Facebook Content Moderators Stage A Sit-In Demanding For Salaries

At least 184 Facebook content moderators in Kenya, employed by Sama, staged a protest and a sit-in outside the company’s offices demanding their April salaries. Sama, Facebook Outsourcer, is said to be holding onto the salaries against a court order.

After 184 content moderators won a court order against Facebook and Sama blocking the company’s attempt to sack them all in a mass firing, the companies have violated the Court’s order by withholding people’s April pay.

This violation of the Court’s order has forced the moderators into urgent economic distress as they are unable to cover their basic needs, such as rent and essential expenses.

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Kenyan content moderators are the most important and least-discussed aspect of Facebook’s global operations. Their job is to sift through the social media posts of Facebook’s nearly 3 billion monthly users and remove posts that violate its rules – such as graphic violence, hate, and misinformation.

Moderators, and the conditions in which they work, are the foundation of a healthy social media ecosystem.

Facebook subcontracts most of this work to companies like Sama – a practice that keeps Facebook’s profit margins high but at the cost of thousands of moderators’ health – and the safety of Facebook worldwide.

Sama moderators reported ongoing violations, including conditions that are unsafe, degrading, and pose a risk of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

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During the sit-in, police officers were called in to calm the angry employees. The employees informed the police that their sit-in was peaceful and that all they were demanding was for their pay and an assurance from the management which was holed up in the main office.