Three Facebook Content Moderators’ Safe Workplace Litigation class members—Selena Scola, Erin Elder, and Gabriel Ramos—have been inducted into the San Francisco-based Impact Fund’s Class Action Hall of Fame. They received their award at the 21st annual Impact Fund Class Action Conference, held on February 24, 2023, at the Hotel Kabuki in San Francisco.
The Class Action Hall of Fame serves to honor ordinary individuals who rose above their circumstances with extraordinary courage and sacrifice. It recognizes named plaintiffs whose commitment and determination has led to significant advances in economic, environmental, racial, and social justice. Being a named plaintiff in a case against a powerful corporation or government entity takes time, courage, endurance, and so much more. Consequently, the Impact Fund founded the Class Action Hall of Fame in 2016 because it wanted to highlight the individuals who sought not only justice for themselves, but to rectify the system for others.
The firm is Co-Lead Counsel in Facebook Content Moderators’ Safe Workplace Litigation, an action against Facebook alleging content moderators responsible for viewing and removing offensive and disturbing content from Facebook users are suffering from PTSD and other trauma-related injuries because they were not being properly protected by Facebook. The firm represents Scola, Elder, Ramos and over 14,000 content moderators who worked for Facebook in 2017-2018 via various staffing agencies.
The suit alleges plaintiffs witnessed thousands of acts of extreme and graphic violence while employed to review Facebook content, which caused them to suffer PTSD and other trauma. In May 2020, the class reached a ground-breaking settlement with Facebook for $52 million and workplace improvements. On July 14, 2021, the Court granted plaintiffs' renewed motion for final approval of settlement. The settlement has received considerable media attention and has paved the way for similar suits against YouTube, Inc. and TikTok Inc. led by the firm.
With a vision of a more equitable world where everyone can achieve justice, The Impact Fund was founded in December 1992. Its mission is to provide grants, advocacy, and education to support impact litigation on behalf of communities seeking economic, environmental, racial, and social justice. Impact Fund does this by:
- making grants to support cases that affect large numbers of people and aim to change a larger system or lead to significant legal reform
- providing training for public interest law practitioners on a wide range of issues relating to public interest litigation including in-person presentations, brown bag lunches, webinars, an annual Class Action Conference, and a three-day intensive Class Action Training Institute
- pursuing an active and diverse docket of impact civil rights cases, maintaining an active amicus program, and providing pro bono advice to civil rights litigators on a range of complex issues