By Ammu Kannampilly
NAIROBI (Reuters) – A contractor hired by Facebook’s parent company Meta has rebuffed threats against content moderators by Ethiopian rebels angry about their work, according to new evidence filed in a case challenging the dismissal of dozens of moderators in Kenya .
Last year, 185 content moderators sued Meta and two contractors, alleging they lost their jobs at Sama, a Kenya-based company contracted to moderate Facebook content, as they tried to organize a union.
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They said they were then blacklisted from applying for the same positions at another company, Majorel, after Facebook changed contractors.
Moderators targeting Ethiopia said members of the Oromo Liberation Army (OLA) rebel group were targeted for the removal of their videos, but their complaints were dismissed by Sama, according to court documents filed on December 4 by Foxglove, a British non-profit organization that moderates the cause.
The moderators said in the petition seen by Reuters that Sama had accused them “of creating a false account and fabricating” the threatening messages, before ultimately agreeing to an investigation and one of the moderators, publicly accused by the rebels was identified and sent to a safehouse.
Sama told Reuters she could not comment on the allegations. Spokespeople for Meta and OLA did not respond to requests for comment.
Moderator Abdikadir Alio Guyo said in his affidavit that he received a message from OLA threatening “content moderators who were continuously deleting their graphic Facebook posts.”
“They told us we had to stop removing their content from Facebook or we would face dire consequences,” he said, adding that his supervisor dismissed his concerns.
Another moderator, Hamza Diba Tubi, said in his affidavit that he had received a message from OLA with the names and addresses of him and his colleagues.
“Ever since I received that threatening message, I have lived in so much fear to even visit my relatives in Ethiopia,” he said.
The government of Ethiopia’s largest region, Oromiya, has accused OLA rebels of killing “many civilians” in attacks that followed the collapse of 2023 peace talks in Tanzania aimed at resolving a decades-old conflict.
‘ENDLESS LOOP OF HATEFUL CONTENT’
The court documents also said Meta ignored the advice of experts it hired to tackle hate speech in Ethiopia.
Alewiya Mohammed, who oversaw dozens of moderators, said in an affidavit that she felt “stuck in an endless loop of having to review hateful content that we were not allowed to remove because it did not technically violate the Meta-policy”.
The out-of-court settlement talks between the moderators and Meta failed in October last year.
The case could have implications for the way Meta works with content moderators worldwide. The American giant works with moderators around the world who are tasked with reviewing graphic content posted on its platform.
The OLA is a banned splinter group of a previously banned opposition party. The grievances are rooted in the perceived marginalization of Ethiopia’s Oromo community.
In a separate case filed in Kenya in 2022, Meta was accused of allowing violent and hateful posts from Ethiopia to flourish on Facebook, fueling the civil war between the federal government and Tigrayan regional authorities.
(Reporting by Ammu Kannampilly)
