AI workers and researchers produce first map of content moderation and data labelling work in Africa

Workers and researchers have shone a light on the content moderation and data labeling industry in Africa by producing an open-access, interactive map.

The map is the first visualisation of this rapidly growing tech workforce, showing where content moderators and data labellers work in Africa and where the companies they work for are headquartered.

The content moderation and data labeling industry are the workers behind the boom in Artificial Intelligence, identifying and filtering content to optimise the use of AI at some of the largest corporations in the world.

The map helps to illuminate what is a secretive and exploitative industry. It shows that the content moderation and data labeling industry has spread across Africa, with 39 out of 54 African countries having at least one such BPO centre. In total, there are 78 BPO centres on the continent, with Nigeria having the most with eight.

Out of the companies which hire African content moderators and data labelers, four are based in the United States, four in Europe, two in Asia, and one in Canada. These include outsourcing firms which are contracted by the largest social media platforms and AI companies in the world. For example, Hugo, a Michigan headquartered outsourcing firm that has contracts with Meta and Google, runs BPO centres in South Africa, Nigeria, and Kenya. 

Some companies also hire data labellers and content moderators on a remote work, gig economy basis in Africa. Remotasks, with headquarters in the Philippines,  is a global platform subsidiary of Scale AI (an American data annotation company based in San Francisco). Remotasks established over a dozen ‘boot camps’ in Southeast Asia and Africa to train thousands of data labelers. In March 2024, it was reported that Remotasks had abruptly terminated its services in several countries without explanation. Workers in Kenya and Nigeria found themselves suddenly unable to work.