Rapes, deaths and abuse. These are the contents that Meta moderators must see daily , who were even hired under deceit in the centers in Africa.
A job that “is not for humans.” This is how hundreds of Meta workers in Kenya, Uganda, Ethiopia, South Africa and Somalia describe their work , who have the difficult task of moderating the content that is published on their social networks.
These employees were subcontracted by a company called Samasource Kenya EPZ, also known as Sama , and they demand better support and “better treatment” due to all the traumas suffered in the midst of this complicated work.
Deaths, beheadings and more
The AFP news agency collects some sad testimonies of what Africans suffered in this work.
On his first day as moderator in Nairobi alone, Trevin Brownie had to watch “a video of a man committing suicide while a 2-year-old boy was playing next to him”. This experience “made him sick and caused nausea and vomiting. But he had to continue ”.
Between 2020 and 2023, the period in which he worked, he had to see “beheadings, rapes, organs torn from bodies and pedophilia of the highest level” , all in order to eliminate them and prevent them from being seen by general users of the platform.
“Humans do things to other humans that I would never have imagined,” he says. “People have no idea what gory videos they’re getting rid of.”
The media sources indicate that they have symptoms of post-traumatic stress syndrome and difficulties in relating to family and society. Brownie, for example, assures that he “cannot see the children again because of the videos of child soldiers that he has had to delete.”