete delete delete delete after 2 years of Devastation there’s a festive Spirit back on the streets of the Tagan Capital Mich ashenda an event celebrating women and girls is being held for the first time since before the war but amid the singing and dancing in traditional garments the scars of War are everywhere [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] mulu mesin is a head nurse she’s heard countless reports of the sexual violence perpetrated during the conflict she runs the One-Stop Center for rape victims at Ider Hospital one of the few clinics in Michael that was not destroyed [Music] this 40-year-old woman reported being raped repeatedly by 15 soldiers in a remote Village before losing Consciousness she remembers that one of them took out his phone and started filming it was around 9 in the morning I blacked out after they attacked me I must have been lying there all day nobody helped me when I came to in the evening everything was gone everything I had with me social media was used as a weapon in the tagry war footage of rape and mass shootings was used to traumatize and dehumanize the other side mein’s explanation for the sheer brutality of the conflict is that the propaganda spread online by all parties was posted and reposted there was this constant preaching of hate on both social media and mainstream media especially in amhara media the Government tried to gloss over it by using terms like mission for Law and Order but people were being told to kill innocent Civ ions to abuse children and women from TIG and rape teenagers the victims had to run for their lives with nothing to eat and move from one refugee camp to the next The War Began when the Ethiopian Army sent troops into tgra the northernmost part of the country a violent Civil War ensued many observers felt it bore all the markers of [Music] genocide one such Observer was FAA Tech from Amnesty International the way it was fought was extremely brutal within like less than a week the micar Massac has happened about 200 people working overnight in small farming uh Village in Western t uh and after that uh Massacre after Massacre Facebook played a pivotal role in the conflict with atrocities directly linked to hate speech posted on the platform incendiary posts were not just tolerated they were actively disseminated by government officials and media Outlets fuel to the fire in an already deeply polarized and divided Society they should be known as the last of their kind nothing like Satan was created after Satan’s fall once the war has started the of course the mood on the ground has changed so that’s that also reflects on the social media and the Govern government was kind of uh leading on that uh they were coining terms which were kind of accepted by the general population for instance y Chief among the agitators was the Ethiopian Prime Minister ABI Ahmed the 2019 Nobel Peace Prize laurate he United the country’s various ethnic groups in hatred against tigan he repeatedly referred to them as the cancer of Ethiopia as weeds that needed to be removed and as a hun online posts by ABI Ahmed and his advisers made no secret of their goal genocide these people are the enemy of all Ethiopian people the enemy of the aromo people the afar the gambela and the Somali we will not rest until the enemy is buried for the woman in the Michael Clinic her fear of returning to her Village and the stigmatization she faces is too great The Head Nurse mulu mesin offers her a place in a women’s shelter for the time being but the incendiary videos are still online for anyone to see what explains the inaction on the part of Facebook and other social media [Music] platforms one answer can be found in the Kenyan Capital Nairobi kauna malgi is on her way to her night shift for a job that involves deleting hate posts online when she moved here from West Africa some 3 years ago she was looking forward to a career in the booming Tech scene that at least was what was promised in the job offer as content moderator [Music] Malu signed up and did in fact find herself working for Facebook albeit indirectly her immediate employer was a lowprofile subcontractor called SAS Source the work of content moderator is quite a very dangerous work but at the same time it’s also a very Noble work to do because we are like the internet or the social social media soldiers or firefighters and all that so we’re there to protect people from watching the most toxic and unacceptable things that human is supposed to watch so inside of the world to see it we are the ones behind the scenes watching those toxic contents at summer it wasn’t just the content that was toxic the working conditions were appalling too Mal’s job description referred to tagging images and writing brief texts there was no mention of violent content on her very first shift she had to watch footage of a person being beaten to death delete delete delete it was her introduction to a job that meant being presented with a new harrowing video every 55 seconds for 8 hours a day delete delete delete without us you wouldn’t even like to go on Facebook for one second if those things we see are being released to everyone to see Facebook would have been long gone by now no one would want to log in there while Facebook spends millions and employs thousands of moderators to review content in Europe and the US the budget for Africa is minimal the early wage there is $2.20 with just 200 moderators for the entire continent When The tagry War Began there were just five covering Ethiopia then once the crisis like broke out we start receiving more uh graphic tickets uh hate speech and in inciting people uh for example people might share their opinion about the other tribes the other ethnic groups maybe to big killed to be chased out of a particular place to be banned to be uh little like to be arrested fasika gidan narrowly escaped the war she fled to Nairobi where she was grateful to find work as a Content moderator at SAS Source but