NAIROBI – Hey, here’s the scoop! Meta, you know, Facebook’s big boss, and its moderators in Kenya are being nudged towards the talking table. Why? A Kenyan court thinks it’s high time they ironed out their disagreements without all the courtroom drama. The clock’s ticking, though; they’ve only got 21 days before things might get a tad more legal.
Imagine being one of the 184 moderators, working hard, and then getting the boot from Sama for simply wanting to band together. Ouch! And, if that wasn’t a hard enough pill to swallow, these folks claim they’ve been blocked from even applying to Majorel, the next contractor Facebook partnered with. Talk about a double whammy!
So, what’s the court say? “Hey, let’s try and sort this out, outta the courtroom!” The big names helping with this pow-wow? None other than Kenya’s former top judge, Willy Mutunga, and Hellen Apiyo, who’s currently wearing the commissioner for labour hat. But here’s the catch: if our peeps don’t find common ground in 3 weeks, they’re headed right back to court.
Now, I rang up Meta, Sama, and Majorel for a little chit-chat, but they’re playing hard to get. No word yet!
Did you know? A judge already gave the green light for these moderators to sue Meta in Kenya a while back. Funny thing, Meta doesn’t even have an official office there! And boy, this could change the game for how Meta and their content checkers dance around the globe. I mean, the U.S. giant has a whole army of these guys, sifting through some wild stuff on their site.
And, wait for it… this isn’t Meta’s first rodeo in Kenya! A past moderator threw some shade their way over lousy working vibes at Sama. Add to that, a couple of Ethiopian researchers and a rights group say Meta’s been turning a blind eye to some nasty posts from Ethiopia on Facebook. Yikes!
In a twist, last May, Meta chirped that they demand top-notch conditions from their partners. And on the Ethiopia debacle? They hollered back last December, “Hate speech and violence pep talks? Nope, not on our watch – or at least not on Facebook and Instagram.”
Wild, right? Let’s see how this all pans out. Stay tuned, folks!
