ETHIOPIA: Moderating Social Media Content & more – 29th May 2025

Salaam salaam from BA! This is the Rorshok Ethiopia Update from the 29th of May twenty twenty-five. A quick summary of what's going down in Ethiopia.

Judicial officials in the Tigray region, in northern Ethiopia, will get back to work according to the region’s interim administration. Courts in Tigray have seen unruly behavior from attendees which forced judges to stop working as they were concerned for their safety.

On Monday the 26th, the region’s interim administration president talked to the judges’ representatives. He said he recognized and understood that there was a problem and that courts should work with the justice bureau to ensure the safety and security of judicial professionals.

According to the agreement, judges will get back to work on Thursday the 29th but we don’t if they indeed resume their work. The administration said those responsible for disruptions in court will be held accountable.

Still in Tigray, the Distributed AI Research Institute conducted a study and found that social media platforms didn’t moderate posts enough during the Tigray war that took place between twenty twenty and twenty twenty-two.

They said that this lack of moderation allowed hate speech to run wild during the war. The Institute cited documents that Frances Haugen, a whistleblower, disclosed to show that Facebook only supported two languages spoken in Ethiopia out of the over seventy.

The platforms failed to catch certain posts that would be categorized as hate speech because they used slang and words that might be misunderstood without context.

Back in the capital, Addis Ababa, at an event that the National Dialogue Commission organized on Thursday the 22nd, representatives of some political parties urged the Commission to facilitate the return of other opposition parties that had refused to take part in the dialogue.

Many of the politicians who had refused to take part in the dialogue said that the government heavily influences the Commission’s work. However, one participating opposition party representative said that, although he used to believe that there was government interference, the Commission has proved to him and his party that that’s not the case.

Opposition parties also fear that the Commission won’t achieve its aim of having people agree on important issues unless groups engaged in violent conflicts are also allowed to participate in talks to resolve the multifaceted, long-standing issues the country is facing.

One of the groups engaged in violent conflict is the Oromo Liberation Army (or OLA). The group is not only fighting against the government but is also apparently involved in acts of terrorism.

On Wednesday the 21st, in the Benishangul-Gumuz region in western Ethiopia, the group attacked and killed eighteen and injured twelve. Residents of the area said it is also planning to attack again, forcing many to leave the area.

The region’s officials haven’t commented on the matter. Aside from the OLA, Gumuz People’s Democratic Movement has also been engaged in violence, attacking civilians.

The House of Peoples’ Representatives held a meeting on Tuesday the 27th and one of its top agendas for the day was access to clean water. The Minister of Water and Energy attended the session to respond to House members’ questions.

Representatives said water shortages in both rural and urban areas have persisted, with the Ministry failing to build water facilities in certain parts of the country, leading people to travel long distances to get water.

The Minister admitted that there are shortages, explaining that the growth of urbanization and dense settlement in certain parts of the country have made his job harder. He said that clean water supply has reached twenty-five percent, creditworthy progress, according to the Minister.

Reports surfaced this past week saying that unknown perpetrators had stolen seven billion birr, which is over forty million US dollars, from the Commercial Bank of Ethiopia and that the Bank covered up the incident.

On Tuesday the 27th, the Bank issued a statement dismissing these reports, saying that the money was not stolen. It admitted that there was an attempt to steal a significant amount of money, which was thwarted in a few minutes. It also added that law enforcement has detained suspects.

On another note, The Ethiopian Accounting and Audit Board revealed that out of the eighteen insurance companies in the country, only one, state-owned Ethiopian Insurance Corporation, has implemented the International Financial Reporting Standards 17 (or IFRS) in its bookkeeping system, even though all insurance companies have been required to use it since twenty twenty-three.

The Board added that after finding this out, it agreed to an August deadline with the other seventeen insurance companies to issue their reports using the IFRS system.

The companies admitted their failure to comply but explained that there are not enough professionals in the country who know how to use the system, and it’s expensive to bring in professionals from other countries to do the job.

Media company Reporter, which has covered news from parliament for almost thirty years straight, has been barred from entering and reporting from the Houses’ premises. The Parliament’s security officers told Reporter’s journalists that they are not allowed to enter, but didn’t provide any explanation.

The outlet expressed great disappointment and said that it doesn’t have ulterior motives that could have led to the restriction, emphasizing that its only aim was to inform the public. It added that it has asked various government entities to resolve this issue.

Meanwhile, health professionals in the country are deeply dissatisfied with their pay and news of their strike and protests have dominated headlines over the past few weeks, with some professionals detained because of suspicious motives, according to the government.

On Friday the 23rd, representatives of healthcare workers sat down with the Minister of Health to set ground rules for negotiation. They said they wouldn’t negotiate unless detained professionals were released, among other preconditions.

They also said they were open to having the Ethiopian Human Rights Commission mediate the negotiation with the government. Amnesty International has also taken notice of the situation and has urged the executive to engage in negotiations

Midroc Investment Group, one of the biggest companies in the country, inaugurated its Calcium Carbonate manufacturing facility in the Afar region, in north-east Ethiopia.

The facility can manufacture seventeen thousand tons of the filler, which can be used to produce foam, sponges, and shoe soles, among other products. The region’s president and other dignitaries attended the inauguration on Thursday the 22nd. The company that opened and operates this facility is a subsidiary of Midroc. The company’s CEO said this is the first ever plant in the country to produce Calcium Carbonate coated with Stearic acid.

He also said the local manufacturing of the Stearic acid-coated filler will help Ethiopia save about five hundred thousand US dollars, and expects the company to supply about ninety percent of the country’s demand.

In other news, prospective coffee exporters won’t be too happy to hear that the Ethiopian Coffee and Tea Authority has drafted a directive that will raise the fee required for companies to be allowed to export. The fee will go up from one and a half million birr, which is ten thousand US dollars, to fifteen million birr, around a thousand US dollars.

However, exporters already in the mix have praised this move, saying that raising this fee and the capital required will gatekeep the industry from people who are not knowledgeable. They added that this would prevent some people from receiving certification from the Authority, only to rent out the license to export illegally.

The Directive remains a draft and the Authority explained that it won’t be approved until after stakeholders review and deliberate on its effects.

And for our final update, some sports news. Ethiopians are huge fans of European football leagues, while the local football league and the national team have underperformed for decades.

This Saturday the 31st, the UEFA Champions League Final will be played in Munich between the PSG and Inter. Fans in Addis can watch the game at an event at the Millennium Hall. The organizers said there would be food, drinks and live music performances before the game.

Aaand that’s it for this week! Thank you for joining us!

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Ciao!