Content moderators from across Africa are protesting at Facebook’s main East African moderation hub in Nairobi, Kenya’s capital.
The 184 moderators are involved in a redundancy case against Facebook’s parent company Meta, as well as Sama and Majorel, which are Meta subcontractors.
Foxglove, a legal advocacy group, is behind them.
The protest is taking place at the Sama offices in response to what they claim is a violation of a court order, which includes withholding some salaries and demanding that some moderators leave the country before receiving their dues.
A court order has been issued to protect the moderators’ legal status while the case is being resolved.
Meta, Sama, and Majorel have yet to respond to the new allegations.
The protest has been given the go-ahead by the police.
On May 11, Employment and Labour Relations Court principal Judge Byrum Ongaya will hear the case, which includes new contempt charges.
The court has barred Majorel Kenya from firing all Sama moderators and from hiring new moderators on Meta’s behalf.
As they screen posts to protect users, some moderators claim they have been exposed to graphic content such as child abuse, suicide bombings, and sexual abuse.
Sama laid off 260 moderators in March to focus on work annotating videos to aid in the training of artificial intelligence computer vision systems.
