Lawyers are gearing up for court action against a company contracted by Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram, after meeting moderators at a facility in Ghana that is understood to employ about 150 people.
Moderators working for Majorel in Accra claim they have suffered from depression, anxiety, insomnia and substance abuse as a direct consequence of the work they do checking extreme content.The allegedly gruelling conditions endured by workers in Ghana are revealed in a joint investigation by the Guardian and the Bureau of Investigative Journalism.
It comes after more than 140 Facebook content moderators in Kenya were diagnosed with severe post-traumatic stress disorder caused by exposure to graphic social media content.The workers in Kenya were employed by Samasource, an outsourcing company that carries out content moderation for Meta using workers from across Africa. Majorel, the company at the centre of the allegations in Ghana, is owned by the French multinational Teleperformance.One man, who cannot be named for legal reasons, said he attempted suicide owing to the nature of his work. His claims his contract was subsequently terminated and he has returned to his home country.
Facebook and other large social media companies employ armies of content moderators, often based in the poorest parts of the world, to remove posts that breach their community standards and to train AI systems to do the same.
Moderators are required to review distressing and often brutal pictures and videos to establish whether they should be removed from Meta’s platforms. According to workers in Ghana, they have seen videos of a person being skinned alive and a woman being beheaded.The moderators claim mental health care offered by the firm was unhelpful, was not delivered by medical doctors, and that personal disclosures made by staff about the effects of their work were circulated among managers.
Teleperformance disputed this, saying it employed licensed mental health professionals who are registered with the local regulatory body and hold a master’s degree in psychology, counselling, or another mental health field.The legal case is being prepared by a UK-based nonprofit, Foxglove. It would be the second case brought by content moderators in Africa, after Samasource workers in Kenya sued in 2023.
Foxglove said it was “urgently investigating these shocking abuses of workers” with a view to using “every tool at our disposal, including potential legal action” to improve working conditions.It is working with a Ghanaian firm, Agency Seven Seven, on preparing two possible lawsuits. One would allege psychological harms and could involve a group of moderators, and the other unfair dismissal, involving the moderator from east Africa whose contract was terminated after he attempted suicide.Foxglove’s co-executive director Martha Dark said: “These are the worst conditions I have seen in six years of working with social media content moderators around the world.
“In Ghana, Meta is displaying nothing short of a complete disregard for the humanity of its key safety workers upon whom all its profits rely: content moderators. They are treated as objects who can be used up, burned out and replaced with no care whatsoever for the permanent damage to their mental and physical wellbeing.”Dark said basic wages for content moderators in Accra were below living costs, incentivising them to work overtime, for which pay is understood to be even lower than normal rates. Moderators faced deductions from their pay for failing to meet performance targets, she added.
Contracts seen by the Guardian show that the base wage starts at about 1,300 Ghanaian cedis a month – just over £64. This is supplemented by a system of performance-related bonuses, the upper range of which amounts to about 4,900 cedis (£243) a month, significantly less than the estimated cost of living in Accra.A Teleperformance spokesperson said content moderators enjoyed “strong pay and benefits, including monthly pay that is roughly 10 times the country’s minimum wage for domestic moderators, and 16 times the minimum wage for those who have relocated from other countries, when including project allowance, transportation allowance, language premium and more – all of which are automatically paid to the moderator and are not performance-based”.
Foxglove’s researcher Michaela Chen said she had seen photos of moderators’ living quarters, in which they were “crammed five to a flat, two to a room”. She said there appeared to be a culture of secrecy, including surveillance from managers, who follow workers into the toilets during breaks.This extends to moderators’ work for Meta. She said: “Workers spend all day working on Meta’s platforms, moderating to Meta’s standards and using Meta’s systems, but at the same time, moderators are told constantly: ‘You do not work for Meta,’ and are forbidden from telling anyone they do.”Teleperformance said moderators were “offered housing in … one of the most upscale and well-known residential and commercial neighbourhoods in Accra”.
