In recent months, various accusations have been leveled against social media giants in Africa. This could take another turn with the birth of an African union of moderators.

On the sidelines of labor day, last May 1, more than one hundred and fifty employees of subcontractors of Meta, OpenAI, or ByteDance met in Nairobi, pledging to create the first African union of content moderators, several media outlets reported.

The new union aims to address issues that these workers regularly complain about, including poor working conditions, pay that is sometimes less than $2 an hour, and the impacts of content moderation on their mental health.

"There have never been more of us. Our cause is right, our way is just, and we shall prevail. I couldn’t be more proud of today’s decision to register the Content Moderators Union," said Daniel Motaung, a former content moderator who was fired after he decided to register a content moderators’ union. 

The unionization efforts began three years ago after several contested terminations, including that of Daniel Motaung employed by Sama, the company responsible for Facebook content moderation in East and South Africa since 2019. 

Another issue that led to the creation of the union is the low budget dedicated to “the rest of the world.”  In 2021, a Wall Street Journal investigation found that Meta's Facebook was spending 87 percent of its disinformation resources in the United States and Western Europe at the time, leaving the rest of the world vulnerable to the dangers of misinformation.

By setting up the African Union of Moderators, the professionals who work or have worked for Facebook, TikTok, or ChatGPT hope to give workers more bargaining power, which can translate into higher wages, better working conditions, and more benefits.

Samira Njoya