Kenya: Former employee sues Meta & its contractor Sama for alleged human trafficking & poor mental health support
"Meta being sued by ex-Facebook content moderator"
Meta and its contractor Sama are being sued by a former content moderator, who alleges human trafficking and poor mental health support. Daniel Motaung says he was paid about $2.20 (£1.80) per hour to review posts including beheadings and child abuse. The case, brought in Nairobi, claims job adverts failed to warn of the extreme content moderators like Mr Motaung would see. Sama has called the allegations "disappointing and inaccurate". Meta declined to comment directly on the lawsuit, but in the past has said that it takes its responsibility to the people who review content "seriously" and that it requires its partners "to provide industry-leading pay, benefits and support".
Facebook employs thousands of moderators to review content flagged by users or artificial intelligence systems to see if it violates the platform's community standards, and to remove it if necessary. Mr Motaung said the first graphic video he saw was "a live video of someone being beheaded". Regularly seeing such extreme content "ends up taking you to a place that you never imagined", he said. Describing the impact it had, he added: "My life is like a horror movie.