The unbearable working conditions of Meta moderators

Meta recently stopped working with Sama, a contractor responsible for providing it with moderators for its platforms on the African continent.

In question ? A trial to be held in Kenya in the coming weeks. The parent company of Facebook and its now ex-subcontractor are accused of forced labor, human trafficking and anti-union practices. But Meta’s change of partner seems far from an act of good faith, when you look at who the company chose to replace Sama.

Moderator for Sama, horrible in content and form

The job of moderator for Meta, in essence, can be exhausting and very difficult to live with: spending entire working days watching images of aggression, violence, or simply very disturbing content can already, in itself, be enough dragging their feet to get to work. But Sama went even further by further degrading the working conditions of its employees.

Thus, last May, one of the moderators of this subcontractor located in Kenya filed a complaint against the two companies. Sama, in addition to offering a salary that does not exceed 2 dollars an hour, denies the slightest privacy to its employees and dismisses those who try to regroup in a union. Worse still, the firm would have omitted to specify on its job offers the nature of the content to be moderated, which means that most new recruits are presented with atrocious images and the fait accompli. As many non-Kenyan employees have come to the country for this job, it could be considered human trafficking. Alone and far from their countries, they are then forced to continue working for Sama, because no other work or social security awaits them.

Majorel worse than Sama?

Facebook and Sama, so it’s over. Make way for Majorel, who manages the feat of being considered similar to Sama, if not worse than her, in terms of working conditions. This outsourcing company based in Luxembourg would already have offices full of moderators for different companies around the world.

A Majorel employee in Kenya, who moderates TikTok content, explained to Wired that, for the equivalent of 281 dollars a month (almost half that of Sama), his work consisted of deleting videos of suicide or beheading, among many others. In addition, psychological support for employees is simply non-existent.

As for Meta, she will probably get away with an additional fine. After all, the group is also cited in two trials for complicity in genocide, it is not this one that will scare him.

Sources: Wired, Time