African workers take dead and the world must pay attention Workers’ rights

In 2025, the largest social media company, Meta, took a new tone challenging on the issue of whether to what extent to which responsibility for harm in the real world enables its platforms.

This has been widely understood as a maneuver in favor of Carrie with the administration of President Donald Trump, CEO of Meta and its founder Mark Zuckerberg said, but in a video on January 7 he announces the end of the facts of the third party.

“We will work with President Trump to respond to governments all over the world, and note American companies and censure more,” said Zuckerberg.

To justify the company’s decisions to get rid of verification of facts and expand the scope of the rate on the content on its platforms, Zuckerberg and Meta appealed to the US constitutional protection for the right to freedom of expression. Fortunately, for those who live in introductory countries pledged to “retreat”, we also have constitutions.

In Kenya, for example, where a group of previous supervisors of Meta’s content represented a collective lawsuit against the company, the post -independence constitution differs from those in the United States and Western Europe while giving clear priority to human rights and basic freedoms. The constitutions of a large number of colonial countries shall participate in this matter, which is a response to how these rights violates when their people were pressed for the first time in the global economy.

We have now started to see how these constitutions can be obtained in the global technology industry. In a historic decision last September, the Kenyan Court of Appeal ruled that the content supervisors can raise the issue of human rights violations against Meta in the country’s action courts.

Few in the West will understand the importance of this ruling. Meta, for its part, certainly, which is why she fought against him teeth and nails in court and continues to use every diplomatic tool at its disposal to resist the demands of the content. Meta showed interest in appealing this decision to the Supreme Court.

Meta and other major American companies maintain the structure of complex companies to avoid exposure to taxes and organization in dozens of countries they undertake. They usually claim not to work in countries where they count millions of users and employ hundreds to improve their products. So far, these allegations have rarely challenged in court.

The content managers in the case are that they were appointed by the company’s foreign resources to use the commercial operation (BPO) called Sama, and they were placed exclusively as a supervisor of content on Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp and Messenger during the period from 2019 to 2023, when many African contents were implemented on these platforms in Nairobi. Meta behaves these workers and insists that they were only working by SAMA, a case that was currently lit before the courts in Kenya.

These workers know that the apparent reflection of Meta on the moderate content is nothing but anything. As shown in their grievances to the court, the company did not take the case seriously. Not seriously enough to stop civil and ethnic conflicts, political violence and mob attacks against marginalized societies that thrive on their platforms. It is not seriously enough to pay fair wages for people charged with making sure not. The damage travels in both directions: toxic content explodes the horrors of the real world, and that horror generates more toxic content that saturates platforms.

The content supervisor is a Meta digital cannon feed in a war against harmful content that the company was never committed to fighting. The issue of Nairobi’s contents explains how they accepted the jobs they believe will include the call and work center translation. Instead, they ended up at the Meta Center for Moderation in NAIROBI, where they spent their days exposed to endless torrents of violence and abuse.

Many of them had to see the atrocities committed in their countries of origin in order to protect Meta users from the damage to seeing these pictures and shots. They absorbed this shock until others in their societies did not have to have to do so, and many found that this is a noble invitation.

But this work affected their mental health. It was more than 140 former content supervisors Diagnosis With post -traumatic disorder, depression, or anxiety arising from their time in the job. A separate issue addresses how efforts to defend mental health care have been foiled better. What followed is a collective hairstyles and moderate transfer content content elsewhere.

Leave this behind hundreds of people with psychological trauma and trained human rights violations. Meta argues that he was never used for Facebook content supervisors and did not assume any responsibility for them. This litigation continues, and supervisors are now dependent on the courts to uncover the complications of their employment dynamics.

While fighting the case in the court, in March 2024, the company sent a delegation led by its president in global affairs at the time, Nick Cleg-former British Prime Minister-to meet with the Kenyan President William Roto and legislators to discuss, among other topics, the company’s vision of the government in the “Tawulid Revolution” to the continent. At the Townhall event in December, Ruto Sama confirmed the previous Meta partner For moderation in the content: “We have now changed the law, so no one can take you to the court again on any issue,” referring to a draft law passed in the Kenya Parliament, which encourages major technology companies from future issues like them.

All this rush happened before Trump’s re -election, and it seems that these efforts are trying to evade accountability for the company’s work practices and the effects of its products. But something great happened, which opens a door for others all over the world who work on behalf of the technology industry but touch the industry itself: the court ruled that our case could take trial.

The fact that the issue has evolved despite strong legal and political challenges is a testimony on the revolutionary nature of constitutions after colonialism, which gives priority to human rights above all.

As our condition continues in Kenya, I hope that you can provide an inspiration for technology workers in other countries after colonialism, they can also follow up accountability in countries that have been harmed. The right to freedom of expression is an important human right, but we will continue to remind great technology as the same importance is the right to dignity and freedom from exploitation.

The opinions expressed in this article are the author of the author and do not necessarily reflect the position of the editorial island.