Meta contractor dismissed threats to moderators by Ethiopia rebels - court documents

A contractor hired by Facebook's parent company Meta dismissed threats to content moderators by Ethiopian rebels angered by their work, according to new evidence filed in a case challenging the dismissal of dozens of moderators in Kenya.

Last year 185 content moderators sued Meta and two contractors, saying they had lost their jobs with Sama, a Kenya-based firm contracted to moderate Facebook content, for trying to organise a union.

They said they were then blacklisted from applying for the same roles at another firm, Majorel, after Facebook changed contractors.

Moderators focusing on Ethiopia said they were targeted by members of the Oromo Liberation Army (OLA) rebel group for removing their videos but their complaints were dismissed by Sama, according to court documents filed on Dec. 4 by Foxglove, a British non-profit supporting the moderators' case.

The moderators said in the petition seen by Reuters that Sama had accused them "of creating a false account and manufacturing" the threatening messages, before eventually agreeing to an investigation and sending one of the moderators who was publicly identified by the rebels to a safehouse.

Sama told Reuters it was unable to comment on the allegations. Spokespeople for Meta and OLA did not respond to requests for comment.

Moderator Abdikadir Alio Guyo said in his affidavit that he had received a message from OLA threatening "content moderators who were constantly pulling down their graphic Facebook Posts".

"They told us to stop removing their content from Facebook or else we would face dire consequences," he said, adding that his supervisor dismissed his concerns.

Another moderator, Hamza Diba Tubi, said in his affidavit that he received a message from OLA listing his and his colleagues' names and addresses.

"Since I received that threatening message, I have lived in so much fear of even visiting my family members in Ethiopia," he said.

The government of Ethiopia's largest region, Oromiya, has accused OLA rebels of killing "many civilians" in attacks that followed the failure of peace talks in 2023 in Tanzania aimed at resolving a decades-old conflict.

'ENDLESS LOOP OF HATEFUL CONTENT'

The court documents also said that Meta ignored advice from experts it hired to tackle hate speech in Ethiopia.

Alewiya Mohammed, who supervised dozens of moderators, said in an affidavit that she felt "stuck in an endless loop of having to review hateful content that we were not allowed to take down because it technically did not offend Meta policies".

Out-of-court settlement talks between the moderators and Meta collapsed in October last year.

The case could have implications for how Meta works with content moderators globally. The U.S. giant works with moderators around the world tasked with reviewing graphic content posted on its platform.

The OLA is an outlawed splinter group of a formerly banned opposition party. Its grievances are rooted in the alleged marginalisation of Ethiopia's Oromo community.

In a separate case filed in Kenya in 2022, Meta was accused of letting violent and hateful posts from Ethiopia flourish on Facebook, inflaming the civil war between the federal government and Tigrayan regional authorities.