Senior Advocate of Nigeria, Femi Falana has opened up on the reason for filing a lawsuit against Meta, the parent company of Facebook.
TORI reported that Falana sued Meta and demanded $5 million for misleadingly associating him with false health advertisements.
In an interview with Channels TV on Monday, the human rights lawyer called for a law to regulate social media.
While stating that criticism was indispensable in a democracy, he noted that criticism was being misused.
“Criticism is indispensable in a democratic society, but where people go outside the law, file an action and perhaps ask for speedy resolution. Clearly, things have gone to a stage and we need to have another look at the law.
“The government will have to, the legislators will have to look at the law. Again I’ve said I’m opposed to criminalization but there are civil remedies that can be made available to whoever is offended,” he said.
On his chances of winning the case against Meta, Falana stated that Meta and its owner, Mark Zuckerberg are not above the law.
“I’m very very hopeful because you’re fighting you’re going to fight a big corporation a giant oh yes nobody is bigger than the law. Again like I think it was Lord Denning that made the point in the UK, I mean no matter how high you are, the law is higher than you. The whole idea is to get some of these organizations to be responsible and look at their own system. If you create a forum where I can throw any garbage and then colossal damages..
“By the time these organizations are made to pay colossally, they will have to look at their system and also have some in-built mechanism for check-making reckless publications,” he added.
