Interviews and documents reveal traumatic working conditions at a Facebook content moderation facility in Nigeria, run by Sama, with pay as low as $1.50/hour
This story is based on interviews with more than a dozen current and former Sama employees, as well as hundreds of pages …
TIMEBilly Perrigo
Context & Ripple Effects
Facebook’s moderator workforce had already produced accounts of PTSD and poor conditions in Tampa, while the company later raised U.S. contractor pay in several metro areas. The Nigeria reporting extends that record to a Sama-run facility, exposing a sharp geographic divide in the outsourced workforce that reviews harmful material.
The allegations also arrive after moderators working for a Facebook subcontractor pursued an Irish High Court trauma case, making contractor responsibility—not merely Facebook’s internal policy—the central fault line.
First-order effects
Sama employees in Nigeria bear the immediate cost of reviewing traumatic material under the reported conditions, with pay described as as low as $1.50 an hour.
Facebook and Sama face renewed scrutiny over the labor standards applied to a core safety operation that Facebook has delegated to a vendor.
Second-order effects
The contrast with Facebook’s higher U.S. contractor pay floors puts pressure on Facebook and its vendors to explain whether worker protections vary by location rather than by the risks of the work.
Other moderation suppliers must contend with a clearer reputational and legal-accountability risk as contractor trauma has already prompted litigation in Ireland.
Third-order effects
If recurring reports across U.S., Irish, and Nigerian contractor sites sustain attention, content moderation is likely to be judged less as back-office outsourcing and more as a platform-governance responsibility.
The pattern points toward greater pressure for platform-wide standards covering pay, mental-health support, and accountability across vendor networks, rather than market-by-market arrangements.
The trend: Platform safety work is becoming a labor-governance issue as repeated accounts expose the human costs that outsourced moderation systems can distribute across countries.
💫NEW💫: Over 100 moderators at Facebook's biggest outsourcing office in Africa rose up against exploitation. Bosses - at ‘ethical AI’ firm @SamaAI - fired the leader, Daniel Motaung. We're working with him to defend workers' right to a union. In @TIME: https://time.com/...
🚨NEW: At Facebook's external content moderation facility in Africa, employees describe traumatic working conditions, alleged union-busting, and pay as low as $1.50 per hour, my investigation found. 🧵Thread (1/) https://time.com/...
Sama's late founder Leila Janah justified the company's levels of pay in the region. “One thing that's critical in our line of work is to not pay wages that would distort local labor markets. If we were to pay people substantially more than that, we would throw everything off.” h…
“The work we do is a kind of mental torture...Whatever I am living on is hand-to-mouth. I can't save a cent. Sometimes I want to resign. But then I ask myself: what will my baby eat?” - employee at Facebook's outsourced content moderation facility in Kenya https://time.com/...
TIME is aware of at least two Sama content moderators who chose to resign after being diagnosed with mental illnesses including PTSD, anxiety, and depression. Many others working this job for $1.50/hour can't afford access to mental healthcare https://time.com/...
In my line of work I've been to many conferences where a government/ industry person talks glowingly about how they are creating digital jobs in Kenya. “Digital jobs” sounds nice until you realise these are the kind of jobs that get outsourced here. https://time.com/...
“The testimonies of Sama employees reveal a workplace culture characterized by mental trauma, intimidation, and alleged suppression of the right to unionize.” Facebook exploiting the very workers that “ensure its platform is safe in Ethiopia and across the continent.” https://twi…
“The work that we do is a kind of mental torture.” This investigation by @billyperrigo reveals how Facebook is outsourcing the trauma of moderating sometimes graphic & violent content to a hub in Kenya, where some workers earn as little as $1.50 an hour https://time.com/...
I spoke to more than a dozen current and former employees of Sama, the outsourcing company that FB pays to clean up its platform in Africa. All are poor; many psychologically vulnerable. They spoke at great risk to themselves, and put their faith in me to tell their stories. 2/
Sama moderators are pressured to “action” one piece of content every 50 seconds, and get it right at least 84% of the time. FB offers features to protect mental health, like black+white or blurring. One worker told me he doesn't use them, because they reduce his accuracy. 10/
Daniel was in the process of formally registering a trade union when he was fired. Kenyan labor law says employees are protected from dismissal for “past, present or anticipated trade union membership,” and the constitution says every worker has the right to strike. 6/
But just as Facebook most needs content moderators who can speak Ethiopian languages, many are instead leaving Sama because of the poor pay and working conditions. Six Ethiopians resigned in a single week in January for similar jobs elsewhere with higher pay. 4/
@billyperrigo cites a dozen+ staff complaining of abuses at FB/@SamaAI. “The work that we do is a kind of mental torture,” one says. “Whatever I am living on is hand-to-mouth. I can't save a cent. Sometimes I feel I want to resign. But then I ask myself: what will my baby eat?”
I saw Facebook guidelines that instruct moderators to watch only the first 15 seconds of videos before moving on, under some circumstances. This policy might explain why some videos containing hate speech and incitement to violence have remained on FB in Ethiopia. 11/ https://twi…
Efforts to improve pay in the past have been thwarted. In 2019, Daniel Motaung led a group of 100+ employees who told Sama they would go on strike unless they were given better conditions and pay. Sama fired Daniel. Others say they were told to get back to work or else. 5/ https:…
Why does this matter? Facebook's content moderation for Sub-Saharan Africa, including Ethiopia where a bloody civil war is raging, happens out of this office. FB has been accused of not doing enough to prevent content on its platform contributing to ethnic violence there. 3/ http…