Kenyan content moderators at Meta have been fighting for better compensation for workers forced to watch videos of murder, rape, and ethnic cleansing. Meta was initially unwilling to give in to these demands, but Kenyan courts are intervening on the side of workers.

Meta, the parent company of Facebook, is facing multiple lawsuits in Kenya that highlight its refusal to work with organized labor for better working conditions. The first suit was filed by two Ethiopian researchers who accused Meta of failing to moderate extreme and violent content related to the Tigray War, resulting in the murder of one of their family members. Another suit was brought by a former content moderator who alleged that he was fired after attempting to unionize the moderators. A third suit claimed that Meta, along with subcontractors Sama and Majorel, illegally fired and blacklisted 183 employees. Despite Meta’s attempts to distance itself from the lawsuits, Kenyan courts have ruled that there is a case to be heard. The limited presence of content moderation operations in Kenya compared to the US and Western Europe raises concerns about disparities in worker treatment. Advocacy organizations like Foxglove support these cases and hope they will set precedents for workers fighting exploitation by big tech companies globally.