Meta can be sued over moderator layoffs, Kenya court rules

A court in Kenya has ruled that Facebook’s parent company Meta could be sued in the East African nation over the dismissal of dozens of content moderators by its contractor, Sama, a Kenya-based firm contracted to moderate Facebook content. The court also ruled that Meta could be sued in Kenya over alleged poor working conditions of the contractors.

According to a Reuters report, the decision by the Court of Appeal, last Friday, 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.

Recall that some content moderators sued Meta and two content moderation contractors (Sama and Majorel) for unlawful redundancy and blacklisting after laying off all 260 of its content moderators in Kenya in March 2023, after it ended its contract with Facebook.

According to them, they lost their jobs with Sama for trying to organise a union. They said they were then blacklisted from applying for the same roles at another firm, Majorel, which is based in Luxembourg after Facebook changed contractors.

The tech giant had previously made an effort to disassociate itself from a lawsuit filed by a former content moderator alleging unfavourable working conditions by asking that it be dismissed because the plaintiff, Daniel Motaung, is not a member of their staff but rather Sama’s.

Meta argued that it is not incorporated in Kenya, only conducting business, and it outsourced its content moderation work via Sama, a U.S.-headquartered company with operations in the East African nation.

In August 2023, the court ordered the parties to resolve their dispute out-of-court within 21 days. The court’s order aims to encourage a resolution between the parties without going through a formal trial, offering an opportunity for both sides to find an agreement outside of the courtroom.

 the mediation will be overseen by two individuals: Willy Mutunga, Kenya’s former chief justice, and Hellen Apiyo, the acting commissioner for labour. They will facilitate discussions and negotiations between the parties to help them arrive at a mutually agreeable resolution.

The court order specified that the parties have a timeframe of 21 days to attempt mediation. If they are unable to resolve within this period, the case will then proceed before the court for further adjudication, potentially leading to a formal trial.

More issues for Sama and Meta

In another streak, Sama was accused of shielding an employee who allegedly raped two colleagues and sacking one of his victims to protect the company’s reputation.

Two former employees in Sama’s Kenyan office told OpenDemocracy that managers fostered an unsafe work environment by ignoring or minimising their allegations of rape against one of their colleagues.

One employee who was new in Kenya said that when she was raped by a colleague who had visited her at home another colleague “informed the management of the assault.” Having only recently moved to Kenya, she said she assumed Sama would assist her in filing a local police report. But she says a senior manager instead told her not to involve police.

“Afterwards, there was no further action from the company,” she said. She said that the company left him on staff and asked that he call her and apologise.

Going forward…

Meta also finds itself embroiled in similar lawsuits across the continent. One case involves a former moderator who has sued the company, alleging poor working conditions while employed at Sama, one of its subcontractors.

Another set of lawsuits includes actions by two Ethiopian researchers and a rights institute. They accused Facebook’s parent company of allowing violent and hateful content from Ethiopia to proliferate on the Facebook platform.

Meta has responded to these legal actions in these two instances. In May 2022, in response to the case regarding poor working conditions, the big tech company stated that it mandates its partners to offer industry-leading working conditions to their employees.

In the case involving the promotion of hate speech and incitement to violence from Ethiopia, Meta responded in December, emphasizing that such content goes against the rules of both Facebook and Instagram. It also implied that the company took measures to address and prevent it.

These legal actions and Meta’s responses highlight the challenges that social media platforms face in managing content and working conditions on a global scale and the impact that local legal proceedings can have on their operations and policies.

The outcome of this particular case could potentially impact how the company engages with content moderators on a global scale.