The first video Daniel Motaung had to watch while working as a Facebook content moderator in Kenya was of a beheading. After just six months on the job, his mental health was spiraling.
"I was actually dysfunctional. I wasn't able to think properly," Motaung, 31, told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.
Today, he is suing Facebook's owner Meta over the working conditions he faced and has helped set up the first African union for content moderators whose daily job involves reviewing graphic content so social media users are spared from seeing it.
"The entire (social media) business model is actually dependent on content moderation ... It's high time they recognise that and treat us with the respect we deserve," he said following the union's launch last week during a meeting of Facebook, TikTok and ChatGPT moderators in Nairobi.
Globally, thousands of moderators review posts containing graphic content - keeping harmful material from appearing on users' feeds. Many work for third-party contractors rather than directly for tech companies.
Motaung's lawsuit, which was also filed against Meta's local outsourcing company Sama, seeks financial compensation, an order that outsourced moderators have the same healthcare and pay scale as Meta employees, unionisation protection and an independent human rights audit of the office.
Asked to comment on the lawsuit's allegations, a Sama spokesperson said the company cared "deeply about the health and emotional well-being of our team" and...
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