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Facebook moderators break NDAs to expose working conditions

theverge.com

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Re: Facebook moderators break NDAs to expose working conditions

#201

Post by nvrspyx »

commandlinefan wrote: post #173
asark wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Make the users do a little every so often. Like Slashdot's "hey, go moderate some posts" thing but forced to before they can use the platform anymore. That'd be fun. Of course the real answer is that this sort of site is a bad idea and shouldn't exist. Wide-open signup and public visibility of content, or ease of sharing it with strangers. Bad combo, don't care how much money it's making them (and other, similar site…

> Make the users do a little every so often. Oh, dear god, no - have you ever used Reddit? This is what happens when you outsource moderation to the sorts of users who enjoy moderating other people.

Have you ever used Facebook? It’s much worse and this is specifically in reference to media that are against Facebook’s guidelines (e.g. nudity, gore, etc), not all content as a whole. Users doing some moderating in this context would simply be presenting flagged media randomly to users and asking if it breaks the guidelines.

Very completely different things. Subreddits would be the equivalent of Facebook Pages and they already have moderation tools for those that run the page.

Re: Facebook moderators break NDAs to expose working conditions

#202

Post by bumby »

lexapro wrote: post #186
H8crilA wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sorry but who wouldn't? I would.

Yeah, that's kinda how free markets work.

Except we don't have those Ayn Rand-ian free markets for a reason. We have a whole host of workers rights in the U.S. because society realized that leaving everything up to free markets to take advantage of what they can may lead to bad outcomes.

Re: Facebook moderators break NDAs to expose working conditions

#203

Post by sandworm101 »

debacle wrote: post #185
sandworm101 wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> If it's a shit job that isn't worth the pay, people won't do it. That assumes perfect knowledge. As mentioned in the article, these moderators often do not understand what they are getting into until long after they have committed to the job. Once you have quit a previous job, moved, setup your new life, only then do you realize your new "brand consultant" job means watching kittens die all day. Jobs like this als…

Nobody moves for $30k a year.

Lol. Ever seen a migrant camp? Ever talked to a seasonal farm laborer? People will literally walk across continents for 30k/years.

https://www.payscale.com/research/US/Job=Soldier/Salary

Re: Facebook moderators break NDAs to expose working conditions

#204

Post by fencepost »

asark wrote: post #59
arethuza wrote: post #15

Maybe Facebook should make all of their own employees do 15 minutes of moderation per day - just to share the pain out a bit....

Make the users do a little every so often. Like Slashdot's "hey, go moderate some posts" thing but forced to before they can use the platform anymore. That'd be fun. Of course the real answer is that this sort of site is a bad idea and shouldn't exist. Wide-open signup and public visibility of content, or ease of sharing it with strangers. Bad combo, don't care how much money it's making them (and other, similar site…

Slashdot's "hey, go moderate some posts" thing but forced to before they can use the platform anymore. That'd be fun.

Overall not possible. On Slashdot everything is basically public, on Facebook it's largely private/restricted and I'm sure from past discussions that the worst stuff is in private groups or clusters of friends. They could do much more aggressive banning of users (and detecting new accounts designed to circumvent bans) for sharing such content or being in groups focused around such content, but that might hurt their most important metrics.

Re: Facebook moderators break NDAs to expose working conditions

#206

Post by Nasrudith »

dalore wrote: post #159

If they made engineers take turns working in the content moderation you would soon see all sorts of improvements (like the aforementioned ability to recognize duplicate content for starters). They would hate it so much, that would make better tooling. But now they don't have to know about it, just send images to the moderation team over and over like they are robots.

Couldn't it be just done in a more pleasant and efficient way by simply tasking them on moderation assistance tools instead of misplaced retribution?

While putting themselves in the moderator's shoes may prove helpful they aren't comparable in skillsets. If they were given a command line interface for instance most mods would be puzzled. "Produced for self" and "produces for content moderators" are differing needs.

Re: Facebook moderators break NDAs to expose working conditions

#207

Post by bena »

_bxg1 wrote: post #129

I think the most pertinent question is why don't they quit ? It says a great deal about how broken the United States' job market and social safety net are. If minimum wage were $15, they could find another job that paid their basic living expenses. If health care weren't left up to your employer, they wouldn't be out of luck while looking for a different job. If there were any alternative , they wouldn't stay in this…

That is true, but a common theme among many of the stories is how much more they pay compared to other places.

These people are literally trading dollars for their mental health. That is the choice they are making.

Re: Facebook moderators break NDAs to expose working conditions

#208

Post by rayvd »

anarchy8 wrote: post #181
H8crilA wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sorry but who wouldn't? I would.

I wouldn't, because that would be horrible...

If they were willing to work for that wage, why wouldn't you allow them to? Why would you favor an opportunity for someone pricing themselves higher?

Re: Facebook moderators break NDAs to expose working conditions

#209

Post by threatofrain »

bumby wrote: post #190
H8crilA wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sorry but who wouldn't? I would.

I imagine many people wouldn't. It's potentially shortsighted to have that sort of myopic utility maximizing mindset when it causes you to debase other values like social stability. But in a society that advocates the hustle, I gotta get mine, right? /s

Isn't that something that should be resolved at the social or government level? As opposed to Walmart? The market is good at some things, and that which the market does not naturally provide... we morally expect/beg for?

Doesn't a situation like this ask for social or government intervention?

Re: Facebook moderators break NDAs to expose working conditions

#210

Post by atishay811 »

I imagine if Facebook could use its users to moderate content from others, say you are sign up for moderation, then have to moderate 20 posts from unrelated users to get 20 days of ad free Facebook. Facebook could employ a system like re captcha uses to identify users faking it.

Win-win?

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