The spokesperson described the housing as “safe, with strong security” and having air conditioning, recreation facilities, including gyms and pools.Carla Olympio, a partner at Agency Seven Seven, said she believed a personal injury case could succeed in Ghana’s courts and would set a precedent establishing that worker protections extend to psychological harms as well as physical injury.“[There is] currently a gap in our laws because they haven’t necessarily caught up with the new developments that cover technology and virtual work,” she said.
Rosa Curling, a co-executive director at Foxglove, said it was seeking for the court to “order immediate changes to the content moderators’ workplace”, including proper safeguards and psychiatric care.A spokesperson for Teleperformance said: “At TP in Ghana, we take our content moderation work seriously. From the very beginning during the interview process, within the employee contract and through employee training and resiliency testing, we are fully transparent with our prospective moderators regarding the content they might see during their work to help keep the internet safe for our communities. We have robust people management systems and workplace practices, including a robust wellbeing programme staffed by fully licensed psychologists to support our content moderators throughout their content moderation journey.”Meta said the companies it worked with were “contractually obliged to pay their employees who review content on Facebook and Instagram above the industry standard in the markets they operate”.
The tech company said it took “the support of content reviewers seriously”, including detailing expectations around counselling, training and other support in contracts with the companies it outsourced.It said all content moderators signed client confidentiality agreements because they were dealing with user information which needed to be protected and for their own safety, but moderators may discuss their jobs with doctors and counsellors, and some aspects with family members.
About the author
See the areas that will be affected by ECG’s planned maintenance on April 30
The Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) has announced that it will carry out planned maintenance works on Wednesday, April 30, 2025, as part of efforts to improve electricity service delivery in parts of the Greater Accra Region.According to a notice issued by the power distributor, the maintenance exercise will take place between 9am and 5pm, and will affect several communities including the KNUST Campus, Adjeman Kata, Kwabenya Abuom, Comet Estates, Boiman, Seseme, Teiman, Burger Town, and surrounding areas. ECG has apologised to customers in the affected zones for any inconvenience the power interruption may cause, noting that the exercise is essential for ensuring long-term reliability of supply.This planned maintenance comes at a time when various parts of the country have already been hit by unplanned outages due to technical faults. In the Ashanti Region, several communities including Kunka, Kwapia, Akrokerri, […]
GBA Urged to Clarify Stand on Supreme Court Nominations and Judicial Independence in Ghana
Less than a week after calling for the rule of law to prevail, the GBA has reversed course — now urging the President to revoke the suspension of the Chief Justice. It’s good that the GBA has finally found its voice. We would now like to hear that voice on these pressing constitutional matters: Supreme Court Nominations:Does the GBA support the Chief Justice personally selecting and submitting five names for Supreme Court appointment — contrary to Article 144(2) of the Constitution? Nomination Criteria:Will the GBA explain what criteria the Chief Justice used in choosing her five nominees — and whether it meets constitutional standards of merit, transparency, and fairness? Usurpation of the Judicial Council’s Role:Does the GBA condone the Chief Justice bypassing the Judicial Council, the body constitutionally entrusted with recommending nominees to the Supreme Court? Backroom Deals on Judicial […]
President Mahama Appoints Matilda Asante-Asiedu as Second Deputy Governor of Bank of Ghana
President Mahama appoints Matilda Asante-Asiedu Second Deputy Governor of the Bank of GhanaPresident John Dramani Mahama has in accordance with Section 17 of the Bank of Ghana Act, 2002 (Act 612) as amended, appointed Mrs. Matilda Asante-Asiedu as the Second Deputy Governor of the Bank of Ghana.Mrs. Asante-Asiedu is a Chartered Banker and seasoned corporate leader who has served as Group Head, Retail Banking at Access Bank Ghana PLC.Mrs Asante-Asiedu holds an MBA in Marketing from GIMPA Business School (2021), an MA inJournalism Studies from Cardiff University (2005), and diplomas in Journalism (Ghana Institute of Journalism, 1997) and Politics and Public Affairs Reporting (International Institute of Journalism,Berlin, 2000). A Chartered Executive Banker (CIB-Ghana, 2024).She has undertaken Executive Programmes at Said Business School at Oxford University (2023), Wharton School (2015) and Marquette University's Les Aspin Centre (2003), among others.
