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Kenya v. Big Tech: Platform Accountability Across Borders

The medialab seminar receives Toussaint Nothias for an analysis of the actions taken in Kenya against Meta, aimed at making big technology companies accountable for data-related damage.

Event, Research Seminar

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Salle K.011, 1 place Saint Thomas d'Aquin 75007 Paris

Abstract

For years, digital rights activists across the Global South have highlighted numerous harms linked to data-centric technologies; today, several of them are taking Big Tech to court. This chapter reviews ongoing cases in Kenya against Meta Inc. to shed light on the challenges and opportunities for global movements seeking tech accountability. Drawing on a review of court filings, news coverage, and reports from scholars and civil society groups, the chapter details the core grievances at the heart of these lawsuits and analyzes the history of how they came about. In addition, the chapter maps out the transnational network of actors in these cases, including platform users, journalists, content moderators, tech companies, sub-contractors, and human rights and digital rights advocacy groups.

Overall, the chapter makes three contributions. Conceptually, it proposes an upstream/downstream framework to understand data harms in the context of content moderation. At an empirical level, I argue that the uptake for tech accountability in Kenya is the dividend of 15 years of investment in media development and human rights advocacy in the country. Finally, I argue for the emergence of an interdisciplinary sub-field that focuses specifically on digital rights advocacy, and its history, anchor institutions, blind spots, and evolution.

Biography

Toussaint Nothias is Clinical Associate Professor at NYU. He is a communication scholar researching journalism, digital technologies and civil society. He has written on a range of topics from stereotyping in the news to tech projects providing free connectivity across the Global South. His work has appeared in the Journal of Communication; Journalism Studies; Media, Culture, and Society; Boston Review and Public Books. He is the editor AI and Assembly: Coming Together and Apart in a Datafied World (2025, Stanford University Press). Before NYU, he spent 8 years at Stanford University as Research Director of the Digital Civil Society Lab. There, he led various collaborative and interdisciplinary projects exploring the social impact of digital technologies.

Practical information

The session will take place on Tuesday, July 1, 2025, from 2:00 PM to 4:00 PM, in person and in English at Sciences Po, Room K.011, 1 Place Saint-Thomas-d'Aquin, Paris 75007.

Registration is mandatory via this link.