Meta Platforms Inc (Meta), formerly Facebook Inc, systematically underpaid Kenyan employees who provided moderation services across its artificial intelligence (AI) technologies and could owe those workers millions of shillings in back wages, the Employment and Labour Relations Court heard in a complaint filed earlier this week in Nairobi.
In the suit papers, 185 former freelance moderators of Facebook and Meta AI accused the social networking company of essentially misclassifying workers from Kenya to pay them less money than their colleagues working in Europe and the US. The complaint claims that employees in other countries were paid between Ksh2,322 ($18) and Ksh2,580 ($20) per hour, while those in Kenya received about Ksh283 ($2.20) per hour for doing similar work.
Much like in the OpenAI case, the affected employees allege that they were involved in managing and regulating content that appeared to have been pulled from the darkest recesses of the internet, with some of it depicting situations such as child sexual abuse, bestiality, murder, suicide, torture, self-harm, and incest, in graphic detail.
> Kenyan OpenAI Workers Fight for Safer Workplaces, Higher Pay, Full Set of Changes
“The work of a moderator is in itself not easy and is inherently toxic and dangerous. This is because moderators are exposed to the worst of humanity, which they must consume in order to keep the Facebook platform healthy for everyone else,” the moderators stated in the suit papers.
Despite the toll on their mental health, Meta reportedly ignored their well-being, providing only Ksh50,000 for inpatient and outpatient medical coverage.
“Moderators came into the job as promising young Africans but leave as broken shells of themselves, unsure if they will ever recover. They have helped build the company into the giant it is but leave with nothing but psychological scars from inhumane treatment,” the moderators’ lawyers said in court.
While Meta argued it couldn’t be sued in the country because it was not their direct employer, it was listed in the lawsuit as the main respondent, alongside its outsourcing partners Samasource EPZ Kenya Ltd, Majorel Kenya, and Majorel Kenya Solutions.
Leave a comment