For the second time this year, a Kenyan judge has rejected attempts by tech giant Meta to not…
For the second time this year, a Kenyan judge has rejected attempts by tech giant Meta to not answer to Kenyan justice over alleged unlawful layoffs of staff.
The first refusal came in February when a Kenyan labour court decided that Meta could be prosecuted for allegedly having terrible working conditions after one former moderator at the Nairobi hub filed a claim against it.
After 43 moderators at the Nairobi headquarters of Facebook’s parent company Meta last month filed a case against the corporation and its local partner Sama for unjust termination, a Kenyan High Court judge today determined that Meta could be sued in Kenya.
“The court finds that this court has jurisdiction to determine the matter of alleged unlawful and unfair termination of employment on grounds of redundancy,” Nduma said on Thursday.
Reuters reports that the moderators, who are now 184 in number, in a petition, said they were fired in retaliation for complaints about working conditions and attempts to form a union.
“I do this work because I believe in protecting people,” said Juanita Jones, a moderator in the petition. Moderation is the frontline defence of the internet – and it is time to value the work like it, not treat it as some disposable, dead-end job,” Jones said.
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What you should know
This case began last year when Meta was sued for $2 billion in Kenya’s High Court for allegedly encouraging hate speech, inciting ethnic conflict, and failing to moderate content in Eastern and Southern Africa. Meta and Sama, the sub-contractor, have faced many legal issues with their content moderation policies, the workplace culture, and the negligence of employees’ mental health.
And then in January this year, executives told all 260 moderators at Facebook’s moderation hub in Sama Nairobi that they were being made redundant and would lose their jobs. But later on, it surfaced that the positions were not, in fact, redundant but that Facebook was merely switching suppliers to another outsourcer, Majorel.
Afterwards, Sama, the sub-contractor, said it would discontinue its services for the IT giant and close its regional headquarters by March 31st. However, it could not change its employment terms since interim court orders barred it from conducting any reviews.
Meanwhile, this came after the firm shut down its content moderation division to focus on labelling work (computer vision data annotation). The Labour Court, however, prevented Sama from firing more than 200 moderators at its hub in Kenya.
Instead, it pushed for Meta’s ex-content moderation partner, Sama, to continue the contract until the case before the court is determined. It also placed a court order preventing Meta, the parent company of Facebook, third-party content moderators from reviewing any content on the platform. The order was extended to Majorel, Meta’s new content moderation partner.
Recruiters also allegedly told the existing moderators that they were effectively blacklisted from applying for the new roles at the Luxembourg-based Majorel after Facebook switched contractors – a move the moderators say amounts to an unlawful blacklist of moderators and is punishment for organising.
In response, Facebook made a similar argument to one it had previously made in another pending moderator case – brought by union leader Daniel Motaung – saying it lacked a registered office in Kenya, did not trade in Kenya, and therefore could not be subject to Kenyan jurisdiction at all.
Today’s ruling rejects Facebook’s argument.
The court found that Facebook was properly served and: “have rightly been placed within the territorial jurisdiction of the Court.” It said the extent to which Facebook is the true employer of content moderators it hires through outsourcing firms, such as Sama or Majorel, is a question of fact that can only be determined at a full trial of the issues.
It ruled that Facebook could not take any further action to fire these Sama moderators or switch the provider to Majorel, and it ordered that the whole trial contesting the layoff be listed as a priority.
Trevin Brownie, a content moderator in the petition, said: “We are so happy about today’s ruling. Facebook terrified those of us with families to support that we will be thrown away with no future.
Content moderation shouldn’t be used to try and make huge profits for Facebook – they should be treated like law enforcement. You don’t hire police to try and make money – you hire them to stop crimes. It’s the same with content moderation.”
It is unclear how the social media platform intends to riggle itself out of the current lawsuit other than to go ahead with the trial and get a favourable or unfavourable judgment. Either way, it continues to suffer huge damage to its operation in Africa and the accumulated cost of having Sama as a subcontractor. Sama’s contract was supposed to expire on March 31st
On the other hand, Majorel is protesting against the court orders as it is prohibiting it from providing content review services to Meta, claiming that they endanger both its business continuity and the livelihoods of the 200 moderators it hired after establishing a hub in Kenya late last year.
Meanwhile, this is not the first lawsuit Meta is facing concerning the content it posts on its platform. Some months before the Kenyan lawsuit, The Whistleblower Frances Haugen previously accused Facebook of fanning ethnic violence in Ethiopia.