Daniel Motaung, former content moderator and whistleblower to give keynote address at MozFest House: Kenya. Sessions teasers and more on what to expect at MozFest.
September 21- 22, 2023 at Shamba House Cafe, Nairobi.

Long before Daniel Motaung was featured on our news feeds, he was cleaning them. Motaung knows too well the breadth, depth, and toxicity running awry behind Facebook’s content moderation operations where together with other moderators they worked under poor, unfair, and unlawful conditions.

Almost a year later after he blew the whistle and sued Meta for worker exploitation, neglect, and union busting, Motaung will be speaking at MozFest House Kenya on Thursday, September 21, 2023, from 11:00 am - to 12:00 noon. This session will also be streamed live on LinkedIn and the Mozilla Festival plaza.

In conversation with Mozilla’s Senior Program Officer Koliwe Majama, they will delve into the precarious labor web surrounding content moderation work and the solutions he envisions for the future of social media. Motaung represents an uprising movement of tech workers shaking up the gig-work economy and he is prepared to take on the hard questions on the MozFest podium: What will it take to truly reimagine content moderation and gig work that’s built upon equitable and ethical principles across the globe?

Building from the momentum of the keynote address, the event will also respond to crucial challenges about how we can leverage data to power community-led solutions. Mozilla’sData Futures Lab is hosting a showcase of five innovative projects from Kenya, Uganda, South Africa and Ghana. The projects explore how to integrate Natural Language Processing into traditional African languages, disinformation monitoring tools, and more. Mozilla, in collaboration with two partners, will award participating projects a combined $30,000 USD to continue their data stewardship innovations. Projects will present to a live and virtual audience of peers and experts.

The festival will gather over 300 participants attending in person or virtually, featuring over 30 interactive discussions, eight workshops, five art and media installations, and several lightning talks delivered in TED-style format. Explore the full spectrum of the on demand sessions here.

Participants can also join and engage in our Dialogues and Debates Watch Parties and exclusive Q&A with some of our speakers on Discord. They can also join our online community discussions under #MozFest House: Kenya. Here’s a preview of some of the sessions to give you a taste of what’s to come:

MozFest House Kenya: Key Session Highlights

30+ interactive sessions. These sessions are geared to immerse audiences to think about critical topics such as digital extractivism, inclusive technology and AI governance. Some recommended sessions include:

  • What is the path towards inclusive digital identity? The digital ID movement, AI and the risk of digitizing discrimination by Grace Mutung'u, Mustafa Mahmoud Yousif, Muthuri Kathure. This session examines the access to the infrastructures with digital identity and examines the existing inequalities, opportunities for remedy and how no one should be left behind in the spirit of the sustainable development goals.
  • Ethics of AI: Safeguarding Humanity” by Kennedy Wangari As the technology landscape advances at an unprecedented rate, those involved with AI often lack the tools and knowledge to expertly navigate ethical challenges. How do we better prepare for and prevent these potentially negative consequences in the future, thus enjoying a sustainable, safer, just and prosperous world?
  • Digital safe spaces in times and places of armed conflicts by Noon Feminist Movement, Weam Shawgi and Hadeel Albanadry.
  • Teaching Responsible Computing in Kenyan Universities by Ziyaad Bhorat and Fredrick Awuor
  • Decoding Digital Labor: How tech giants replicate the extractive practices of their corporate forefathers by Kofi Yeboah, Odanga Madung