We are writing to draw your attention to the removal of Addis Neger Facebook page, an Ethiopian pro-democracy political information and deliberation site, by the Facebook Team on April 29, 2010. Our research shows that you removed the site after receiving several complaints from people hired by the Ethiopian government to control and dictate the flow of political information in the networked public sphere. The decision to take down the site based on only the number of complaints orchestrated by a repressive regime, and without a proper investigation of the contents and an opportunity for the administrators to repair violations of terms, if there are any, is a huge setback not only to the general democratization impact of social networking sites in authoritarian states, but also to the fight for democracy in those states.
Reputable international human rights groups like Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International and the Committee to Protect Journalists identify Ethiopia as one of the most serious offenders of the freedom of speech, expression and the press. There are currently five journalists in jail in Ethiopia, and a number of others are forced to flee their country and live in exile, owing to relentless persecution. The country’s repressive speech laws put severe constraints upon the public exchange of ideas and free flow of information. According to research by OpenNet Initiative, Ethiopia is the only country in sub-Saharan Africa which consistently filters and censors websites. As recent as last month, the country’s Prime Minister officially announced that he would order the jamming of the Voice of America, often regarded as the voice of the voiceless in many authoritarian states. Indeed, the Addis Neger Facebook page itself is an eloquent testimony to the degree of abuse of freedom of speech in Ethiopia as it was formed by fans and readers of a prominent Ethiopian newspaper which announced its closure in December of last year after its editors were forced into exile.
Facebook pages have so far played a very important role in opening up and expanding this highly constrained public sphere. Facebook groups mainly formed inside Ethiopia have worked to publish and disseminate valuable information, initiate discussions among people with differing values and opinions and organize petitions. Addis Neger Facebook page with a total of 3245 members, mostly from Addis Ababa, was at the center of these efforts.
In light of these facts and Facebook’s principles of “the free flow of social information” and “personal democracy”, articulated beautifully in different occasions by its founder Marc Zuckerberg, we urge you to reverse your decision and reinstate the page. We are also concerned that your system of taking down pages based on the number of complaints gives repressive governments an opportunity to dent the work of pro-democracy activities with minimal political and economic cost. We would welcome the revision of this system and the incorporation of mechanisms of due process and error rectification to ensure abuse by governments and groups with strong motivations and enough incentives to curb free speech and expression.
