Content moderators from countries across Africa are staging a sit-in protest at Facebook’s main moderation hub for East Africa in Kenya’s capital, Nairobi.
The group of 184 moderators is involved in a redundancy case against Facebook’s parent company Meta, and Sama and Majorel, companies sub-contracted by Meta.
They are backed by legal campaign group Foxglove.
The protest is at Sama offices over what they say is the firm’s violation of a court order, which includes withholding some salaries and demanding that some moderators leave the country before they receive their dues.
A court order has been issued to protect the moderators’ status as legal migrants while the case is determined.
Meta, Sama and Majorel have yet to comment on the latest allegations.
Police have given the green light for the protest to proceed.
Employment and Labour Relations Court principal judge Byrum Ongaya is set to hear the case, including new contempt charges, on 11 May.
The court has blocked the sacking of all Sama moderators and the hiring of new moderators by Majorel Kenya on behalf of Meta.
Some of the moderators claim they have been exposed to graphic content such as child abuse, suicide bombings and sexual abuse as they screen posts to protect users.
In March, Sama laid off 260 moderators as it focused on work annotating videos to help train artificial intelligence computer vision systems.
Source: BBC