Big Tech Companies Are Hiding Their Outsourced African Workforce
A new dataset in the form of maps highlighted how many African workers are indirectly employed in the tech sector. These employees tend to do content moderation, customer service, and data annotation for AI models, as well as other jobs.
Tech firms that provide outsourced digital labor for big tech companies tend to be discreet about their staff. This allows tech companies to distance themselves legally and ethically from their employees, experts explained to Rest of World.
African workforces building AI
The map shows the flow of data and knowledge from 39 African countries to subcontractors, mainly located in the United Arab Emirates, North America, and Europe, with four outsourcing firms in Africa. It then highlights the clients, such as Meta, OpenAI, and Samsung. The African Content Moderators Union (ACMU) and Switzerland-based nonprofit Personaldata.io conducted the research.
A second map highlights some clients of the outsourcing firms that hire African digital workers. Though there might be more clients in other countries, including Africa, the map shows that Western companies are the primary beneficiaries.
These companies go to African countries, like Kenya, where the government is a bit fragile, the economy, the politics, [are] complicated,” Jessica Pidoux, director of Personaldata.io, told Rest of World.
Meta being sued by two African countries
Meta is facing a lawsuit in Ghana as content moderators who experienced severe psychological harm caused by taking down disturbing social media content, including depictions of murders, extreme violence, and child sexual abuse.
Moderators working for Majorel in Accra claim that their work has caused extreme mental health issues such as depression, anxiety, insomnia, and substance abuse.
In March 2023, over 180 Kenyan content moderators filed a separate lawsuit against Sama and Meta for unlawful dismissal. They were also suing Majorel, Meta’s other content moderation partner, for backlisting Sama’s former employees.
Image: exploringphotography
