African content moderators are protesting working conditions at Facebook’s large East African moderation facility in Nairobi, Kenya.
184 moderators are taking part in a redundancy action against Facebook’s parent company Meta and its subcontractors Sama and Majorel. Foxglove, a legal advocacy group, is supporting them.
The moderators are furious because Sama is reportedly breaking a court order by delaying their money and asking them to leave the country before they are paid.
A court order has preserved the moderators’ immigration status while the case is being heard.
Meta, Sama, or Majorel have not responded to the current allegations. According to the police, the rally will go forward as scheduled.
On May 11, the Employment and Labour Relations Court’s top judge, Byrum Ongaya, will hear the case, which will contain the extra contempt charges.
Majorel Kenya’s efforts to replace all Sama moderators with new ones on behalf of Meta have been halted by the court.
While screening submissions to protect users, several moderators claim to have come across horrific content such as child abuse, suicide bombings, and sexual assault.
Sama had to let go of 260 moderators in March when it chose to change its focus to annotating videos for the purpose of teaching AI computer vision systems.
