By Enyichukwu Enemanna
Meta, the parent company of Facebook could be sued in connection with the dismissal of dozens of content moderators by a contractor, a court in Kenya ruled on Friday.
The content moderators had last year sued Meta and two contractors, saying they lost their jobs with a Kenya-based firm Sama, which was contracted to moderate Facebook content.
They were laid off for attempting to form a labour union.
They were also blacklisted from seeking employment in similar capacity at another firm, Majorel, after Facebook changed contractors, the former employees alleged.
In October last year, efforts to reconcile the moderators and Meta proved abortive.
Meta, a US-owned company works with moderators around the world tasked with the assignment of reviewing graphic content posted on its platforms.
Friday’s decision by the Court of Appeal upheld an earlier ruling by a Kenyan labour court in April 2023 that Meta could face trial over the moderators’ dismissals, which Meta appealed.
“The upshot of our above findings is that the appellants’ (Meta’s) appeals … are devoid of merit and both appeals are hereby dismissed with costs to the respondents,” the judges at the Court of Appeal said in their ruling.
Heritage Times HT gathered that the content moderators worked in difficult conditions, exposed to toxic and traumatic content, without adequate psychological support or fair remuneration.
Sama dismissed the more than 180 content moderators without just cause or compensation and announced the closure of its content moderation centre in Nairobi.
Some of the content moderators, led by 27-year-old South African young graduate, Daniel Motaung had in 2019 attempted to unionize and went on a seven-day strike, demanding pay rise and working conditions.
Instead of negotiating, Sama fired Motaung and told the other employees that they could be sacked, warning them to resign or get back to work.
The workers went back to work before the expiration of the seven days and there was no pay increase.
