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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

#111

Post by bilbo0s »

pjc50 wrote: post #100
bilbo0s wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Um... police busting down your door for uploading a video kind of is censorship. But yeah, I'm now starting to see why more and more people are just wanting to go to the censor and police raid system. A lot of this stuff people are uploading just doesn't belong in a civilized society. What started off as maybe just content on making non violent jokes about blacks or gays has morphed into showing children being disemb…

> maybe just content on making non violent jokes about blacks or gays The nonviolent "jokes" have a habit of escalating into real violence. If you let enough people post N-word rants without consequence and with validation from their hateful peers often enough they will egg each other on until eventually someone burns down or shoots up a church.

Yeah, I guess that's what I'm starting to see.

Like I said, "This is why we can't have nice things."

Re: Facebook moderators break NDAs to expose working conditions

#112

Post by joezydeco »

dillonmckay wrote: post #85
apanloco wrote: post #45

800 workers, 1 bathroom. Really?

Sounds like my current HQ. I have worked for too many startups with inadequate bathroom setups. It is a big red-flag for me now.

I've used this as a hidden criteria for judging a company during an interview cycle. I always ask to use the bathroom and then see how clean it is, and if it looks like it's been maintained.

I visited one private company where I talked to the owner - his office was plastered with pictures of his racing Porsche but the bathroom had rusted metal and peeling paint. Took me about 5 seconds to see where his priorities lay and I bugged out of there.

Re: Facebook moderators break NDAs to expose working conditions

#113

Post by mhh__ »

spunker540 wrote: post #73

“But had his managers asked, they would have learned that Speagle had a history of anxiety and depression“ Should employers really be asking about mental health history during the hiring process?

> Should employers really be asking about mental health history during the hiring process?

There should be some disclosure of potential mental health risks in the job description. no? i.e. Screening for this at a later stage in the hiring process would be reasonable (No idea on the legality, however)

Re: Facebook moderators break NDAs to expose working conditions

#114

Post by [deleted] »

DannyB2 wrote: post #107

> 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.

[deleted]

Re: Facebook moderators break NDAs to expose working conditions

#115

Post by cloakandswagger »

mpclark wrote: post #86
spunker540 wrote: post #73

“But had his managers asked, they would have learned that Speagle had a history of anxiety and depression“ Should employers really be asking about mental health history during the hiring process?

Of course, if the job involves risks to mental health!

Queue up the next Verge article in 6 months: "Facebook discriminates on the basis of mental health"

Re: Facebook moderators break NDAs to expose working conditions

#116

Post by jerkstate »

eswat wrote: post #54
rorykoehler wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All the devs would leave

Probably not the ones—if any—that lurk 4chan and other extreme imageboards, having been desensitized to such content or probably even get something off of it. I actually wonder now how much of their workforce would fit in that demographic.

I was just thinking that. 4chan janitors are volunteers. Of course, the payoff is helping 4chan exist, not helping Facebook make a few billion more, so the incentive is still vastly different. Still, that might be the right recruitment pool.

Re: Facebook moderators break NDAs to expose working conditions

#118

Post by Konnstann »

holidaygoose wrote: post #62
save_ferris wrote: post #43

It’s strange how quiet the pro-Facebookers become on threads like these. Yesterday, we saw a lot of energy around Libra on both sides of the Facebook spectrum. I’d love to hear an argument from someone defending this company that isn’t “everybody does it.”

It seems like content moderation is just a crazy wicked problem. And the company is doing the best it can with a lot of constraints. Better communication with the workers sounds like it would help, but what else should they be doing realistically?

When I started working with Class 3B lasers at my lab, I had to undergo an initial medical exam, and then periodic ones to make sure my eyesight wasn't being affected. Guess what the company should be doing?

Re: Facebook moderators break NDAs to expose working conditions

#119

Post by baud147258 »

qudat wrote: post #99
cldellow wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't have first-hand experience with the job, but I've read a few articles about these sort of teams, as they're widely deployed by all the large Internet companies. In my view, it's knowledge work. Sure, it's knowledge work that almost anyone can be trained to do, but there's a skill set required. For example, moderators need to make judgment calls that distinguish between offensive uses and artistic/journalistic…

> For example, moderators need to make judgment calls that distinguish between offensive uses and artistic/journalistic/parody uses. There are many cultures and in-groups on Earth, which makes this harder than it might seem at first blush. Not all nudity is obscenity, not all hate speech is blatant. In these cases I'm not sure it really matters. Over-moderation is going to win overall and I don't think moderators are…

From the article (and the others on the subject linked at the end of the article), there are many rules, many exception and edges cases and even mandates for current events (for example, there's been a shooting 15 min ago, do you ban or keep the videos?); in addition to judging if content is infringing the rules, the moderator has to select the right rule being broken ("Do I delete it for terrorism? Do I delete it for graphic violence? Do I delete it for supporting a terrorist organisation" from https://www.irishtimes.com/culture/tv-radio-web/facebook-s-d...).

Some of the decisions taken by the moderators are then reviewed by a "super"-moderator and the match between the two decisions (including the rule chosen) is used as a performance indicator, which has to be above 90% to avoid troubles.

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