Child damages €50million painting in museum
A child has damaged a painting worth millions of pounds by the American artist Mark Rothko at a museum in Rotterdam.A spokesperson for the Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen said it was considering the "next steps" for the treatment of Rothko's Grey, Orange on Maroon, No. 8. The damage occurred during an "unguarded moment", a museum spokesperson told the Dutch media outlet Algemeen Dagblad (AD) last week.A spokesperson for the museum told the BBC the damage was "superficial", adding: "Small scratches are visible in the unvarnished paint layer in the lower part of the painting". The abstract painting is estimated to be worth up to €50m (£42.5m), according to newspaper AD."Conservation expertise has been sought in the Netherlands and abroad. We are currently researching the next steps for the treatment of the painting", the museum spokesperson told the BBC."We expect that […]
Boakye Agyarko warns NPP ‘Thank You’ Tour is fuelling division
A former flagbearer hopeful of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), Boakye Kyerematen Agyarko, has raised concerns over the party’s ongoing ‘Thank You’ Tour, describing it as a mission that has veered dangerously off course and is now threatening the unity and public image of the party.In a statement issued on April 28, 2025, Mr Agyarko criticised the current form of the tour, which he said was initially designed to reconnect with grassroots supporters, renew party spirit, and project a united front following the party’s internal flagbearer contest. Instead, he lamented that the exercise has degenerated into internal wrangling, blame-shifting, and rising tension among party ranks. “What was intended to restore our party’s shine and reconnect us with the grassroots is instead unravelling into bouts of discord, blame-shifting, and internal strife,” he stated. “This regrettable turn of events threatens to inflict […]
Staff shortage blamed for rising indiscipline at Accra Academy
According to the school’s headmaster, Mr Emmanuel Ofoe Fiemawhle, only 22 staff members currently reside on the school premises, overseeing a student population of nearly 5,000 boarders. Mr Fiemawhle raised these concerns during a visit by the Education Committee of Parliament to the school, where he described the staffing situation as inadequate for proper supervision. He noted that the limited number of resident staff, including hall masters and other auxiliary workers, makes it extremely difficult to maintain order and discipline among students in the boarding house.“We have 22 of our staff who serve as hall masters and other auxiliary workers. So, it is difficult to manage the students as boarders,” he told members of the committee. “If you want to look at the sources for indiscipline, it is because the numbers are not enough to manage the students as boarders.” […]
Related
See the areas that will be affected by ECG’s planned maintenance on April 30
The Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) has announced that it will carry out planned maintenance works on Wednesday, April 30, 2025, as part of efforts to improve electricity service delivery in parts of the Greater Accra Region.According to a notice issued by the power distributor, the maintenance exercise will take place between 9am and 5pm, and will affect several communities including the KNUST Campus, Adjeman Kata, Kwabenya Abuom, Comet Estates, Boiman, Seseme, Teiman, Burger Town, and surrounding areas. ECG has apologised to customers in the affected zones for any inconvenience the power interruption may cause, noting that the exercise is essential for ensuring long-term reliability of supply.This planned maintenance comes at a time when various parts of the country have already been hit by unplanned outages due to technical faults. In the Ashanti Region, several communities including Kunka, Kwapia, Akrokerri, […]
GBA Urged to Clarify Stand on Supreme Court Nominations and Judicial Independence in Ghana
