On Friday, a Kenyan judge halted the mass termination of dozens of content moderators by a subcontractor working for Facebook’s parent corporation Meta and ordered the social media giant to offer therapy to the staff members.
A lawsuit was launched in March by a total of 184 moderators who were hired by Sama, an outsourcing company for Meta, and who claimed their termination was “illegal.” Read here
Judge Byram Ongaya of the labour court stated in a 142-page decision that Meta and Sama were “restrained from terminating the contracts” until the outcome of the action contesting the validity of the termination.
The judge also stated that while the case is resolved, “an interim order is hereby issued that any contracts that were to expire before the determination of the petition be extended.”
Additionally, Ongaya prohibited Facebook’s new outsourcing company, Majorel, which has its headquarters in Luxembourg, from blocking the moderators from applying for the same positions.
Along with being required to “provide proper medical, psychiatric and psychological care for the petitioners and other Facebook content moderators,” Meta, which also owns Instagram and WhatsApp, was also given this directive.
The business informed the court that it will be appealing the judgement.
The internet giant with headquarters in California claims that the complainants are not employees of Meta and that it has no formal presence in the nation of East Africa.
Mercy Mutemi, the attorney for the petitioners, stated that it was “critical that the court has found Facebook is the true employer of its moderators” and that their clients were “very pleased” with the rulings.
“This ruling matters not just for the petitioners but the entire social media and AI industry,” Mutemi said in a statement.
The court’s decision was “a major blow to the outsourcing model Facebook uses to avoid responsibility for its key safety workers,” according to the British legal activist company Foxglove, which is backing the lawsuit.
The working circumstances of Meta’s content moderators have come under fire from those who claim they spend hours concentrating on unsettling and abusive remarks with little consideration for their own wellbeing.
In Kenya, the business is involved in two further court disputes.
Daniel Motaung, a former Sama employee from South Africa, complained in Kenya in 2022 about Sama and Facebook, citing, among other things, subpar working conditions and a dearth of mental health care.
In February, the Nairobi labour relations court ruled that Motaung’s case would be heard there. The verdict has been appealed by Meta.
across Kenya, a local NGO and two Ethiopian citizens have filed a second complaint against the social media behemoth for allegedly neglecting to take action against online hate speech across the continent.
The complainants demanded the establishment of a $1.6 billion fund to recompense the victims, alleging that this inaction led to the death of a university professor in Ethiopia.
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