Help Facebook African content moderators fight for justice from Facebook.

We are a group of over 180 Facebook content moderators in Nairobi, Kenya. Facebook and their outsourcing company Sama recently sacked us in a sham redundancy. We are taking Facebook to court but despite court orders demanding our salaries continue to be paid - Facebook and Sama have withheld our salaries. Because of this, we can’t afford rent or to feed our families or even support ourselves. We want to keep fighting but we can’t afford to live and we are asking for your help.

The work of social media content moderators is critical to the safe functioning of Facebook. Our job was to review extreme violence, sexual content and hate speech for hours each day to keep the platform safe for users. We did this for low pay, without proper mental health care and it has caused us great harm.

Recently, Facebook and their Kenya based outsourcing company, Sama sacked all of us in a sham redundancy. We quickly realized our jobs were not being cut, but that Facebook was simply switching providers from Sama to another outsourcing company, Majorel. When we tried to re-apply for our jobs at Majorel, we were shocked to find we’d been blacklisted from doing so.

We have decided to take Facebook and Sama to court. In response, the judge issued a court order that blocked us being made redundant and ordered Facebook and Sama to pay us our salaries until a full hearing can take place.

Facebook and Sama are choosing to ignore the court orders and haven’t paid us our April salaries. Despite the vital importance of our work, Facebook and their outsourcing companies pay us terribly, with most of us earning around $2.20 before we lost our jobs. We don’t have savings. Many of us(90% foreigners) have been left destitute, unable to find new work, pay rent, medical bills or feed our families.

We are waiting for the case to be heard properly in court. We want to keep fighting the legal fight to hold Facebook and Sama to account but we need to be able to afford to live. We are asking for any contribution to help us survive - big or small. Please donate.

We have set up a dedicated bank account for these funds and appointed a nine-member management committee to hold, manage and distribute any funds received. Our names are: Moipone Mmusi, James Irungu, Shukria Ali, Caroline Njeri, Lubega Edward, Musa Abubakar, Kauna Ibrahim Malgwi, Ciella Irambona and Frank Mugisha K.

We the finance committee agree to be the caretakers of funds raised for the welfare of content moderators during this litigation period. We agree to split it equally amongst the petitioners. We agree the funds can only be spent on: -

1. Rent.
2. Upkeep.

We also agree the funds will be distributed in theses ways: -

• Rent & Upkeep; total of monies will be sent to the individuals.

We are trying to raise $25000 which will at least allow us to pay our rent for a month. Please help with anything you can afford.

Thank you so much for your support, it means a lot. If you are not in a position to donate financially please share this fundraising page with friends and family to spread the word. Thank you, we will keep you posted.