Mass layoffs in Kenya raise serious concerns over Meta’s evasion of corporate accountability
Equidem raises serious concerns over the mass layoffs of more than 1,100 workers in Nairobi, Kenya, following the termination of contracts between Meta and its contractor Sama. These redundancies occur in the wake of sustained judicial scrutiny of labour practices in Kenya’s technology supply chains. Rather than using this moment to correct documented harms, Meta’s strategy has been to cut contractual ties and walk away, evading corporate accountability at the expense of workers in the Global South.
As Equidem documents in Scroll. Click. Suffer., workers in content moderation and data annotation occupy a structurally precarious position within AI and technology supply chains. Tasked with filtering violent and harmful content and training machine learning systems, they perform labour that is both essential and systematically devalued, characterised by exposure to psychological harm, high-intensity performance targets, and limited access to mental health support, within employment arrangements that are insecure and mediated through third-party contractors. These workers have little control over the conditions or continuity of their work, leaving them acutely vulnerable when contracts between firms are restructured.
The present redundancies follow years of courageous legal action by Kenyan workers who refused to accept that justice was beyond their reach. In September 2024, the Nairobi Court of Appeal ruled that two cases brought by 185 former content moderators, one concerning working conditions, another concerning their mass dismissal, should proceed to trial, following an 18-month battle in which Meta had persistently argued that Kenyan courts lacked jurisdiction. That ruling was a landmark moment – a testament to the workers who fought with courage, the advocates who stood beside them, and the judges who upheld the rule of law against significant corporate pressure.
The Employment and Labour Relations Court established that the absence of a direct employment contract between Meta and the petitioners did not absolve Meta’s responsibility, finding that the company exercised meaningful authority over the virtual workspace in which these workers operated. These rulings represent a significant legal recognition that contractual structures used to organise AI labour do not erase the obligations of those who exercise effective control over it. The current wave of redundancies, arriving precisely as these cases move toward trial, must be understood in that context.
Closing the Doors to Justice
What makes the current situation more troubling still is the evidence of coordinated efforts to foreclose the legal avenues these workers fought so hard to open. Rather than engaging with the substance of judicial findings, Meta has pursued a parallel political strategy in Kenya – lobbying government and legislators to insulate the company from future accountability. That Meta would pressure a sovereign government to amend its laws, at the very moment its own citizens are seeking justice through legitimate legal channels, is an expression of asymmetric power that must be named clearly and resisted.
Our Calls to Action
Equidem calls on States and businesses invested in the technology-based economy to address their respective obligations and responsibilities to uphold workers’ rights.
Meta and Sama must assume responsibility commensurate with their actual control over the supply chain – at minimum, ensuring lawful redundancy processes, adequate severance, and sustained support for affected workers. Both companies must also account for how their contracting practices produce precarity as a routine outcome and commit to arrangements that do not systematically transfer risk onto the most marginalised communities in the Global South.
The Government of Kenya should investigate potential violations of the Employment Act, 2007, including regarding notice periods and consultation obligations, and to recommit to its duty to protect the workers whose labour underpins Kenya’s position in the global technology economy.
The international community must move decisively toward binding frameworks capable of holding corporations accountable across their full supply chains, including full implementation of relevant ILO conventions, operationalisation of the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights, and rigorous application of supply chain due diligence legislation such as the EU Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive. Voluntary commitments have demonstrably failed. Binding law, with effective enforcement and meaningful remedies, is now necessary.
We must all stand with the workers who have driven this fight, through the courts, against formidable opposition, at great personal cost. They have demonstrated what solidarity and determination can achieve. Their struggle has produced legal precedents that matter beyond Kenya. Equidem stands with them and will continue to advocate for the regulatory interventions necessary to ensure that the costs of the AI industry are not borne, once again, by the poorest and most marginalized workers in the world.
