Meta Under Fire After Contract Ends
Friday, 2026/05/01215 words3 minutes473 reads
Meta is under mounting pressure to justify its abrupt cancellation of a substantial contract with Sama, an outsourcing firm, following allegations from Kenya-based workers who claimed they were exposed to graphic content captured via Meta's smart glasses.
In February, employees at Sama disclosed to Swedish publications that they had witnessed footage of individuals using bathrooms and engaging in sexual activities while reviewing content for AI training purposes. These data annotators were responsible for manually labeling images to teach Meta's AI interpretation systems and verifying the adequacy of AI responses to user queries.
Mere weeks after these revelations surfaced, Meta terminated its partnership with Sama, precipitating the redundancy of 1,108 workers. While Meta attributes this decision to Sama's failure to meet operational standards, Sama vehemently contests this characterization, asserting it consistently fulfilled all contractual obligations. The Africa Tech Workers Movement alleges that Meta's true motivation was to silence employees who exposed the practice of human review of privately captured content.
The controversy has prompted regulatory intervention from both the UK's Information Commissioner's Office and Kenya's Office of the Data Protection Commissioner. This incident marks another contentious chapter in Sama's relationship with Meta, following previous legal action over traumatic content moderation work. Critics argue this episode demonstrates the precarious foundation upon which Kenya's emerging AI industry rests.
