PTSD, depression and anxiety: Ex-Facebook Nairobi staff describe the horrors of their work
Summary
Date Reported: 19 Dec 2024
Location: Kenya
Companies
Meta (formerly Facebook) - Other Value Chain Entity , Sama - EmployerAffected
Total individuals affected: Number unknown
Migrant & immigrant workers: ( Number unknown - Africa , Technology: Internet & social media , Gender not reported , Documented migrants )Issues
Mental Health , Occupational Health & Safety , Forced Labour & Modern Slavery , Racial, ethnicity, caste or origin discrimination , Precarious/Unsuitable Living Conditions , Contract Substitution , Human TraffickingResponse
Response sought: Yes, by Journalist
Action taken: The case will be heard in February 2025.
Source type: News outlet
The men and women tasked with keeping social media safe have been exposed to horrific images and videos for years, a situation that has now sparked a Sh25.9 billion class action lawsuit against Facebook owner Meta and its local agents.
In new details filed in the Employment and Labour Relations Court, the 185 Facebook content moderators have shown how exposure to graphic social media content such as terrorism, child sexual abuse, and murder has exposed them to mental health disorders such as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and major depressive disorder (MDD).
A media who examined 140 content moderators said they were exposed to extremely graphic content on a daily basis including videos of gruesome murders, self-harm, suicides, attempted suicides, sexual violence, explicit sexual content, physical and sexual abuse of children and horrific acts of violence.
"That in my professional opinion, many of them were still in a precarious emotional state despite having stopped Facebook content moderation about a whole year before the examination took place," Dr Ian Kanyanya, a senior medical specialist in psychiatry, said in an affidavit supporting the case...