# Kauna Malgwi Kauna Malgwi (Former Facebook content moderator (via Sama, Nairobi), leader of the Nigeria chapter of the Content Moderators Union, TIME100 AI 2024 honoree) was a guest on AI with Sach, a podcast hosted by Sacha Gucciardo in Montréal. ## Episode 21: The Invisible Labor Behind AI: A Content Moderator’s Fight for Justice (February 2025) A former Facebook content moderator describes the hidden human labor and trauma behind AI, and her fight for fair treatment of African tech workers. Page: https://aiwithsach.com/episodes/21-the-invisible-labor-behind-ai-a-content-moderators/ > So why are you providing counselors if you claim you are not aware that there's a mental health issues? If I should be in a supermarket selling groceries, would you provide a mental health counselor? Because you know it's not related. > — at 13:11 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jAA4BVkzkCs&t=791s) > The pay is significantly nothing because we're paid less than $2 per hour. And the same kind of job our colleagues are doing in the US, Europe, and on the other side of the world are being paid over $20 per hour. So you can see the discrepancy of payment. > — at 18:38 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jAA4BVkzkCs&t=1118s) > No, you were forced to submit it in 50 seconds. So what were you asked to do? We were asked to watch the first 15 seconds, skip to the middle, watch 15 seconds, go to the end of the video, watch 15 seconds, and check the thumbnail and submit. So you can imagine if it's a beheading from an ISIS video. What does that do to you as a human? Because we are not robots. > — at 19:34 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jAA4BVkzkCs&t=1174s) > The whole charade around AI, AI, we built AI, AI never built itself. So, and we are never acknowledged. If we keep quiet, it means AI really built itself, which is an absolute lie. People lost their life while building AI. We have colleagues that have committed suicide. > — at 29:49 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jAA4BVkzkCs&t=1789s) > And for the interview, I was asked to translate a Bible first from English to Hausa. And the guy who even did the interview for the Hausa language test, didn't even know Hausa language itself. He was an Igbo guy. > — at 6:34 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jAA4BVkzkCs&t=394s) > And we signed a non-disclosure agreement barely one week into the training. So the training most was around hate speech, you know, all those written bullying, whatever. But now when it comes to suicide, graphic content, child abuse and all that, they were later in the training. > — at 9:00 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jAA4BVkzkCs&t=540s) > So they took away our choice to make a decision. And that's the main thing because if I am aware that, okay, I want to be a surgeon, I'm going to expose to blood and all that, I already know I'm prepared for it. > — at 14:24 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jAA4BVkzkCs&t=864s) > I've worked for content moderation for four years. And the moment I left, that is it. I cannot, you know, I cannot like make it a career where I can continue or I can grow in it because now no one wants to employ me. Because I was a former content moderator. > — at 17:19 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jAA4BVkzkCs&t=1039s) > They feel this pressure in Kenya. They moved to Ghana. From Ghana, they feel this pressure. They moved to Nigeria. They moved to South Africa. Um, you know, they moved to all those countries. And this, what does this tell us? That these guys, um, it's not that they don't have the money. > — at 26:38 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jAA4BVkzkCs&t=1598s) > a few months before then, I wouldn't even tell my parents I was working as a content moderator because I was given an NDA. And here I am in the European Parliament testifying on behalf of the many, many, many voiceless content moderators all over Africa and especially the ones in Kenya. It really felt like I broke out of a prison. > — at 32:45 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jAA4BVkzkCs&t=1965s) > But then it made me sad at the same time that the African Union is not talking about that because I wish I was in the African Union testifying, not in the European Union, in the European Parliament. > — at 33:14 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jAA4BVkzkCs&t=1994s) > All the, almost all, I would say around 140 something petitioners, which are former Facebook content moderators, were evaluated. And I would say all had PTSD. > — at 36:56 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jAA4BVkzkCs&t=2216s) > But for this, you watch it every day. Every day. Every time you just log into your computer, the eight hours you're at work, you watch those videos. The next day, the same. So for four years, like for me, that was what I was doing. > — at 38:03 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jAA4BVkzkCs&t=2283s) > So would we still be using the AI that has been built today the same way 10 years later? No. It needs to be upgraded as we humans also revolve. It needs to be. So it means that humans will still be needed to do that. > — at 31:37 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jAA4BVkzkCs&t=1897s)