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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

#551

Post by harry8 »

gradys wrote: post #542
harry8 wrote: post #536

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The solution is to legislate it be done properly which is a business expense. Where it is too expensive to be done properly, there is no business case to have a user created content platform. Being a platform is enormously lucrative, shirking the responsibilities to cut costs and make it even more so is evil. Really.

Could you describe some potential legislation you'd be happy with? How would you define "properly"? I'm especially interested in how this would work in places like the United States where there are strong free speech laws.

The detail of how best to regulate is a subject matter for experts, not me. In principle precisely the same way we have legislated against pumping sulphur dioxide out of a chimney in the atmosphere. Same rules for everyone. Now go and compete. You get experts on pollution, mitigation and economics to advise on what will work best for the outcomes you want to achieve. Similar domain experts are required here.

Now I have no doubt that facebrick and the evil-goog will try for regulatory capture and employ their vast army of Washington lobbyists in rent-seeking activities but that is a separate problem applicable in every industry where market failure means you have to regulate, not just this one. (And yes it does need solving, absolutely urgently). If you don't have to regulate because the market is working, great! Don't regulate! That's not what we have here, this is market failure but we haven't yet regulated. It will come because there are clearly externalities in this market, Well it will come unless we give up on democracy first. Something with which facebrick and evil-goog seem really comfortable as long as they supplant it.

Re: Facebook moderators break NDAs to expose working conditions

#552

Post by closeparen »

hashkb wrote: post #516
Jedi72 wrote: post #505

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What legislation? Specifically? What do you want to make law, that they have to hire moderators (which they already do?) or do you want to make it illegal to post "bad things" on the internet?

Let me start by saying that I am not running for elected office because it's a really hard job; even though I might believe I would do it with more integrity and rationality than the next person, I'm also smart enough to realize that everyone thinks that way and I'd probably end up within a standard deviation of average corruption. What I'm saying, seriously, is that we need a society-wide blameless post-mortem on so…

The point of free speech is that it’s not regulated according to an opinion about “what is good for us all” or what is “needed.”

Re: Facebook moderators break NDAs to expose working conditions

#553

Post by closeparen »

xnyan wrote: post #372
ralusek wrote: post #298

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, and taxes + UBI would represent that proportion. This meme is also only ridiculous because of the $100 figure. What if someone paid you $20k to fuck off. $100k to fuck off?

Sorry for the discourse, my polisci past is flaring up but I do in fact explain why I support this (silly) tweet. There are some kinds of nonviolent behavior we don't allow because we (I guess we is majority of society?) think it's wrong, often around issues of financial exploitation. For example, even if you are mentally sound you can't sell yourself into indentured servitude because that tends to only happen when s…

Why would it need to be law? Since, in your view, capital / management / entrepreneurship contribute nothing of value, workers should have no problem creating successful businesses without them. Particularly if UBI takes care of basic needs during the early stages.

Re: Facebook moderators break NDAs to expose working conditions

#554

Post by lone_haxx0r »

ummwhat wrote: post #492
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…

I've talked about this somewhere else. What you're seeing is just a manifestation of what I call "the fundamental problem of user created content." Said problem is that warehousing and distributing content scales insanely well but curation does not. Until we have strong AI, curation is a manual process. Moderators just aren't efficient enough at processing content for their output to pay for a full time salary. You c…

Do you mean a bussiness solution or a solution to the "social problem" of people posting disgusting content?

I have no bussiness solution, but the solution to the latter is to simply ignore/block people who post stuff you don't like.

Re: Facebook moderators break NDAs to expose working conditions

#556

Post by baroffoos »

jm4 wrote: post #398
_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…

I'm not following this logic. They can't quit a job that pays double minimum wage unless minimum wage is increased to the amount they are currently getting paid? If minimum wage was $15 there would be some other crummy employer paying more than minimum wage to incentivize people to take a shitty job. Would they be stuck in that one too because the alternatives pay less?

If it was possible to live a normal life on the minimum wage then many would chose to instead of destroying their mental health to be able to pay rent.

Re: Facebook moderators break NDAs to expose working conditions

#557

Post by luckylion »

xamuel wrote: post #412
luckylion wrote: post #337

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, but that works once or twice, and then the defense catches on. Sure, it's not a perfect solution, but rather like spam filters, it gets you pretty close. Also, I don't assume that powerful actors are the issue here - they'll likely just call their contacts at a high price law firm and they in turn call FB to remove some video.

>And then the defense catches on And has to redo everything. It's whack-a-mole. Doesn't have to be powerful actors really, either. There are many less powerful actors who would love to get selected things removed from YouTube. This isn't the same as spam mail filters, because you generally don't know what sort of emails other people are sending each other. If you did, you could deliberately try to manipulate filters…

> If you did, you could deliberately try to manipulate filters to flag your competitors' emails as spam.

You could, it's just hard and generally not worth it. The same, I believe, goes for video manipulation. Sounds like hash collisions. Possible, sure, but not something you run on your cell in 30s.

Re: Facebook moderators break NDAs to expose working conditions

#558

Post by baroffoos »

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.

Stack overflow has the users do the moderation and it works well, maybe not perfect but its not bad.

Re: Facebook moderators break NDAs to expose working conditions

#559

Post by igravious »

toss1 wrote: post #477
iBasher wrote: post #450

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

There are plenty of invasive species that I'm 100% in support of eradicating from their invaded territories. This is no justification for cruelty of any kind, nor promoting cruelty, which this video and Facebook does by leaving it posted. No assumptions needed. Assume that you are 100% correct, the species is undesirable invasive and that is the proper procedure. Repeatedly bashing their head while the creature is ob…

User's account is new and the name is "iBasher" (iguana basher?). Proceed with caution.

Re: Facebook moderators break NDAs to expose working conditions

#560

Post by jki275 »

hashkb wrote: post #516
Jedi72 wrote: post #505

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What legislation? Specifically? What do you want to make law, that they have to hire moderators (which they already do?) or do you want to make it illegal to post "bad things" on the internet?

Let me start by saying that I am not running for elected office because it's a really hard job; even though I might believe I would do it with more integrity and rationality than the next person, I'm also smart enough to realize that everyone thinks that way and I'd probably end up within a standard deviation of average corruption. What I'm saying, seriously, is that we need a society-wide blameless post-mortem on so…

You claim to be for free speech, yet most of what you propose directly infringes on the concept. You don’t get to determine who gets to say what.
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