Facebook moderators break NDAs to expose working conditions • Hacker News Board

Re: Facebook moderators break NDAs to expose working conditions

#461

Post by lotsofpulp » Wed, Jun 19, 2019, 10:27 PM UTC

organsnyder wrote: post #101

awakeasleep wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is industry standard in businesses with limited sick day or leave policies. Especially in call center type environments. Once an employee has used their allotment, they receive a write up if they take off again no matter how ill. Too many write ups and you're fired. Managers have no discretion in this process, so they can only mitigate the impact by doing something like bringing the trash can over or buying hosp…

A local healthcare system has a similar policy: PTO (paid time off) is not differentiated between sick days vs. other days off. They don't offer any sort of maternity/paternity leave, aside from what the US Family Medical Leave Act (FMLA) requires, which is six weeks unpaid time off. Even worse, they require employees to burn up all of their accrued PTO days before taking any unpaid FMLA time. So you have new parents…

FMLA is 12 weeks unpaid.

Re: Facebook moderators break NDAs to expose working conditions

#462

Post by plankers » Wed, Jun 19, 2019, 10:29 PM UTC

Miner49er wrote: post #121

cldellow wrote: post #12

This was a valuable article to read. Facebook is enormously valuable. They made something like $15B in net income in the last four quarters. Content moderators are a necessary condition for that profit. If kiddie porn, gore and animal cruelty flooded the network, it would cease to be a destination visited by people that advertisers will pay to reach. And yet, there are two sets of entry-level knowledge workers at Fac…

Facebook won't do anything to help these moderaters unless the cost of the negative PR exceeds the cost of doing something. Engineers at FB could help achieve this by causing agitation, for sure. Maybe the best solution is for the moderaters to unionize.

If you can think of a practical way to unionize workers on a 1-2 year contract with a high turnover rate, I'd love to hear it.

The deck is stacked against employee organization. If I were conspiracy-minded, I might even say this was by design.

Re: Facebook moderators break NDAs to expose working conditions

#463

Post by shujito » Wed, Jun 19, 2019, 10:30 PM UTC

Miner49er wrote: post #121

cldellow wrote: post #12

This was a valuable article to read. Facebook is enormously valuable. They made something like $15B in net income in the last four quarters. Content moderators are a necessary condition for that profit. If kiddie porn, gore and animal cruelty flooded the network, it would cease to be a destination visited by people that advertisers will pay to reach. And yet, there are two sets of entry-level knowledge workers at Fac…

Facebook won't do anything to help these moderaters unless the cost of the negative PR exceeds the cost of doing something. Engineers at FB could help achieve this by causing agitation, for sure. Maybe the best solution is for the moderaters to unionize.

...which it's unlikely to happen because of the NDA's they have to sign.

If there's something wrong with this reasoning, please elaborate.

Re: Facebook moderators break NDAs to expose working conditions

#464

Post by Apocryphon » Wed, Jun 19, 2019, 10:32 PM UTC

H8crilA wrote: post #442

Apocryphon wrote: post #429

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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’s all or nothing thinking. The immediate alternative is to improve working conditions for moderators. Or impose more stringent bans and punishments on those who post that sort of material. Those are just for starters.

Re: Facebook moderators break NDAs to expose working conditions

#465

Post by plankers » Wed, Jun 19, 2019, 10:40 PM UTC

anon029102 wrote: post #83

cldellow wrote: post #12

This was a valuable article to read. Facebook is enormously valuable. They made something like $15B in net income in the last four quarters. Content moderators are a necessary condition for that profit. If kiddie porn, gore and animal cruelty flooded the network, it would cease to be a destination visited by people that advertisers will pay to reach. And yet, there are two sets of entry-level knowledge workers at Fac…

> Can anyone at Facebook speak to whether engineers are aware of the working conditions of moderators, and agitate to improve their lot? They are passively aware but mostly don't care. The engineers who express frustration are in the vast minority. Most engineers are just super happy about their own situations, very focused on PSCs, and try to keep to their own stuff. Any internal frustrations are channelled towards…

Nobody's making waves when everybody is focused on their own struggle. Gamifying for a docile workforce.