Less than a week after calling for the rule of law to prevail, the GBA has reversed course — now urging the President to revoke the suspension of the Chief Justice. It’s good that the GBA has finally found its voice. We would now like to hear that voice on these pressing constitutional matters: Supreme Court Nominations:Does the GBA support the Chief Justice personally selecting and submitting five names for Supreme Court appointment — contrary to Article 144(2) of the Constitution? Nomination Criteria:Will the GBA explain what criteria the Chief Justice used in choosing her five nominees — and whether it meets constitutional standards of merit, transparency, and fairness? Usurpation of the Judicial Council’s Role:Does the GBA condone the Chief Justice bypassing the Judicial Council, the body constitutionally entrusted with recommending nominees to the Supreme Court? Backroom Deals on Judicial […]
President Mahama Appoints Matilda Asante-Asiedu as Second Deputy Governor of Bank of Ghana
President Mahama appoints Matilda Asante-Asiedu Second Deputy Governor of the Bank of GhanaPresident John Dramani Mahama has in accordance with Section 17 of the Bank of Ghana Act, 2002 (Act 612) as amended, appointed Mrs. Matilda Asante-Asiedu as the Second Deputy Governor of the Bank of Ghana.Mrs. Asante-Asiedu is a Chartered Banker and seasoned corporate leader who has served as Group Head, Retail Banking at Access Bank Ghana PLC.Mrs Asante-Asiedu holds an MBA in Marketing from GIMPA Business School (2021), an MA inJournalism Studies from Cardiff University (2005), and diplomas in Journalism (Ghana Institute of Journalism, 1997) and Politics and Public Affairs Reporting (International Institute of Journalism,Berlin, 2000). A Chartered Executive Banker (CIB-Ghana, 2024).She has undertaken Executive Programmes at Said Business School at Oxford University (2023), Wharton School (2015) and Marquette University's Les Aspin Centre (2003), among others.
Boakye Agyarko warns NPP ‘Thank You’ Tour is fuelling division
A former flagbearer hopeful of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), Boakye Kyerematen Agyarko, has raised concerns over the party’s ongoing ‘Thank You’ Tour, describing it as a mission that has veered dangerously off course and is now threatening the unity and public image of the party.In a statement issued on April 28, 2025, Mr Agyarko criticised the current form of the tour, which he said was initially designed to reconnect with grassroots supporters, renew party spirit, and project a united front following the party’s internal flagbearer contest. Instead, he lamented that the exercise has degenerated into internal wrangling, blame-shifting, and rising tension among party ranks. “What was intended to restore our party’s shine and reconnect us with the grassroots is instead unravelling into bouts of discord, blame-shifting, and internal strife,” he stated. “This regrettable turn of events threatens to inflict […]
Staff shortage blamed for rising indiscipline at Accra Academy
According to the school’s headmaster, Mr Emmanuel Ofoe Fiemawhle, only 22 staff members currently reside on the school premises, overseeing a student population of nearly 5,000 boarders. Mr Fiemawhle raised these concerns during a visit by the Education Committee of Parliament to the school, where he described the staffing situation as inadequate for proper supervision. He noted that the limited number of resident staff, including hall masters and other auxiliary workers, makes it extremely difficult to maintain order and discipline among students in the boarding house.“We have 22 of our staff who serve as hall masters and other auxiliary workers. So, it is difficult to manage the students as boarders,” he told members of the committee. “If you want to look at the sources for indiscipline, it is because the numbers are not enough to manage the students as boarders.” […]
Kumasi Youth Embrace Mahama’s Adwumawura Initiative to Boost Entrepreneurship
With just eight days left for accountability on President John Dramani Mahama’s 120-day social contract with Ghanaians, the government is rolling out a series of key initiatives in what it terms an “all-action week”. Among the most highly anticipated of these programmes is the Adwumawura Initiative, set to be launched by the President in just a few hours. The initiative aims to create over 10,000 jobs annually and has sparked hope among young entrepreneurs in Kumasi, who view it as a potential game-changer. At the Prempeh Assembly Hall in Kumasi, the atmosphere is charged with excitement as young entrepreneurs and representatives from various groups, including the Central Market Association, the KJTR Traders Association, and the Suame Businessmen Association, gather in anticipation. The event is buzzing with energy as these groups are eager to witness the launch of the Adwumawura Initiative, which […]
Be the first to leave a comment