Kenyan court rules Meta can be sued over content moderator firings

By Andrew Wasike

NAIROBI, Kenya (AA) — A Kenyan court of appeal declared Friday that Meta can be sued in Kenya over the firing of dozens of content moderators.

The decision paves the way for a legal battle between the Facebook parent company and the aggrieved moderators, who allege wrongful termination.

In a statement, their lawyer Mercy Mutemi applauded the ruling, saying: "The Court of Appeal has today upheld the Employment Court's decision that Facebook can be sued in Kenya."

Noting that the cases by the content moderators could now proceed, he said Facebook had "argued it's a foreign company that can't be sued in Kenya."

The development follows an out-of-court settlement in August last year, where Meta reached an agreement with the group of content moderators who had previously sued the company over similar claims of unjust dismissal.

The dispute originated from when 260 Kenyan-based content moderators employed by Sama, a company contracted by Meta for content moderation, were abruptly informed of their redundancy in March 2023.

In response, the moderators filed a lawsuit against Meta, asserting that their terminations were unlawful and lacked valid justification.

This incident was not the first legal challenge Meta has faced in Kenya. In December 2022, the company was sued for $2 billion over accusations of exacerbating ethnic violence in the East African country, as well as in neighboring Ethiopia.