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Facebook moderators break NDAs to expose working conditions

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Re: Facebook moderators break NDAs to expose working conditions

#311

Post by marak830 »

meruru wrote: post #309
marak830 wrote: post #286

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Id like to preface, I'm not trying to reduce what these people are going through. But it's relative. I grew up on farms, I've slaughtered animals and I've seen seemingly stable 30 year olds completely break down when they see a video of an animal being humanely slaughtered. I've also heard stories from mates of mine in the military that I'd prefer not to see on video. People are desensitised from things they are rais…

>People are desensitised from things they are raised with From my own experience, that's not required. I grew up pretty sheltered myself and I have no problem seeing that kind of content occasionally. Maybe it would be a different story if I were being exposed to this sort of content constantly. I don't know. That said, I hadn't actually read the article when I posted and found it pretty surprising. It seems there's…

So take that, and then change it to a human child. I was trying to use a fairly light-touch subject matter.

At that point, if you don't have a reaction(from seeing it multiple times), its probably tome to seek professional help.

Re: Facebook moderators break NDAs to expose working conditions

#312

Post by gerbilly »

This might be an opportunity for facebook to do a lot of real good for the world.

They should have an investigative unit that tracks down the source of this material and partners with law enforcement so we can catch the bastards doing and posting this horrible stuff.

Re: Facebook moderators break NDAs to expose working conditions

#313

Post by organsnyder »

dragonwriter wrote: post #198
leetcrew wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Even worse, they require employees to burn up all of their accrued PTO days before taking any unpaid FMLA time. everything else you mentioned seems pretty bad, but what is so terrible about this? unless you are trying to keep your PTO buffer high so you can cash out on a higher salary when you leave, it doesn't seem to make much difference if you were going to need to take the unpaid leave anyway.

> everything else you mentioned seems pretty bad, but what is so terrible about this? Because PTO (or even pure sick leave) has less restrictive usage conditions than FMLA, it means that anyone who uses needs FMLA for a longer-term issue like a new child will also exhaust all the leave they have available for short-term personal or family illness or need for stress relief and be unable to use that until they have rea…

Yep. FMLA can't be used for a routine illness—only a "serious health condition"[1]. But it's better for everyone—especially vulnerable populations like hospital patients—for people with less-severe illnesses to stay home. A routine cold can be fatal for a person undergoing chemotherapy.

[1] https://www.dol.gov/whd/fmla/employeeguide.pdf

Re: Facebook moderators break NDAs to expose working conditions

#314

Post by 6cd6beb »

_bxg1 wrote: post #239
spamizbad wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It also sounds like they are sold on the empty promise that these jobs will get your foot through the door into the lucrative technology industry.

It seems pretty clear that they stayed after any illusion of that fell away.

It's dark, but you can manipulate and abuse people into staying through pretty much anything.

See abusive relationships or this handy article http://www.issendai.com/psychology/sick-systems.html

Re: Facebook moderators break NDAs to expose working conditions

#315

Post by jsgo »

luckylion wrote: post #131
jsgo wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The only problems I see are that someone could potentially upload a lower resolution version of the video a moderator has seen and then perhaps bypass the content id system (I don't know how tolerant they tend to be for situations as that). There's also the aspect of if we make it search out for distinct frames (like "scene change" type things), there's the possibility that some safe things could become auto-moderate…

Even with lower resolutions, fingerprinting (on a frame level) should still work relatively well, shouldn't it? If you get a certain level of confidence on each frame - if you have 80% of the frames with 80% confidence to be the same as $someVideo, that ought to be good enough overall to not get false positives but catch repeat views - how many 30s videos will randomly share 80% of their frames with a 90s video of an…

I started playing FFXIV a bit over a month ago. During that time, there was someone in the Novice Network (new player advice channel in game) posted a "does this look like an okay PLD build?" with a URL. I click the URL and it is a video of something being held down and attacked with a hatchet or something and it sounded like a child (as soon as I realized what was going on after like 1-2 seconds, I closed the video then reported the user and blocked them. It was a bit much and not the type of content I'd seek out, so that's probably why details are hazy).

Reason I give that anecdote is for the last part: I don't think it is about monetizing this type of content and that they're only after the shock factor of it.

Again, maybe they could automate safeguarding against it, but my guess is they'd find a way to get through. Like take a 5 minute YouTuber video and inject a slightly modified version of the shock video in it with hopes it bypasses the filter. Don't know, but wouldn't put it past anyone that would do this sort of thing.

Re: Facebook moderators break NDAs to expose working conditions

#316

Post by wernercd »

flatline wrote: post #283
H8crilA wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How much would you pay your house cleaner? 100k a year? Do you tip $100 USD in restaurants so that waiters can enjoy similar effective salary?

Neither of those require years of education and training.

Content Moderators requires years of education and training?

The original poster made two categories: Engineers and Moderators.

Engineers? Definitely years of training and education...

Moderators? What education is required to say "Does this post break community standards? (Check yes/no)"

Re: Facebook moderators break NDAs to expose working conditions

#317

Post by darkpuma »

_bxg1 wrote: post #239
spamizbad wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It also sounds like they are sold on the empty promise that these jobs will get your foot through the door into the lucrative technology industry.

It seems pretty clear that they stayed after any illusion of that fell away.

Maybe it's an illusion, or maybe it isn't. That depends on the individual in question. If somebody's previous work experience is laying tar down on roofs, they may consider the change to an office job to be well worth the added emotional toll.

Due to the low physicality of the work, there are likely people who consider it easy work, despite the psychological impact that seems obvious to you or me.

Re: Facebook moderators break NDAs to expose working conditions

#318

Post by antisemiotic »

ceejayoz wrote: post #259
Pigo wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't see how an average person could be expected to witness some of the things mentioned in the article. I didn't have time to read the entire article, but do they have counselors on staff or something? That one paragraph about organs was enough to ruin my day, and it was just text. I'm surprised such a "rash of videos" wasn't in the news somewhere.

> That one paragraph about organs was enough to ruin my day, and it was just text. I'm surprised such a "rash of videos" wasn't in the news somewhere. I'm left wondering if it was a clip from a horror movie or something. Shitty to see, but not necessarily newsworthy like "live children chopped up for organs" would be.

No need to be left wondering. While I'm not sure these are the videos mentioned, it's not hard to find some just by googling for it. Or maybe don't, I wish I didn't.

Re: Facebook moderators break NDAs to expose working conditions

#319

Post by calgoo »

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…

Make it captcha test: Select all the pictures of animal cruelty. /s

Re: Facebook moderators break NDAs to expose working conditions

#320

Post by geodel »

cldellow wrote: post #178
Nasrudith wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is because it is a waste of their time and a bad approach and everyone knows it fundamentally on some level - however nice the eglatarian ideal would be in other ways. It would be like expecting doctors to clean bedpans. Now it is a neccessary task and those who do so should receive appropriate respect even if it is just "Thanks glad I don't have to do it." but anyone off the street and willing to do the dirty job…

Yes, I should perhaps clarify - I mentioned developers to point out that Facebook has the resources to provide excellent working conditions. If I can adapt (and perhaps torture) your analogy, I'd say it's like Facebook currently has doctors who save lives and command high salaries, and janitors who change bedpans but don't have access to hot water and latex gloves. So inevitably, the janitors catch a disease (hospita…

Your example seems useless. There would be minimum working condition requirement enforced by labor department. So it would be illegal that janitors be forced to work in filthy conditions without necessary gears. Similarly FB would be fulfilling the working conditions set by labor department for desk workers.

People are essentially asking if FB can increase salary/ perks by x amount because internet commenters are somehow not feeling good about current scenario.

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