When Ethiopians took to the streets in February in reaction to a highly politicized rift within the country’s Orthodox Tewahedo Church, government authorities temporarily blocked social media platforms. On the outside, it may have seemed like just another blunt force measure by an authoritarian state trying to quell social unrest. But the move was more keenly calculated than that — the rhetoric of social media influencers was having an outsized impact on how Ethiopians, both in the country and in Ethiopia’s politically influential diaspora, perceived what was happening. Similar to other moments of intense social conflict amid Ethiopia’s civil war, TikTok became a ground zero for much of the conflict playing out online.
In early February, three archbishops of the Orthodox Tewahedo Church — one of the oldest churches in Africa that dates back to the 4th century — accused fellow church leaders of discriminating against the Oromo people, who constitute the largest ethnic group in Ethiopia’s population of 120 million. While church members come from a diverse array of ethnic backgrounds, worship services are predominantly conducted in the liturgical language of Ge’ez and in Amharic, which is a language primarily spoken by the Amhara people. Amharic is the dominant language of Addis Ababa, Ethiopia’s capital, and the working language of the federal government. This linguistic predilection underlines the cultural clout of Amharic.
After the three archbishops — all of Oromo lineage — made their allegations of discrimination public, they were excommunicated by church authorities. They then declared their plans to form a breakaway synod, triggering an instant public outcry. The cleavages underlying Ethiopia’s civil conflict bubbled to the surface and devolved into violent skirmishes, resulting in a combined total of 30 fatalities in the southern Ethiopian town of Shashemene and in Addis Ababa.
But what was a serious political crisis for the church and for the country amounted to a prime opportunity for TikTok influencers seeking to spread their messages and turn a profit along the way.
