You ever read Upton Sinclair's the jungle? It's a tale as old as time. Just publicly shame the company and ultimately they change or congress passes laws. This is a major reason the media works this way, it's part of American democracy.
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Facebook moderators break NDAs to expose working conditions
441–450 of 620 posts
Re: Facebook moderators break NDAs to expose working conditions
#442Earlier quoted context omitted.
Oversight over key quality metrics (including understanding what exactly raters/moderators do) is a VP or even SVP level job. It's critical if your entire org's goal is to deliver ever improving data quality at reasonable latency and reasonable reliability (example: Google Search). Not to mention that, in data driven orgs, the launch/no launch debates are focused on those metrics. So if you want to call the shots you…
You and the GP claim this, yet if these execs have truly been exposed to the worst that gets posted to their platforms, why has there been no appreciable change made? Unless they're so hardened to it they can't emphasize with the horrors that they're asking people to face.
There's no alternative. The only other option (for Facebook and content moderation) is to shut down the shop & return equity to investors, or do nothing and wait for the platform to blow up. And even then someone will make Facebook v2.
Just the economic incentive to cut moderators loose and use algorithms would be enough to do so if it were possible. After all you can buy a decent amount of compute power for 30+k/yr, that will certainly deliver more than the 100 or so QPD[ay] form a content moderator.
PS. I'm sure that most of the work is being done by algorithms anyhow.
Re: Facebook moderators break NDAs to expose working conditions
#443Guy Rosen and other execs within Integrity team continually skirt their responsibilities here. They claim they're doing better, but the second-order effects of crappy work conditions and demands keep cropping up. Zuck says one day we will hopefully be able to AI-away this integrity work (especially the most traumatizing), but he does not say a whisper as to improving working conditions or pay while the work needs to…
You're right, Facebook is a broken company. Along that point, we should break it up.
Re: Facebook moderators break NDAs to expose working conditions
#444> there are two sets of entry-level knowledge workers at Facebook: > engineers ($150k/year, benefits, upward career trajectory) and > content moderators ($30k/year, no benefits, likely going to acquire mental illnesses). If Facebook could get away with paying engineers $30K/year, no benefits, believe me, they would.
A company that made 15B can't afford to raise salaries? What a ludicrous statement to make.
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Re: Facebook moderators break NDAs to expose working conditions
#445Re: Facebook moderators break NDAs to expose working conditions
#446Earlier quoted context omitted.
I guess it's expected in HN that someone would focus on the software engineer pay, but that largely misses the point. I don't think anyone was arguing that the SWE in this case was overpaid. Perhaps there's a case that, in the context of the moderators who make so much less, it can create a wealth inequality that leads to social instability, but I don't thinks there's enough information for that claim. I would argue…
People at 30k are not "dependent" on government subsidies in any socially meaningful sense. They're likely paying more taxes than receiving subsidies - and even if they aren't, there's arbitrariness in that "zero" line in this accounting. E.g. you might call public transit subsidies in cities a subsidy, but... it's a social good, so who exactly is that subsidizing? These kind of workers have next to no leverage, so t…
I know the $30k mark is germane to the original article but I deliberately refrained from putting a quantifiable value on where this "dependency" tipping point may be. For one, I don't know and two, it probably changes with other variables like location, number of dependents etc. In some areas, I imagine $30k is enough to need no assistance while in others life becomes unmanageable without it.
I would say that most/all subsidies are in place because they are viewed as a social good. I would also say regardless of where that subsidy qualification point is, it can be destabilizing in the fact that it moves people away from self-sufficiency. When people feel financially insecure, they tend to avoid the kinds of choices that may lead to a more stable society...buying a house, starting a family, starting a business, etc.
Maybe I'm 180 degrees off here. There's certainly been an argument that government subsidies make a society more stable and not less. I've heard some even refer to it as "revolution insurance" for that same reason.
Here's a different take on it: subsidies tend to help both the upper and lower ends of the economic strata. The lower benefits directly and, in cases of business elite, they may benefit from effectively being able to maintain lower wages. So who gets pinched? The middle class, which I think most would feel are necessary for a stable society. Some of our biggest gains as a country came from when the middle class made the largest strides. Not sure I know enough to make that claim, but it's one that's bandied about.
Re: Facebook moderators break NDAs to expose working conditions
#447Earlier quoted context omitted.
Don't have to subject anyone to it. Don't have Facebook.
I have never distributed child pornography or snuff films. I'm already not subjecting anyone to it. Communications channels exist. Unless you want to undo that, or enable this behavior, you have to deal with it somehow.
We don't have to have huge, centralized communication sites where anyone can sign up and post stuff and the operator's shielded from liability for what's posted so long as they subject a bunch of humans to it in order to filter it out, even if there's tons and tons of it posted constantly. We only have to have that in order to keep supporting the current ad-tech business models, which isn't a given.
I'm not saying if Sally starts a forum and it gets hacked and someone posts illegal stuff she should be fined or charged with anything. I'm not saying she should even be in trouble if she gives one person who turns out to be a jerkass posting rights and that person posts illegal stuff. But if she opens up public signups, gets a billion or two users, then says "well I guess I'll just have to pay a bunch of people money to look at all this gore porn that's getting posted" the rest of us should go "uh, no, you should instead just stop".
Re: Facebook moderators break NDAs to expose working conditions
#448> there are two sets of entry-level knowledge workers at Facebook: > engineers ($150k/year, benefits, upward career trajectory) and > content moderators ($30k/year, no benefits, likely going to acquire mental illnesses). If Facebook could get away with paying engineers $30K/year, no benefits, believe me, they would.
I'm sorry but who wouldn't? I would.
The company I work for now seems to be serious about a strategy of golden handcuffs, giving more than the going rate, and keeping employees from having to fret about basic needs so they can spend more time focused. It definitely appears to work to retain talent. I could say similar things about the two companies I worked for prior to this one as well. I feel there is something serious and economically competitive to be said for understanding the importance of hiring and keeping good people by paying more than the minimum. Maybe this only works if individual employees aren't easily replaceable. Or, maybe some companies don't try to track the long term financial costs of high turnover.
Re: Facebook moderators break NDAs to expose working conditions
#449I 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…
> If minimum wage were $15
... then low-skilled candidates would NOT be able to find any job at all, because if low skilled candidate's expertise does not support $15/hour salary, and employers who could, potentially, pay less (e.g. $10/hour) are legally prohibited from employing people at that lower rate -- then there are no other jobs available to that low skilled candidate at all. Which means forced and hopeless unemployment.
Re: Facebook moderators break NDAs to expose working conditions
#450>> "Speagle vividly recalls the first video he saw in his new assignment. Two teenagers spot an iguana on the ground, and one picks it up by the tail. A third teenager films what happens next: the teen holding the iguana begins smashing it onto the street. “They beat the living shit out of this thing,” Speagle told me, as tears welled up in his eyes. “The iguana was screaming and crying. And they didn’t stop until th…
After trying to find the video I've found that iguanas are an invasive species in Florida and blunt force trauma to the head is the legal "humane" way to kill the invasive species. Not sure if that's what's going on in the video, and if it took multiple swings it certainly wasn't done correctly but maybe look into it before assuming things.