A rights organisation has announced that content moderators in Kenya are challenging Facebook’s parent company Meta and two outsourcing firms for wrongful redundancy.
The 43 applicants claim that organising a union caused them to lose their employment with Sama, a Kenyan company hired to moderate Facebook content. Additionally, they claim that after Facebook shifted contractors, they were blocked from applying for the same positions at Majorel, another outsourcing company.
Despite having no official presence in the east African nation, Meta last month appealed a decision that said it could be sued in a separate lawsuit brought by a moderator over claimed unfair working conditions.
The court decisions might have an impact on how Meta collaborates with content moderators around the world. The American business collaborates with tens of thousands of moderators who are responsible for screening graphic material before it is posted on its platform.
Sama, the outsourcing company that has managed the office since 2019, informed the 260 content moderators working at Facebook’s moderation centre in Nairobi that they would be laid off in January, according to a statement from Foxglove.
According to the court petition, the moderators assert that Meta told Majorel not to recruit any moderators who had previously worked for Sama.
The moderators stated in their application that the redundancy being done is unlawful because no genuine or justifiable reason was provided for it.