Can Africa’s first content moderators union change Big Tech?

It’s the first union of its kind on the continent for African content moderators. Moderation is a crucial but thankless job that requires being exposed to the worst parts of the internet. While AI is rapidly developing, it still relies on an army of humans to fine-tune the technology. But especially at outsourcing centers abroad, workers say their Big Tech employers aren’t doing enough to safeguard and support their mental health. The moderators’ union was created after a former Facebook moderator in Kenya, Daniel Motaung, sued the social media giant and its subcontractor, saying his work in their Nairobi office caused him to suffer long-term mental trauma.

In this episode:

• Martha Dark (@martha__dark), co-founder and director of Foxglove
• John Kamara (@jjkamara), co-founder of AI Center of Excellence Africa

Episode credits:

This episode was produced by Miranda Lin and our host, Natasha Del Toro, in for Malika Bilal. Khaled Soltan fact-checked this episode.

Our sound designer is Alex Roldan.

Our lead of audience development and engagement is Aya Elmileik. Munera Al Dosari and Adam Abou-Gad are our engagement producers.

Alexandra Locke is The Take’s executive producer, and Ney Alvarez is Al Jazeera’s head of audio.

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