Meta lose case over employee exploitation, court rule the firm can be sued in Kenya
Facebook parent company Meta has lost in its bid to stop a case accusing it of exploitation and poor working conditions.
High Court judge Jacob Gakeri yesterday dismissed a request by a former content moderator at Sama, a company contracted by Meta to review Facebook posts, alleging that workers in Kenya were subjected to inhumane conditions, including forced labour, irregular pay and no right to unionise.
My finding is that the second (Meta Platforms Inc) and third respondent (Meta Platforms Ireland Ltd) shall not be struck from the proceeding,” Gakeri said.
The judge said the companies were “proper parties” in the case but however found that the petitioner should have furnished Meta with the court papers and ordered him to do so to enable the company respond to the claims raised against it.
Meta sought to have the case struck down, arguing that the local employment and labour relations court had no jurisdiction over it because it is neither based in nor trades in Kenya.
Daniel Moutaung, a South African national working in Nairobi had sued the company in October last year over alleged failure to cater for the mental well-being of employees and claimed that he was sacked after questioning the working conditions.
“Sama and Meta acted negligently by failing to provide adequate precautions for the safety, health and wellbeing of the Face book content moderators and exposing them to risk, danger and injury of which they were aware,” he says in the court papers.
The former worker made 16 demands in the lawsuit, including damages for alleged violation of constitutional rights and an order stopping Meta and Sama from interfering with content moderators’ rights to freedom of expression and right to join a workers’ trade union.
He also wants Meta and Sama to cater for the cost of life long treatment for current and former content moderators engaged through Sama for any mental health problems that they may have developed as a result of being content moderators.
“Content moderation at Facebook has been found to pose a risk to workers’ mental health. Because of their repeated exposure to gruesome content such as beheadings, torture and rape, a significant number of Facebook moderators contract post-traumatic stress disorders (PTSD),” says the petitioner.
Ten organisations and state offices have been listed as interested parties including the Kenya National Human Rights Commission, Attorney General, Ministry of Labour and the Export Processing Zone Authority.
