A Kenyan court has set a new date to hear submissions in a lawsuit brought against Meta and one of its outsourcing partners by a former Facebook content moderator, who accuses the companies of exploitation and union busting.
Daniel Motaung, the former moderator — heralded now internationally as a whistleblower — had filed a lawsuit in May against Meta and its Nairobi-based subcontractor, Sama, following his termination in 2019 amid an effort to unionize for better pay and working conditions.
In June, Meta’s lawyers asked the court to dismiss the case on jurisdictional grounds, arguing that because the company is not registered in Kenya it cannot be tried there. On Thursday, justice Jacob Gakeri pushed a hearing on the matter to Oct. 25 to accommodate Meta’s attorney, Fred Ojiambo, who sought an adjournment due to a scheduling conflict.
Motaung, who’s in his late twenties, has alleged that he and other workers at Sama were subjected to a toxic workplace that inflicted extreme mental distress.
A Black South African university graduate, Motaung travelled to Nairobi in 2019 after securing a position at Sama to moderate online content. His story has been extensively reported on this year by Time magazine.
Motaung told the court that only after he arrived in Nairobi and signed a non-disclosure agreement were the details of his job revealed: For up to nine hours a day, he and other Sama employees were bombarded with traumatising images, asked to decide whether to leave up or...
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