soon enough the war caught up with her in her new job the thing is when I talk about them I would have flashbacks and I don’t want to have flashbacks cuz it will you know make me emotional or you know so I just try not to you know imagine what I saw but basically it’s just the worst thing that you can imagine content is pre-screened by a computer algorithm but a human being ultimately decides what gets deleted critics have repeatedly called for the Improvement of moderators working conditions one such critic is Kenyan lawyer Mercy mutemi who says Facebook clearly failed in its duties content moderation was taking place in Kenya for the content that was being shared in Ethiopia the content moderators that were being given this job were not even drawn from the communities in whose language that kind of content was being posted for example in this case tigia there was no tigia content moderator so when you tell someone who doesn’t understand the language to moderate that post what’s going to happen again if you only have a handful of moderators to CER for the Ethiopian market and there are millions of posts that are being shared on a daily basis that are violating the Community standards the efficacy is going to be super super disappointing the lawyer has been representing the moderators in a legal dispute with meta the parent company of Facebook they’re demanding better working conditions and psychological counseling MMI believes Facebook is driven by greed and Kenya a country with low wages and lacks working conditions has become a hub for Content moderation from meta and Tik Tok to open AI all the major online platforms employ so-called click workers what’s considered to be cheap and dispensable labor they’ve capitalized on this culture of instilling fear in the moderators so you’re supposed to fear the poverty you come from because they use statements like we can return you back to your poverty as a matter of fact this is the first instance I’m I’m seeing a case where in the recruitment advertisements they specifically want people who came from poor backgrounds and they specifically asked that question in interviews like do you come from a poor background which in our constition that is a legal issue so there’s that constant threat that you’re going to lose your job but then at the same time there’s a constant threat that we could destroy your life you just don’t know how we could do it but we could destroy your life we’re just like hidden behind those computer behind the Facebook where people feel it’s safe and now we ourself are totally damaged at the end of the day we’re damaged we’re destroyed our future is normal because of the kind of job we engaged ourself to do which we never thought it was that dangerous we just like forced to do it like through the deceptive way they recruited us [Music] someone who has experienced the deadly real life consequences of online hate is this young woman she’s gripped by fear when she walks down the city streets not long ago tigan like her were subjected to arbitrary detention with tens of thousands disappearing in camps she herself lost her father and brother the woman grew up in a village in eastern Ethiopia where Tans constitute a minority her father was a well-off farmer and respected businessman but when the war broke out he and eight other residents were targeted in a hate campaign a post on Facebook claimed they were spies and called for attacks on them her father was at the top of the list of targets [Applause] [Music] the post went viral and was shared hundreds of times in the region for one local militia it was proof enough they raided The Village looking for the alleged spies plundering homes belonging to ethnic Tans the young woman was living in Adis Ababa at the time her mother told her what happened when the militia men entered the family’s house first they forced my father my brother and my mother to get on their knees they then had to cry crawl out of the house my mother pleaded with them saying they were regular people just caring for their children she asked why us but the men didn’t respond they said my family were spies fighting against the government they kept repeating the accusations being spread on Facebook that was the last time my mother saw my father and my brother her father and brother were shot dead in their own yard when the attackers moved on to raid other homes her mother took the opportunity to escapee she says that 22 people were murdered that day a massacre that she blames on Facebook I’m sure of it nothing would have happened to my family had it not been for the misinformation on Facebook people are too reliant on Facebook they believe everything that’s posted there in my Village they don’t question if what they’re reading on social media is true or false they just accept it I know that my father and brother would still be alive if that post hadn’t appeared on Facebook the killing of her father and brother was not an isolated incident the tagry war saw thousands of doxing posts online attacks revealing the name address and photo of targets as the world’s biggest social networking site Facebook is a natural Avenue for the dissemination of such posts plus its algorithm ensures that insightful and inflammatory posts are viewed by an especially large number of people what has become very clear is that hate cells and um harmful posts Trend more than posts that are you know innocent the MSI um metric to the algorithm encourages posts that are likely to go viral to go even more viral right so if you learn that and you’re in the habit of posting inflammatory content you’re just going to keep making it that much worse and much more inflammatory Facebook earns its money through advertising and the mass Gathering of user data viral posts and user interaction in the form of likes shares and comments are especially valuable so valuable in fact that despite security concerns raised by Facebook employees risk mitigating measures were never incorporated