43 Kenyan content moderators sue Meta for unfair dismissal
The friction between social media giant Meta and African-based content moderators has taken a new twist after 43 content moderators sued the company over allegations of discrimination.
The group of moderators were part of Meta’s former content moderation partner Sama, but they say they have been blacklisted from acquiring jobs with the company’s new content moderating partner Majore.
The petition filed before the Employment and Labour Relations Court also claims that Sama dismissed them in an unlawful manner and that no redundancy notices were issued as required by law.
Sama’s contract with Meta expired after the former shut down its content review business. The plaintiffs also say that Meta has instructed the Luxembourg-based partner, Majorel, to blacklist content moderators that previously worked at Sama. There were 260 content moderators working for Meta at Sama, sourced from several African countries.
In response to the allegations, Sama says that it “followed Kenyan law in every aspect and often gone above and beyond what is required. We communicated the decision to discontinue content moderation in a town hall, followed by an email and notification letter.”
The case between Meta and the moderators first came to light when a former employee Daniel Motaung sued the company over what he claimed was toxic work conditions.
