Kenyan justice suspended Thursday, May 11 the breaches of contracts of several content moderators from Meta, the parent company of Facebook, in East Africa.
Meta, the parent company of Facebook, is before the Kenyan courts for three cases. A new court appearance took place on Thursday, May 11, in an action launched by 184 content moderators against Meta and Sama, its subcontractor for content moderation in East Africa. The plaintiffs, who accuse the two firms of “illegal” dismissal, saw their contracts terminated. Pending a judgment on the merits, the Kenyan justice has suspended these breaches of contract. She just reiterated that Sama should continue to pay her ex-employees, which Sama claims to do.
They consider their dismissal “unfair”
The plaintiffs accuse Meta and Sama of wrongful dismissal and consider the procedure “unfair”. They also deplore having faced “union busting” and have worked under conditions that they deem “unworthy”.
Many of them highlight in particular the consequences that this job has had on their mental health. Passy Namyalo is Ugandan, she worked as a content moderator for Sama for four years, before being fired in March: “I had a lot of posts to investigate, whether it was spam, fraud, adult or child nudity or online harassment and hate. I found myself watching videos showing people being stabbed, beheaded or shot or committing suicide by jumping off buildings. It’s traumatic.”
“We are in fact the soldiers of Facebook, we take the bullets to protect the users of the platform around the world.”
Passy Namyaloat franceinfo
Many moderators share the same feeling as Passy Namyalo. They also denounce a too heavy workload. which forced them to study chain publications, whatever their content.
To better defend their rights, just over 150 of them took the decision, on May 1, 2023, to set up their first union in Africa. They demand better compensation for their dismissal. They feel like they’ve been thrown away like “waste”, according to the term used by one of them. Some also say they face discrimination from Meta. Because they applied to work as content moderators at its new subcontractor, Majorel, but claim to have seen their applications blocked.
Moreover, with their new union, content moderators hope to obtain better recognition for their profession. In particular, they want to have access to better psychological support. They also feel that their salary is too low. People interviewed by franceinfo say they were paid between 400 euros and 500 euros gross per month. In short, they want an improvement in their working conditions.