Social media giant Meta and its Kenya-based content moderation partners Sama and Majorel face a new lawsuit in Kenya. In a petition filed today, 43 content moderators allege “unlawful dismissal” by Sama, whose contract with Meta ends this month after content closed his review department in January. They also dispute allegations of discrimination by his Majorel, Meta’s new content moderation partner. Majorel claims to have blacklisted all former Sama employees.
In a petition filed with the Employment and Labor Relations Court, the moderators allege that Sama fired them in an unlawful manner and that no notice of dismissal was issued. also alleges that moderators were not issued 30-day termination notices as required by Kenyan law, and that moderators’ final dues depended on signing confidentiality documents. .
Additionally, Meta instructed its new Luxembourg-based partner, Majorel, to blacklist content moderators who previously worked for Sama. A moderator who applied for a job at Majorel said he was “rejected because he had previously worked at the facility of the third defendant (Sama).”
According to court documents seen by TechCrunch, some of the 260 Sama content moderators affected are from African countries and cannot secure employment after March 31, when their contracts with Sama expire. must leave Kenya.
“This is a union-busting operation masquerading as mass layoffs. You can’t just switch suppliers and tell recruiters not to hire you because they are ‘troublemakers.’” Because they have the timidity to stand up for themselves. ” supports the case.
Sama, whose long list of customers includes OpenAI, will end its contract with Meta and its content review service in 2022 in the heat of a lawsuit filed in Kenya by former content moderator Daniel Motaung, instead of doing labeling work (computer vision data). Annotation).
Motuan, a South African, accused Sama and Mehta of forced labor and human trafficking, unfair labor relations, union busting and failure to provide “adequate” mental health and psychosocial support. He was fired for allegedly organizing the 2019 strike and trying to organize Sama employees.
The current lawsuit is the third lawsuit Meta has faced in Kenya, after another was filed by an Ethiopian in December over allegations that the social media giant failed to adopt sufficient security measures on Facebook. and, as a result, fueled the dispute that led to Meta. The dead, including the father of one of the petitioners, and his 500,000 Ethiopians during the Tigray War that ended late last year.
The lawsuit alleges that the social site amplified hateful content and failed to hire enough people who understood the local language to moderate the content.
