The African proletariat 2.0 in revolt

The ex-employees of Sama, who used to moderate content for Meta [Facebook], seem to be suffering a triple whammy. In January 2023, their employer lost its subcontract to the American company that owns Facebook. They are reportedly struggling to find work at Majorel, another specialist in content moderation, which has put them on a blacklist. Like Brownie, a young South African who was hired by the San Francisco company to work on the Nairobi centre, more than 184 Sama employees have decided to take Meta to court, making it the largest legal action brought by former moderators outside the USA. Mercy Mutemi, one of the moderators' lawyers, hopes to bring about lasting changes to the working conditions offered to the 15,000 moderators working around the world, a figure which is certainly underestimated. For the dismissed moderators, the battle is far from over. After years of bullying and intimidation from big tech companies, moderators are saying 'our work matters, we're tired of being treated like a dirty secret, and together we can force change'" said Cori Crowder, co-founder of Foxglove, a non-profit organisation that campaigns for justice in technology. Crowder's firm has been providing legal services to content moderators at various social media companies since 2019. In March, Foxglove reported that some of Sama's former employees had applied for similar roles at Majorel, the company responsible for taking over content moderation in Africa for Meta. But the workers claim that all their applications were rejected. Many Sama moderators applied for the 'new' positions at Majorel, in effect re-applying for the jobs they already had. Despite their obvious expertise and experience, they were not selected says Foxglove. The situation seems more complex than this: due to temporary rulings by the local courts, Majorel (soon to be acquired by Teleperformance) is partly prevented by the content of the court rulings from interfering in the termination of the contract between Sama and its client, until the final outcome of the legal proceedings. This could explain the precaution taken. The defenders of the former Sama employees point out that working conditions are even worse at Majorel, in terms of pay.

Kauna Malgwi, 29, is one of the former Sama employees whose life is currently on hold. Her job was to review and report content that breached Facebook's guidelines, set out in what is known as a moderation bible. She usually started her day at 7am, sifting through thousands of daily posts, many of which contained disturbing content such as videos of murders, road accidents, rapes, beheadings and suicides. She earned around 600 dollars a month. On 1er May, Malgwi was one of some 150 professionals from across Africa who met in Nairobi to pledge to create the Union of African Content Moderators. The aim of this initiative is to collectively negotiate better employment and working conditions with companies contracted by the likes of Meta, ByteDance (TikTok) and OpenAI. This initiative is seen as a decisive step, as previous attempts to unionise moderators in Africa have failed.