Kenya: 43 fired Facebook moderators file suit against Meta

A group of 43 Facebook moderators fired in January have announced they are filing a lawsuit in Kenya against the social network's parent company Meta for, among other things, "unlawful dismissal," according to a statement released Monday.

Meta, which also encompasses Instagram and WhatsApp, has undertaken to reduce its workforce by nearly 25% in less than six months, a symbol of the difficulties faced by the tech sector.

"In January, 260 content moderators working at Facebook's moderation center in Nairobi, Kenya, were informed that they would be let go by Sama, the outsourcing company that has run the office since 2019. Overnight, these moderators doing critical work for East and Southern Africa have lost their jobs," the statement said.

"43 moderators at Facebook's moderation center in Nairobi are filing a lawsuit against the social media company and its contractors for firing the entire workforce - and for blacklisting all the fired workers," the statement continued.

In December 2022, a Kenyan NGO and two Ethiopian citizens filed a complaint in Kenya against Meta, accusing the platform of not fighting enough online hate and demanding the creation of a fund of 1.6 billion dollars to compensate victims.

After posting insolent growth since its creation, Facebook, which became Meta at the end of 2021, has been suffering from a slowdown in online advertising since last year.