Remotasks ends operations in Kenya

A popular online gig-economy platform called Remotasks is no longer accessible in Kenya. The platform which allows users from all walks of life to complete small, online tasks such as image and video labelling, contributing to the training and development of AI models, and make money, now shows an error message when you try to access it locally. The reason for this hasn’t been made clear.

In 2021, the site’s official blog called on Kenyans to jump on the opportunity to get paid while working from home. In the blog post, the company said, “Say goodbye to weird surveys, wacky ads, or shady recruitment processes. In Remotasks, we want you to use your human insight to pave the way to better self-driving cars, delivery drones, or smarter AI assistants.” It is not clear what has caused the site to no longer be accessible.

According to Twitter/X users who are sharing the news on the platform, Kenyan users on Remotasks have received an email letting them know that the platform is no longer accessible in the region. Here is the email:

A few weeks ago, a video went viral of a Kenyan explaining to President Ruto about his working experience on Remotasks, where he earned above $200. It is not clear if there’s a relationship between the virality of the video and Remotasks ending operations in the market.

For now, if you try to access remotasks, you’re met with an error message saying “Sorry, you have been blocked. You are unable to access remotasks.com”. We have sent an email to the company requesting clarification on the same. This article will be updated once we receive a response.