into the algorithm in the case of Ethiopia this led to more polarization more hate and more misinformation the saddest part is just how we had to produce all this evidence for Ethiopia of posts that have gone viral and were still on the Facebook platform instigating violence right and all those posts violate the Facebook Community standards but were not pulled down [Music] in Nairobi the individuals ostensibly employed to make Facebook safer were fired after kauna Malu fasika gidan and 182 other content moderators sued metam and their direct employer Source they were immediately dismissed not just content review was left in the Lurch the moderators were left without pay for months Unsure how to cover their rent and other basic [Music] expenses to this is a real therapy the two women meet on the roof of Mal’s apartment building painting has helped them to process their traumatic experiences malgi has been struggling with severe depression ever since she took the job as content moderator I just wish I’m just out of this world I’ve had enough already had enough I grew up without a dad and I thought I would have family members that would support me and all that but obviously no one I’m going through a lot even if I’ve eaten I’ve not no one cares even if I’m dead or alive sometimes I just feel I can end it all but at the same time when I look at my mom I don’t want to to feel hot so I just have to pretend like everything is okay kauna Malu says the images during her time at samasaurus6 among her former colleagues a young man who hanged himself in his apartment the former moderators hope that their legal action will help to create better working conditions to do this difficult job and ideally changes will be made to Facebook’s algorithm that prevent harmful content from being Amplified and going viral fasika gabreon often had the impression that her work was in vain not only insults or negative words that people would uh report on the contents uh also there was so many videos that was flagged by us but never get deleted so especially um graphic videos uh we were tired of flagging them because you know once you see it and then you you get traumatized every time you see it so that’s why we always FL them to be deleted but they never got deleted I should have G and you know find [Music] a the young woman whose father and brother were killed is on her way to the recording studio of a local YouTuber in Adis Ababa she’s the only member of her family who will talk frankly about what happened she’s determined to ensure that the killing of her loved ones will have consequences the post that led to their deaths is still online [Music] fake news on social media kills innocent people I hope I’m able to show that to the big Facebook pages with lots of followers as well as to ordinary users and that they understand how their posts can destroy lives we need to raise awareness but people also need to be punished I know that’s not not easy it’s a real challenge but we need Justice and I hope we’ll make some progress that we can create an awareness in society about the harmful impact of fake news on Facebook and other sites that’s why I’m here sharing my story the lawyer Mercy MMI has already already seen some progress It’s a political case right a court in Kenya ruled that theasaurus dismissals were unlawful and the moderators needed to be reinstated and paid how how would your security be if you both the company and meow will have to answer to the courts in Kenya the Ethiopia case is pivotal before it is now and having seen that there were so many warnings about what’s happening in Ethiopia and the role of Ethiopia and how many reports people had made on what’s happening on the platform just the inaction itself led to the platform being weaponized in a very vulnerable situation so there’s a lot of responsibility around that you might not have picked the gun but you knew what was happening and you chose to do nothing about it people spoke about it people even followed your internal procedure which is report post we will pull them down they were not pulled down so that inaction led to way more violence and way more loss of lives no they just said even the kids because they he was divorced with all of them oh okay yeah he was [Applause] divorced in Michel mulu mesin is as busy as ever dozens of new victims come to see the nurse every day as the gy War brought Ethiopia to the brink of collapse the Waring parties agreed to cease fighting in November 2022 with the withdrawal of soldiers more women are seeking help mvin can’t say for certain how many victims there are but she fears there are hundreds of [Music] thousands the majority of victims don’t talk about what happened to them due to the trauma in crimination many women stay silent many have died alone and with no medical care in TIG there’s not a single family where a woman wasn’t raped and murdered the peace deal marked a dramatic breakthrough the tigan forces agreed to hand over their weapons in return the government and Adis Ababa agreed to establish an interim Regional Administration whether the traumatic events of the the war will ever be adequately addressed is impossible to say what we know is just the tip of the iceberg the real level of atrocities that happened in this conflict is not really really uh documented and published also what we can learn from Ethiopia is that this uh companies are there for profit and the as far as uh the profits are there they don’t care about uh the human cost there have to be some kind of governance both domestic and international governance on their uh on their mode of operation meta does not seem to have taken any major action in response to the tagra case when confronted by Amnesty International with evidence of having neglected content moderation the company rejected all the findings it countered by insisting that Ethiopia is a high priority country for meta and that it has taken significant measures to delete violating content [Music]

