39
are the ones pressuring content mod-
erators over their metrics, he thinks it’s
clear they do so because of concerns
about what it would mean if Sama did
not meet Facebook’s expectations. A
former employee adds, “They only care
about pleasing the client.”
Content moderators at Sama are
meant to receive “wellness breaks” of
at least an hour per week, to help them
deal with seeing traumatizing content.
But some employees described having
to “beg” to be allowed to take their al-
lotted wellness breaks. A former coun-
selor said that Sama managers, not
counselors, had the final say over when
and whether content moderators were
allowed to take breaks. The counselor
witnessed managers repeatedly re-
jecting content moderators’ requests
for breaks, citing productivity pres-
sures. “There is a clinical responsibil-
ity in our job to ensure that the mod-
erators are cared for,” said the former
counselor. “This responsibility is not
fully being fulfilled. Sama is more in-
terested in productivity than the safety
of the moderator.”
Almost All the employees TIME
spoke to for this story described being
profoundly emotionally affected by
the content they were exposed to at
Sama—trauma that they said was often
exacerbated by the way they have been
treated in their jobs. Many expressed
the opinion that they might be able
to handle the trauma of the job—even
take pride that they were sacrificing
their own mental health to keep other
people safe on social media—if only
Sama and Facebook would treat them
with respect, and pay them a salary that
factors in their lasting trauma.
In its statement, Sama said it had
“revisited” its mental-health processes
after employees raised concerns in 2019
“and made further enhancements, and
provided additional coaching to team
leads.” But employees say the protec-
tions remain inadequate to this day.
“When it comes to your personal wel-
fare,” one employee says, “you are not
treated like a real human.”
After returning to South Africa fol-
lowing his firing, Motaung, the leader
of the failed 2019 strike, says it felt as
if everything around him fell apart. He
tried to look for work in the capital,
but struggled. He lost a lot of weight.
“I was not OK mentally, emotionally,”
he says. He eventually returned to a
village in the mountains where he has
family. “When I got home, they were
like, ‘What happened to you? What
were you doing in Kenya?’ I couldn’t
even talk about it because I signed
an NDA.”
Motaung says he is still dealing with
the trauma he incurred at Sama, but is
unable to afford a therapist. “If you do
this work, it’s very hard not to experi-
ence permanent scars to your emotions
and mental state,” he says.
In conversation, Motaung avoids
mentioning anything specific he saw on
the job, conscious that he is still bound
by the NDA. What he will say is that he
had a traumatic experience, and that
he still gets flashbacks. He expects to
carry the burden of that trauma with
him until the day he dies. “That sort of
thing can change who you are,” he says.
“It can destroy the fiber of your entire
being.” —With reporting by Mengistu
AssefA DADi/ADDis AbAbA and eloise
bArry/lonDon
△
Jason White was fired from Sama in
2020 after he took his concerns to the
South African embassy in Nairobi
AART VERRIPS FOR TIME
