Kenyan outsourcing company for Meta sacks more than 1,000 workers

Social media corporation terminated Sama contract after allegations its staff viewed private scenes filmed by Meta’s smartglasses

More than 1,000 low-paid workers in Kenya have been abruptly sacked by an outsourcing company for the US social media corporation Meta, in what activists said was a “shocking” move exposing the precariousness of global south tech workers.

Sama, a company based in Nairobi to which Meta outsourced content moderation and AI training work, announced on Thursday that the workers were being laid off after Meta terminated a contract. That came in the after reports some of the Kenyan workers involved in data annotation were asked to view content filmed by the company’s AI smart glasses showing wearers using the toilet or having sex.