Meta’s key content review partners in Africa have been barred from moderating the social media giant’s platforms in sub-Saharan Africa, so it’s unclear who is monitoring them. Meta moderators delete hatred, disinformation, and violent social media messages.
Due to Kenyan court injunctions, Meta’s new moderating partner, Majorel, could not replace Sama, the leaving subcontractor.
However, Sama placed all content moderators on paid leave on April 1, creating a void. After Sama shut down its content moderation division to focus on machine vision data annotation, the court prohibited it from firing over 200 moderators at its Kenya hub.
The orders were maintained Thursday after some moderators filed an emergency appeal in mid-March alleging wrongful termination by the corporation and Meta and Majorel blocklisting.
The court’s temporary restrictions prevented Sama from reviewing the moderators’ contracts, which ended on March 31. Sama’s Meta contract expired in March.
Sama reviewed Meta’s material until the lawsuit was heard. It also forbade Facebook from hiring anybody else, including Majorel, Sama’s replacement, to serve sub-Saharan Africa.
The court barred Meta from “through employment, subcontracting, or any manner whatsoever, content moderators to serve the Eastern and Southern African region through the 4th respondent (Majorel) or through any other agent, partner or representative, or in any manner whatsoever, engaging moderators to do the work currently being done by the moderators engaged through the 3rd respondent (Sama) pending the hearing of this application.”
In court filings reviewed by TechCrunch, Majorel said the orders preventing it from providing content review services to Meta risk its business continuity and the livelihoods of the 200 moderators it engaged after opening a hub in Kenya late last year.
“For as long as the interim orders made by the court preventing it from performing the content moderation projection remain in place, that the revenue it expected to cover the investments made by the 4th Petitioner (Majorel) is at risk and may be lost,” said Majorel director Sven Alfons A De Cauter in the affidavit.
Sama said its contract with Meta had terminated, and it was collecting a significant pay bill, leaving moderators unemployed.
Meta has hired alternative suppliers while Majorel and Sama wait for the petition decision, prompting contempt of court accusations by the petitioners. Meta informed TechCrunch it works with “global partners,” but the other subcontractors remain unknown.
Sama and Majorel had to recruit moderators from Ethiopia, Uganda, Somalia, and South Africa since the “global partners” may not sort through information in hundreds of African languages.
Meta is also being sued in Kenya for stoking the Tigray conflict, which killed over half a million people, due to a lack of local language and context-savvy moderators.
