Meta cuts contractors who reported seeing Ray-Ban Meta users have sex
Source: Ars Technica
Background
In February, numerous workers from a company that Meta contracted to perform data annotation for Ray‑Ban Meta reported viewing sensitive, embarrassing, and seemingly private footage recorded by the smart glasses. The report was covered by Ars Technica.
About two months later, Meta ended its contract with the firm.
Contract termination
According to a BBC report, “less than two months” after Swedish newspapers Svenska Dagbladet and Göteborgs‑Posten, together with Kenya‑based freelance journalist Naipanoi Lepapa, published complaints from Sama workers about watching explicit footage shot from Ray‑Ban Metas, “Meta ended its contract with Sama.”
Sama is a Kenya‑headquartered firm that Meta contracted for data annotation work, including video, image, and speech annotation for Meta’s AI systems for Ray‑Ban Metas. Sama claims that Meta’s cancellation of the contract affected 1,108 workers.
Responses
Meta
A Meta spokesperson told the BBC that Meta “decided to end our work with Sama because they don’t meet our standards.”
Ars Technica has reached out to Meta for details on how Sama specifically failed to meet Meta’s expectations and will update the story if a response is received.
Sama
In a statement shared with the BBC, Sama said it was never notified of any failure to meet Meta’s standards.
In a statement shared with Ars Technica, Sama added:
“We do not comment on specific client processes or decisions, however, we can confirm that the engagement with Meta is ending. Sama has consistently met the operational, security, and quality standards required across all of our client engagements, and we stand behind the integrity of our work. Our focus is on supporting our employees during this transition while continuing to deliver for our clients.”
Worker testimonies
In February’s report, an anonymous Sama employee was quoted (via machine translation) as saying they “are just expected to carry out the work” even when viewing private footage.
After Sama workers told journalists that they had watched private footage that appeared to be recorded unbeknownst to the glasses owners, Meta responded by halting business with Sama, according to the BBC’s report.