The Tigray War (2020-2022) in Ethiopia was one of the bloodiest conflicts in recent history. Over half a million people lost their lives amid an onslaught of shocking violence.

Social media was deployed as a weapon and played a significant role in the conflict. Footage of rape and mass shootings was used to both traumatize and dehumanize the other side. Facebook has been accused of stoking ethnic tensions in the country, while countless hate posts remain online. Do the platform’s owners value profit and market power above the lives of human beings? How could the social network that promised people an open and interconnected world become a weapon used by warmongers and perpetrators?

#dwdocumentary #documentary #ethiopia
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43 comments

  2. We black Africans have never made our people important to us, so how can we expect other races to make us a priority or treat us in a respectful and important manner.

  3. Approximately 30+ Years ago, TPLF came to power, after overthrowing the communist regime, with the help of the United States! If you ask the many/majority of Ethiopians including myself, we skipped the dictatorship that was brutal,racist by creating regional states based on Ethnic lines. The TPLF ruled with Iron fist from 1991 to 2018, and was removed from power by huge protest mainly from the Amhara & Oromia Regional States! Which is how the current Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed came to power! Let’s roll back to the late 70s, early 80s, which the majority of you, will recall the great Ethiopian famine! That famine was the golden ticket to TPLF, the aid that was sent from the west was sold to the open market, in neighboring country Sudan, for cash, with the help of WFP/CIA, so TPLF can finance its War against the State! And with the TV showing hungry Ethiopians, westerners were convinced, the then communist regime must end, even though it was trying its best to help its citizens while being @ war with TPLF! Once in power, TPLF looted an estimated of $30 billion, at the expense of western tax payers, while detaining, torturing, and killing anyone that opposed TPLF, for the past 30 years! FYI @Dw there is no such thing as Western Tigray, it’s what TPLF invented in 1991, for the purpose of annexing farm rich land, from the Amhara State, since nothing can basically grow in Tigray,and also since Tigray is land locked! Since “Western Tigray” borders neighboring Sudan, it needs access to import weapons etc. Do a little more research before deceiving your viewers! Fast forward to current times, after TPLF lost power in 2018, for the first time in their life the top dogs of TPLF went to live in Tigray after 30 years of not being there! While in Tigray, with their stolen $$$, they started terrorizing the entire country except Tigray, trying to say look, when we were in power things were stable, even now only Tigray is safe! In short they wanted to come back to power! When nothing seemed to work, on November 4th/2020 TPLF attacked the northern command of the federal Army, that was when the Prime minister declared War! This was also when the United States started intervening and helping their old Friends TPLF politically, diplomatically, and militarily! Oh and the Media has been super helpful In favor of TPLF! If any of you are curious as to why the United States would help the Taliban of Africa, I mean TPLF, well it’s Geo politics. Therefore for the United States it’s way cheaper to have Ethiopia in turmoil rather than peace! I am certain I am missing somethings here, & there but your story is super biased. Finally way before the concept of social media was known to humans, the manifesto of TPLF, was written & driven by hate towards a certain ethnic group. Last but not least the damage done to Afar, & Amhara regional states, if not more it’s comparable to the damage done to Tigray! In conclusion, journalism is about seeking the truth, & letting the public decide, rather than be biased & score some political points! Thank you..

  4. We Africans are constantly looking for others to blame for our atrocities against each other. Amhara and Tigray have been fighting each other before social media, so take responsibility for killing your brothers and sisters.
    Let's just face it, the various tribes of Africa don't get along.
    Don't blame Facebook!

  6. Another truthful introduction documentary shared by an amazing DW documentary channel…documentary about expansion of Hatreds, rages, revenue, and all shapes of racism.. through social media networks around the world… Documentary focused on civil war in the North part of Ethiopia 🇪🇹 …I think Since damned Arabian spring events and forward….all Hatred ,racism, rage ,terrorist issues utilized social media for theirs purposes freely..

  7. World wide web is a blessing and a curse.. All the knowledge and also so much misinformation.
    Perfect propaganda machine.
    Divide et impera

  8. Westerners want a government in Ethiopia to obey them which is why they ordered Tplf to take power by force as they did in 1991 same tactics and the same propaganda. one thing I want to tell DW Ethiopian doesn't need social media they know who TPLF is they can't accept the return of TPLF. Ethiopians know politics and manipulation propaganda.