Re: Facebook moderators break NDAs to expose working conditions

#466

Post by kevingadd » Wed, Jun 19, 2019, 10:42 PM UTC

Shivetya wrote: post #122

cldellow wrote: post #12

This was a valuable article to read. Facebook is enormously valuable. They made something like $15B in net income in the last four quarters. Content moderators are a necessary condition for that profit. If kiddie porn, gore and animal cruelty flooded the network, it would cease to be a destination visited by people that advertisers will pay to reach. And yet, there are two sets of entry-level knowledge workers at Fac…

anyone who has done moderation for any active forum can tell you how nightmarish it can be. the more popular the platform the more problems you can have. anecdotal, friend who streams on twitch also mods for a few streamers and they even have issues when a stream is in subscriber mode only. simply because anonymity and distance from those being affected empower people to do bad things edit : I am really surprised the…

Anonymity is definitely empowerment (especially because Twitch has no effective ban system, so bad actors will create dozens of accounts and keep coming back), but even people acting under their real names will do horrible things. We've seen this with real names on FB/Google+.

It seems like there are no easy solutions for this and it's really frustrating: Societal norms are just completely shredded right now.

Re: Facebook moderators break NDAs to expose working conditions

#467

Post by unicornfinder » Wed, Jun 19, 2019, 10:42 PM UTC

geggam wrote: post #340

cldellow wrote: post #12

This was a valuable article to read. Facebook is enormously valuable. They made something like $15B in net income in the last four quarters. Content moderators are a necessary condition for that profit. If kiddie porn, gore and animal cruelty flooded the network, it would cease to be a destination visited by people that advertisers will pay to reach. And yet, there are two sets of entry-level knowledge workers at Fac…

150k a year in Silicon Valley is similar to 30k a year in the midwest... Where are the moderators living ?

Poland

Re: Facebook moderators break NDAs to expose working conditions

#468

Post by pmoriarty » Wed, Jun 19, 2019, 10:49 PM UTC

bksenior wrote: post #252

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.

More apropos to this age is not the political climate in which Sinclair's "The Jungle" led to pro-consumer reforms, but rather Jack London's "The Iron Heel"[1], wherein when challenged, one of the captains of industry spoke these prophetic words:

"This, then, is our answer. We have no words to waste on you. When you reach out your vaunted strong hands for our palaces and purpled ease, we will show you what strength is. In roar of shell and shrapnel and in whine of machine-guns will our answer be couched. We will grind you revolutionists down under our heel, and we shall walk upon your faces. The world is ours, we are its lords, and ours it shall remain. As for the host of labor, it has been in the dirt since history began, and I read history aright. And in the dirt it shall remain so long as I and mine and those that come after us have the power. There is the word. It is the king of words--Power. Not God, not Mammon, but Power. Pour it over your tongue till it tingles with it. Power."

[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Iron_Heel

Re: Facebook moderators break NDAs to expose working conditions

#469

Post by omegaworks » Wed, Jun 19, 2019, 10:54 PM UTC

lotsofpulp wrote: post #461

organsnyder wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A local healthcare system has a similar policy: PTO (paid time off) is not differentiated between sick days vs. other days off. They don't offer any sort of maternity/paternity leave, aside from what the US Family Medical Leave Act (FMLA) requires, which is six weeks unpaid time off. Even worse, they require employees to burn up all of their accrued PTO days before taking any unpaid FMLA time. So you have new parents…

FMLA is 12 weeks unpaid.

Unless your spouse works at the same company. :D

>If a father and mother have the same employer, they must share their leave, in effect halving each person's rights, if the employer so chooses.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Family_and_Medical_Leave_Act_o...

Re: Facebook moderators break NDAs to expose working conditions

#470

Post by nvr219 » Wed, Jun 19, 2019, 10:54 PM UTC

kevingadd wrote: post #466

Shivetya wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

anyone who has done moderation for any active forum can tell you how nightmarish it can be. the more popular the platform the more problems you can have. anecdotal, friend who streams on twitch also mods for a few streamers and they even have issues when a stream is in subscriber mode only. simply because anonymity and distance from those being affected empower people to do bad things edit : I am really surprised the…

Anonymity is definitely empowerment (especially because Twitch has no effective ban system, so bad actors will create dozens of accounts and keep coming back), but even people acting under their real names will do horrible things. We've seen this with real names on FB/Google+. It seems like there are no easy solutions for this and it's really frustrating: Societal norms are just completely shredded right now.

> but even people acting under their real names will do horrible things. We've seen this with real names on FB/Google+.

And on twitter. Their most famous user uses his real name.