1/14/2024 0 Comments Tap tap heroes facebookSama said all employees had unlimited access to one-on-one counseling “without fear of repercussions.” The contractor also called a recent court decision to extend the moderators’ contracts “confusing” and asserted that a later ruling pausing that decision means it has not gone into effect. In an email to the AP, Sama said the salaries it offered in Kenya were four times the local minimum wage and that “over 60% of male employees and over 70% of female employees were living below the international poverty line (less than $1.90 a day)” before being hired. Now, with no mental health care, he immerses himself in church instead.įacebook parent Meta has said its contractors are contractually obliged to pay their employees above the industry standard in the markets they operate and provide on-site support by trained practitioners.Ī spokesman said Meta could not comment on the Kenya case. He said counselors were poorly trained to deal with what his colleagues were experiencing. The Facebook contractor, U.S.-based Sama, did little to ensure post-traumatic professional counseling was offered to moderators in its Nairobi office, Nkuzimana said. The salary for content moderators was $429 per month, with non-Kenyans getting a small expat allowance on top of that. These days, he locks himself in his room to avoid his sons’ questions about why he’s no longer working and why they likely can no longer afford school fees. Even his wife had no idea what his job was like. Personal items like phones were not allowed at work.Īfter his shift, Nkuzimana would go home exhausted and often locked himself in his bedroom to try to forget what he had seen. They were asked to sign nondisclosure agreements. The 33-year-old said content moderation is like “soldiers” taking a bullet for Facebook users, with workers watching harmful content showing killing, suicide and sexual assault and making sure it is taken down.įor Nkunzimana and others, the job began with a sense of pride, feeling like they were “heroes to the community,” he said.īut as the exposure to alarming content reignited past traumas for some like him who had fled political or ethnic violence back home, the moderators found little support and a culture of secrecy. “If you feel comfortable browsing and going through the Facebook page, it is because there’s someone like me who has been there on that screen, checking, ‘Is this okay to be here?'” Nkunzimana, a father of three from Burundi, told The Associated Press in Nairobi. With little certainty of how long the case will take to conclude, the moderators expressed despair as money and work permits run out and they wrestle with the traumatic images that haunt them. They assert that the companies are ignoring a court order for their contracts to be extended until the case is resolved.įacebook and Sama have defended their employment practices. Earlier this year, they were laid off by Sama as it left the business of content moderation. The moderators from several African countries are seeking a $1.6 billion compensation fund after alleging poor working conditions, including insufficient mental health support and low pay. The group was employed at the social media giant’s outsourced hub for content moderation in Kenya's capital of Nairobi, where workers screen posts, videos, messages and other content from users across Africa, removing any illegal or harmful material that breaches its community standards and terms of service. It is the first known court challenge outside the United States, where Facebook settled with moderators in 2020. Now, Nkunzimana is among nearly 200 former employees in Kenya who are suing Facebook and local contractor Sama over working conditions that could have implications for social media moderators around the world. Some overwhelmed colleagues would scream or cry, he said. NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) - On the verge of tears, Nathan Nkunzimana recalled watching a video of a child being molested and another of a woman being killed.Įight hours a day, his job as a content moderator for a Facebook contractor required him to look at horrors so the world wouldn’t have to.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |