The case brought against Facebook’s parent company, Meta, has taken a new twist after the High Court in Kenya ordered the company not to engage any third-party content moderators.
This new development complicates Meta’s case in which 43 content moderators sued the company over allegations of discrimination.
The group of moderators were part of Meta’s former content moderation partner Sama, but they claimed they were blacklisted from acquiring jobs with the company’s new content moderating partner Majorel.
After the contract between Sama and Facebook expired earlier this year, Meta engaged Majorel to take over its content moderation activities.
However, the new directives now suspends Majorel and any other contractor from assisting Facebook in content moderation activities.
The court orders directed Meta not to engage third parties “through employment, subcontracting, or any manner whatsoever, content moderators to serve the Eastern and Southern African region through the 4th respondent (Majorel) or through any other agent, partner or representative, or in any manner whatsoever, engaging moderators to do the work currently being done by the moderators engaged through the 3rd respondent (Sama) pending the hearing of this application.”
Majorel is seeking to appeal the ruling saying that its business will be adversely affected since it had already recruited 200 moderators and set up a hub in Kenya.
Sama, on its part, said that it was accruing a huge wage bill by maintaining moderators without a job since its contract with Facebook has already expired.
Meta has allegedly engaged other providers for the same service, although it’s not clear who they are. It is this move that is suspected to have irked the court to issue the restraining orders.
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