(Substitute story, issued as per advisory withdrawing an

earlier story on the subject)

*

Meta accused of ignoring rebel threats to Ethiopian

moderators,

court documents say

*

Moderators say Oromo Liberation Army threats came after

they

removed rebel Facebook posts

*

Moderators say they lost jobs and were blacklisted

By Ammu Kannampilly

NAIROBI, Dec 10 (Reuters) - A contractor hired by

Facebook's parent company Meta dismissed threats to

content moderators by Ethiopian rebels angered by their work,

according to new evidence filed in a case challenging the

dismissal of dozens of moderators in Kenya.

Last year 185 content moderators sued Meta and two

contractors, saying they had lost their jobs with Sama, a

Kenya-based firm contracted to moderate Facebook content, for

trying to organise a union.

They said they were then blacklisted from applying for the

same roles at another firm, Majorel, after Facebook changed

contractors.

Moderators focusing on Ethiopia said they were targeted by

members of the Oromo Liberation Army (OLA) rebel group for

removing their videos but their complaints were dismissed by

Sama, according to court documents filed on Dec. 4 by Foxglove,

a British non-profit supporting the moderators' case.

The moderators said in the petition seen by Reuters that

Sama had accused them "of creating a false account and

manufacturing" the threatening messages, before eventually

agreeing to an investigation and sending one of the moderators

who was publicly identified by the rebels to a safehouse.

Sama told Reuters it was unable to comment on the

allegations. Spokespeople for Meta and OLA did not respond to

requests for comment.

One moderator said in his affidavit that he had received a

message from OLA threatening "content moderators who were

constantly pulling down their graphic Facebook Posts".

"They told us to stop removing their content from Facebook

or else we would face dire consequences," he said, adding that

his supervisor dismissed his concerns.

Another moderator said in his affidavit that he received a

message from OLA listing his and his colleagues' names and

addresses.

"Since I received that threatening message, I have lived in

so much fear of even visiting my family members in Ethiopia," he

said.

The government of Ethiopia's largest region, Oromiya, has

accused OLA rebels of killing "many civilians" in attacks that

followed the failure of peace talks in 2023 in Tanzania aimed at

resolving a decades-old conflict.

'ENDLESS LOOP OF HATEFUL CONTENT'

The court documents also said that Meta ignored advice from

experts it hired to tackle hate speech in Ethiopia.

One expert, who supervised dozens of moderators, said in an

affidavit that she felt "stuck in an endless loop of having to

review hateful content that we were not allowed to take down

because it technically did not offend Meta policies".

Out-of-court settlement talks between the moderators and

Meta collapsed in October last year.

The case could have implications for how Meta works with

content moderators globally. The U.S. giant works with

moderators around the world tasked with reviewing graphic

content posted on its platform.

The OLA is an outlawed splinter group of a formerly banned

opposition party. Its grievances are rooted in the alleged

marginalisation of Ethiopia's Oromo community.

In a separate case filed in Kenya in 2022, Meta was accused

of letting violent and hateful posts from Ethiopia flourish on

Facebook, inflaming the civil war between the federal government

and Tigrayan regional authorities.