Facebook Parent Meta sued by Kenyan content moderators for unlawful dismissal

Facebook content moderators in Kenya are suing the parent company of social media site Meta and two outsourcing companies for unlawful dismissal, a rights group said on Monday.

The 43 candidates say they lost their jobs at Sama, a Kenya-based company responsible for moderating Facebook content, for organizing a union. They also say they were blacklisted for applying for the same positions at another outsourcing company, Majorel, after Facebook changed contractors.

Meta last month filed an appeal in Kenya challenging a ruling that he could be sued in a separate lawsuit brought by a moderator over alleged poor working conditions, even though he has no attendance. official in this East African country.

The court cases could have implications for how Meta works with content moderators around the world. The American company works with thousands of moderators around the world, responsible for reviewing the graphic content published on its platform.

“This is a union busting disguised as a mass dismissal. You can’t just switch suppliers and tell recruiters not to hire your workers because they are ‘troublemakers’ – that is, say because they have the temerity to defend themselves,” said Cori Crider of Foxglove, a tech advocacy group that supports the latest lawsuit.

Meta, Majorel and Sama did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

In January, 260 content moderators working at Facebook’s moderation center in Nairobi were told they would be fired by Sama, the outsourcing company that has run the office since 2019, Foxglove said in a statement.

Moderators accuse Meta of ordering Majorel not to hire moderators previously employed by Sama, according to the court’s motion.

“The dismissal undertaken is unlawful as no genuine or justifiable reason was given for the dismissal,” the moderators said in their application.

“Moderators received variable and confusing information

explanations for redundancy that don’t add up.”

© Thomson Reuters 2023​

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