--- title: "OpenAI’s Content Moderators Just Unionized in Africa" description: "Major Win In a historic step for outsourced content moderation labor, Time reports that over 150 African content moderators — whose work has helped to safely power AI systems at Facebook, TikTok, and even Silicon Valley's buzziest AI firm, OpenAI — have voted to unionize. The newfound union, dubbed the African Content Moderators Union, is made up […]" date: "2023-05-03" modified: "2023-05-03" authors: - name: "Maggie Harrison Dupré" job_title: "Senior Staff Writer" link: "https://futurism.com/authors/mharrison" url: "https://futurism.com/the-byte/ai-content-moderators-unionized-africa" categories: - "Artificial Intelligence" - "OpenAI" tags: - "ai" - "ai moderation" - "content moderation" - "the digest" --- # OpenAI’s Content Moderators Just Unionized in Africa ![Over 150 African content moderators — whose work has helped to power AI systems at Facebook, TikTok, and OpenAI — have unionized.]() *\Image: Sama\* ## Major Win In a historic step for outsourced tech labor, over 150 African content moderators — whose work has underpinned AI systems at Facebook, TikTok, and OpenAI — have voted to unionize, [*Time* reports](). The newly minted African Content Moderators Union is entirely made up of current and former employees of third-party moderation contractors, according to the report. Those contractors include a popular firm called Sama, which has held lucrative contracts with both Facebook and OpenAI. "For too long we, the workers powering the AI revolution, were treated as different and less than moderators," Richard Mathenge, a former ChatGPT content moderator, told *Time*. "Our work is just as important and it is also dangerous." "We took a historic step today," he added. "The way is long but we are determined to fight on so that people are not abused the way we were." ## Digital Hell From AI to social media, content moderation is one of the most difficult and burdensome jobs in Silicon Valley. Many of those who work in the field are subjected to [graphic and traumatizing]() content. But it's also one of the most essential positions in the space right now — without moderation, other users could be unwittingly exposed to problematic content. Some of these workers are also helping the likes of OpenAI train their AI models, turning them from [racist nonsense-spewing bots]() into helpful assistants. And yet, reports throughout the years have [painted a grim picture]() of moderators' work conditions and compensation. Sama, for example, has been accused of paying their workers [less than $2 a day]() for their work moderating OpenAI's training data, while Facebook has been shown to pay its moderators [*much* less]() than it pays its highly-compensated engineers. Meanwhile, tech companies including Sama and Facebook have [been accused]() of failing to provide moderators with [adequate mental health resources](). All to say: this historic union is an important and necessary step forward for contracted moderators, and will hopefully help to protect them as we move further into an AI-powered future. "It takes a village to solve a problem, but today the Kenyan moderators formed an army," Martha Dark, co-director of a non-profit NGO called Foxglove, told *Time* in a statement. "From TikTok to Facebook, these people face the same issues. Toxic content, no mental health care, precarious work — these are systemic failures in content moderation." **More on AI content moderation:** [*OpenAI Apparently Paid People in the Developing World $2/Hour to Look at the Most Disturbing Content Imaginable*]() []() ## Author At Futurism, I've reported extensively on the rise of AI as a cultural and business force shaping the media industry, and more broadly how those dynamics are changing how we all consume and share information and relate to one another. I'm also fascinated by public health policy and ethics, the role of emerging tech in politics and governance — and the powerful people and forces at those intersections — climate change, and the environment. My investigation on Sports Illustrated's use of AI-generated authors with fictional biographies won a 2024 Mirror Award for "Best Story on Media Coverage of Artificial Intelligence in Journalism and the Media" from Syracuse University's SI Newhouse School, I contributed to Niemen Lab's 2025 Predictions for Journalism series, and I've discussed my work for Futurism during appearances on NPR, CNN, the BBC, the CBC, and more. I grew up in rural Pennsylvania and attended the University of Massachusetts Amherst, where I played Division I field hockey for the Minutewomen as a midfielder. Since then, I've lived in New Orleans, Louisiana and Manhattan, New York. I spend my free time running, reading, perusing archival fashion, and searching for the world’s best negroni. I also have a debonair tuxedo cat, Westley, who's named after "The Princess Bride." ### Author social links [Bluesky]()