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Social media giant Meta and its Kenya-based content moderation partners, Sama and Majorel, are facing a new lawsuit in Kenya. In a petition filed today, 43 content moderators allege “illegitimate termination” by Sama, whose contract with Meta expires this month after closing its content review department in January. They also dispute alleged discrimination by Majorel, Meta’s new content moderation partner, who they say blacklisted all of Sama’s former employees.
In a petition filed with the labor tribunal, the moderators allege that Sama unlawfully fired them, claiming no notices of dismissal were issued. Among other things, the lawsuit also alleges that the moderators were not given 30 days’ notice as required by Kenyan law and that their dues depend on them signing non-disclosure documents.
Further allegations include that Meta instructed its new Luxembourg-based partner, Majorel, to blacklist content moderators who previously worked at Sama. It said moderators applying for jobs at Majorel “were rejected because they previously worked at the 3rd Respondent’s (Sama) facility.”
Court documents seen by TechCrunch allege that some of the 260 affected Sama content moderators came from countries across Africa and must leave Kenya if they cannot find work after March 31, when their contracts with Sama expire.
“This is a union-destroying operation masquerading as a mass layoff. You can’t just switch suppliers and tell recruiters not to hire your employees because they are ‘troublemakers’ – that is, because they have the guts to stand up for themselves,” said Cori Crider, a Foxglove executive. a non-technological judge who supports the case.
Sama, whose long list of clients includes OpenAI, dropped Meta’s contract and content review services to focus on tagging work (computer vision data annotation), following the heat of a 2022 lawsuit in Kenya by former content moderator Daniel Motaung.
Motuang, a South African, had accused Sama and Meta of forced labor and human trafficking, unfair labor relations, breaking up unions and failing to provide “adequate” mental health and psychosocial support. He is said to have been fired for organizing a strike in 2019 and trying to unite Sama employees.
The current lawsuit is the third facing Meta in Kenya, after another case was filed in December by Ethiopians over allegations that the social media giant had taken insufficient security measures on Facebook, which in turn has fueled conflicts that have resulted in deaths, among others. who their father, and 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 staff with knowledge of local languages to moderate content.
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