Add The California Post on Google A prominent Santa Monica influencer with over 10 million followers had her social media accounts scrubbed when Meta caved to pressure from Tanzania’s government, a new lawsuit claims.
Activist Mange Kimambi, 46, says she became a target of the East African nation’s rulers after using Instagram and WhatsApp to expose alleged killings and mobilize peaceful protests following last year’s disputed presidential election.
“The Tanzanian government instead turned to Meta, and Meta gave it what it could not obtain on its own,” says a lawsuit obtained by the California Post.
“An American company, built on the freedom of expression that American law protects, chose its revenue in Tanzania over human rights, freedom, and democracy.”
After Kimambi published images and videos of Tanzania’s post-election violence, the country’s attorney general publicly vowed to arrest her and sought her extradition, per the complaint, filed in San Mateo County Superior Court.
But as a US citizen living in California, she was beyond the Tanzanian government’s reach.
Kimambi’s attorneys claim Meta delivered what Tanzania could not: her silence — shutting down her accounts worldwide after the government allegedly threatened to block the tech company’s platforms inside the country.
She became one of Tanzania’s loudest government critics after moving to the US in 2012 and is known as “sister of the nation” by supporters in her home country.
Kimambi — who has sought help from President Donald Trump — claims she was targeted after using her highly viewed social media accounts to expose Tanzanian President Samia Suluhu Hassan, who was declared the winner with nearly 98% of the vote after her leading opponents were prevented from running.
The disputed result triggered protests and a deadly security crackdown.
Meta disabled Kimambi’s WhatsApp account in November before shutting down two remaining Instagram and Facebook accounts, according to the filing. The company previously said Kimambi’s accounts were removed for violating its “recidivism policy,” which prohibits users from creating replacement accounts after an earlier account has been removed.
“We don’t allow people to create new accounts that are similar to those we’ve previously removed for violating our Community Standards,” the company said.
But the lawsuit points to a Meta transparency report stating that Tanzanian regulators requested restrictions on three Instagram accounts containing “calls for peaceful protests” and criticism of the government.
“The risks of not complying with the request included blocking Meta’s platforms in Tanzania,” the report said.
The 36-page complaint accuses Meta of false advertising and fraudulent and unfair business practices.
Kimambi is not seeking damages. Instead, she wants Meta to disclose when foreign-government pressure influences its enforcement decisions and to identify the governments involved.
She also claims she paid for Meta Verified to obtain human customer support but received no help when her accounts were erased.
Tanzanian authorities have since accused Kimambi of inciting deadly protests and charged her with money laundering involving approximately $56,000. She has dismissed the allegations as politically motivated.
In December, Kimambi also appealed directly to Trump in a lengthy X post, calling Meta’s actions a “grave injustice” and asking him to publicly pressure the company to reinstate her accounts. She urged the commander-in-chief to push Congress to give activists legal recourse when social media companies remove their accounts without transparency, due process or a clear path to appeal.
US Rep. Joe Wilson (R-SC), a senior member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said in a January letter to Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg that a foreign government appeared to have “successfully intimidated a US citizen and compelled an American corporation to suppress her protected speech.”
He pressed Meta to resist becoming an “enforcement arm of foreign authoritarian governments.”
Meta restored Kimambi’s WhatsApp account in January, but her Instagram accounts remain disabled. The lawsuit does not indicate that her Facebook account has been restored.
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