On the other hand, the idea that Facebook is culpable here seems to take for granted a large chunk of Ethiopians who'll just do what they're told by Facebook posts, which seems to give very little credit to the Ethiopian people or the ability of their government to maintain order. In that sense, it feels prejudiced and patronizing, like arguing that Facebook needs to police its Ethiopian presence because Ethiopia can't police itself.
I mean look around you. You could say "no we can't tax sugar, cigarettes, and alcohol, because that gives the people too little credit to make good healthy choices!" And yet 42% of Americans are obese. Anti-science and anti-vax culture is very relevant. People believe Bill Gates wants to track their every move, and yet they walk around with phones and are signed into facebook trading their photoshopped memes from Russian troll farms.
We give ourselves way too much credit.
But it seems quite difficult to navigate less codified cultural topics. For example, the problems in Ethiopia turn on old lines of ethnic division. It's tough for me to imagine that Facebook will somehow arrive at a way to manage a problem that's troubled Ethiopia for so long, even (especially?) if it uses local employees as moderators.
but either way, according to most folks on this forum, Facebook doesn't have to allow free speech
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Facebook
Read the controversial section. Even that is missing a lot and the citations are removed.
Facebook has been used for genocide, mass cultural appropriation, raising anti-ism sentiment, etc by military, government and terrorists.
They don't employ enough moderators likely intentionally in many regions. African continent has less than a 100.