The content moderators taking Big Tech to court
Business Daily
BBC
4.4 • 816 Ratings
🗓️ 12 February 2024
⏱️ 18 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
We hear from former moderator Daniel Motaung, who has taken Meta and their outsourcing partner, Sama, to an employment tribunal in Nairobi.
US lawyer Cori Crider, from tech justice NGO Foxglove - which supports Daniel and others who have taken legal action - believes that content moderation is one of the most important tech jobs, particularly when there is a conflict in the region. The recent war in Ethiopia and some of the posts made on Facebook were the catalyst for another lawsuit challenging Facebook’s algorithms.
And social researcher and activist Leah Kimathi believes that there is not enough investment in moderating in various African languages. She also campaigns for the Big Tech and African governments to end, what she calls, the “Wild West” approach and get together to create specific legislation governing how social media companies operate on the continent.
Produced and presented by Ivana Davidovic
(Image: Daniel Motaung. Credit: Foxglove)
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | In 1969, a plan to show support for an anti-racism protest turned the lives of 14 promising black student athletes upside down. |
| 0:09.9 | Amazing sports stories from the BBC World Service tells their story. |
| 0:14.3 | Search for amazing sports stories wherever you get your BBC podcasts. |
| 0:19.0 | Hello and welcome to Business Daily with me, Ivana Davidovich. |
| 0:22.5 | Do you use TikTok, Facebook, YouTube? |
| 0:25.1 | Perhaps you are sometimes disturbed by the content you see on social media, |
| 0:29.2 | stuff that has slipped through the net of content moderation. |
| 0:33.1 | But spare a thought for people sifting through the most violent content on social media day in, day out. |
| 0:39.4 | For them, the unrelenting viciousness can have life-changing consequences. |
| 0:44.5 | Soon after exposure to this toxic online content, I developed a heightened fear of death where it became difficult for me to go into public spaces. |
| 0:53.8 | Content moderators around the world have been demanding better working conditions and respect for their work. |
| 0:59.7 | But in the last year, the spotlight has been on Africa, and in particular Kenya, |
| 1:04.9 | where moderators have taken their grievances to court. |
| 1:07.6 | You see that the money and the resources that are directed towards platform safety are |
| 1:14.0 | mega, really a drop in the ocean compared to what they use in Europe and in them in America. |
| 1:20.1 | And this is purely a case of structural resisting. |
| 1:23.5 | That's all coming up in Business Daily from the BBC. |
| 1:28.8 | My name is Mascy Mutemi. |
| 1:31.8 | I represent Daniel Motowum. |
| 1:34.5 | This is Kenyan lawyer Mercy Mutemi, speaking outside of a courthouse in Nairobi on the day a landmark case was filed on behalf of her client, Daniel Motowung. |
| 1:43.8 | My client is a former content moderator who was in New York. landmark case was filed on behalf of her client, Daniel Motauung. |
| 1:52.5 | My client is a former content moderator who was engaged for Facebook through Summer. |
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