Nairobi – Hundreds of Africans tasked with scouring platforms such as Facebook, TikTok and ChatGPT for graphic content have joined the continent’s first union for content moderators, but organizers say some fear losing their jobs if their membership is revealed.
The union was established in Nairobi in May with the help of former Facebook moderator and whistleblower Daniel Motaung, who experienced firsthand both the mental toll of this grueling work, and the challenges of holding Big Tech to account.
Last year, Motaung, a South African, filed a lawsuit against Facebook’s parent company Meta and its local outsourcing firm Sama, alleging irregular pay, union-busting and inadequate mental health support resulting in trauma.
That suit, filed by Motaung on behalf of a group, is still working its way through the Kenyan courts.
The union is the logical next step in Motaung’s battle to eradicate detrimental working practices in a billion-dollar industry that employs thousands of people — often on very low wages — to protect social media users from harmful content.
Motaung, who will speak at the Thomson Reuters Foundation’s annual Trust Conference this week, said the union aims to ensure the rights of hundreds of content moderators in Africa, who are employed through third-party outsourcing companies.
“The union is to fight against the exploitation of workers in Africa by big tech firms, especially in terms of their mental health and wages,” said Motaung, who suffers from mental trauma after being exposed to posts such as beheadings and child abuse.
“Since May, we have had more members joining the union, but it’s been a difficult process,” he told Thomson Reuters Foundation, citing challenges such as workers’ concerns over job losses and the long process of registering the union in Kenya.
As well as facing Motaung’s lawsuit, Meta and U.S.-headquartered Sama are also being sued by a group of more than 180 former moderators who claim they were fired for complaining about poor working conditions and attempts to form a union.
Both firms said they could not comment on the lawsuits, but Sama said it supported its employees right to unionize and was involved in mediation efforts in the second lawsuit.
Globally, thousands of moderators are employed to review graphic social media posts that could depict violence, nudity, racism or other offensive content, with many working for third-party contractors.
But content moderators in countries such as Kenya have increasingly complained about issues such as lack of mental health support, poor pay and short-term contracts.
Motaung is seen as one of the pioneers of this movement to demand accountability from some of the world’s richest companies.
At the May meeting in Nairobi — a hub for outsourced content moderation in East Africa —...