    "This is the media, an irresponsible media. "It will make the criminal look like he's the victim and make the victim look like he's the criminal. If you aren't careful, the media will have you hating the people who are being oppressed and loving the people who are doing the oppressing."

    .."This is sort of a propaganda tactic that I would call psychological warfare."

    Malcolm X

  10. 4:43 Wait a minute! The war did not begin then! I was intensely involved online and this was not the case! Why did they enter Tigray why if this presented only from one side??

  11. Do you know why the government has been saying this why take the quotes out of context?? I am surprised by DW!

  12. Tigray genocide will never be forgotten in the minds and hearts of all tigrayans. Ethiopians used social media to fuel hate, genocide and then gaslit us that nothing ever happened. Facebook was only a means for Ethiopians and Eritreans to show their hypocritical, ugly and evil feelings towards Tigrayans

  13. @dwnews X itself was infiltrated by different ethnic groups at the time so tweets were not taken down and accounts were wrongly fully blocked I know because I was directly active and saw all this first hand. This can be the case for Facebook too.

  17. Extremely poor documentary filled with factual errors. Even going as far mixing and referring to the TPLF and the Tigray People as one, misquoting speeches and taking them completely out of context. Overall, shameful.

  18. As someone who runs a pretty large Facebook business page. I can tell you without a shadow of a doubt. That facebook is FULL of bots / spammers / scammers preaching whichever BS they want.

    I spend more time reporting and blocking them than I do enjoying the platform.

    It’s disturbing the chit I see and the amount of people who believe the crazy BS.

    It’s horrible and getting worse.

  20. Who installed ethnic federalism in the country ?! Former PM a head TPLF was specifically asked if ethnic federalism doesn't cause polarized society. He denied. Now they cry. having an international voice to show one side of the story doesn't help for long. Truth does.

  26. A German media educating us about War and Consequence? Have you no shame? First check your basic facts. The Ethiopian Military was already in TIGRAY defending it from Eritrean forces for decades. The people of Tigray begged the Military from Reducing it's forces before it was attacked by TPLF forces. What happened afterwards, and the consequences we all suffered to this day could never be understood by the likes of your media. Check your facts before causing more hostilities. Germans. You don't change.

  27. I feel for the people of Tigray 🥺 May God be with them! Hoping FB and other companies take this situation seriously and increase the number of moderators in Africa. Haters should not have a public platform to spread their hate!

  29. Your documentary is unacceptable. If you want to discuss the civil war that the TPLF and its coalition with the EPRDF started, then begin with Maicadra, where TPLF leaders orchestrated the massacre of thousands of innocent people. You showed how this so-called fact checker silences the Amhara people's voices while allowing TPLF propagandists to spread false narratives that justify the massacre of thousands of Amhara civilians in their own homes, murder, and stream it online.

    Why aren't you talking about the ongoing civil war in the Amhara region? Even if you claim to care about the Tigray people, which you don't, you are not as close to the Tigray people as other Ethiopians, especially the Amhara people. Discuss how both the TPLF and EPRDF leadership remain in power after the agreement between TPLF and EPRDF, which now calls itself the Prosperity Party. More than half a million Ethiopians lost their lives, yet no one in their leadership has been brought to justice. Now, they have instigated another civil war, this time in Amhara. Talk about that.

  33. I do not understand. Social media is a tool. Hold the wielder of the tool (in this case, the users) accountable. Say I injure my next-door neighbour with a hammer; would you hold the hammer accountable?

  36. the documentary is based on how social media was weaponized but I try to understand that it focused on one party how about the other victims?

  37. Focus on the energy transition, maintain the grids and reformat it as quickly as possible. The water filter, sea salt systems need to be online as quickly as possible..

  38. Its not about Facebook nor social mefia, see that conflict you refuse to participate in to neutralize it? Its the conflicts and their desires, regardless, it would happen..

    Nice try about social media, make sure you settle with me, no less than 10 mill.

  39. I'm hindered by pg 13 folks who create more casualties, I stood by and talked to myself as i watched you share it with others, and then tried to blame me, get out of here..

    My government, interfering in my affairs due to old out of touch dinosaurs that can't even work on the level maintenance I work on..

  42. Tigray people should not have started the war after they lost power. They should have saved their resources and seek power in the future

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