Facebook moderators break NDAs to expose working conditions

There's also the possibility of passing a law around this issue. It doesn't have to be entirely market forces.

Every web community has to deal with this, some types of communities are more prone to this than others. On HN this obviously works very well, also other 90s style web forums don't suffer these problems but that's probably also because those usually have a very close scope and attract only certain kind of people.

Facebook is really broad, so are also online news magazines which are sometimes full of horrible comments (only text of course). Usenet more or less ceased to exist because of that. So in reality this is not a Facebook problem but an online community problem - it just looks like a FB problem because that's the major online community.

I wonder if this could be solved with a 3rd party Facebook integration/startup :-). Anyway, Facebook also has more problems with that, another one being undesired unsolicited contacts which fall into the same category of not so nice stuff about Facebook. People don't see the meat production but the bad smell is really close which is why many leave.

>This is a guess - can anyone at Facebook speak to whether engineers are aware of the working conditions of moderators, and agitate to improve their lot?

If you go work at Facebook as a engineer chances are you aren't too bothered by ethical questions

Social Media Content Moderation Team Lead

Cognizant Technology Solutions

Tampa, Florida • This is an exempt position, requiring day, evening, weekend, and holiday shifts, as this delivery center is operational 24/7 and 365 days a year.

Cognizant is seeking a team of strong Team Leads to manage a team of social media content moderators for a global social media organization.

The Team Lead will be responsible not only for managing day to day operations of the team, people management, performance management, but also help the client determine gaps in processes, identifying innovative ways to solve problems upstream and scale our operations.

Ideal candidates will be comfortable understanding social media, have an appetite for research and gathering data insights, a high level of comfort working with cross-functional partners, and a strong analytical mindset. Successful team members have a passion for business success, strong attention to detail, analytical problem-solving abilities keeping a high level of team motivation and keen eyes for operational inefficiencies.

Responsibilities: • Provide mentorship, guidance and career development to members of your team • Lead a high-performing team through an exciting transition to build problem solving, critical thinking, analytical and technical capabilities which will enable the department to develop deeper, more scalable solutions • Team management responsibilities for a market team, whilst also serving as a cross-functional and a global liaison in developed areas of expertise • Establish team goals and work with direct reports on strategies for executing, measuring progress and sharing results • Deliver projects involving quantitative analysis, industry research, and strategy development, working directly with global cross-functional teams to problem solve analytical approaches and develop solutions • Identify actionable insights, suggest recommendations, and influence team strategy through effective communication • Advocate for users within their market, partnering with global and cross-functional teams to develop global solutions

>Content Moderators requires years of education and training?

It doesn't, but the potential trauma and psychological damage they might get from this kind of work should put it in the "high risk, high reward" category. I would never do a job like that knowing it could scar me for life unless the rewards were fantastic in that moment. And I believe that most people, knowing what this job entails, would say the same thing.

The way the article puts it, these moderation companies are looking for whoever they can to fill the chairs in order to meet their quotas, offering a seemingly larger paycheck for what they advertise as an easy job. They literally mislead people so they accept this job, and when the hired person finds out what it is really about, they are likely to be dependent on that income and can't leave the job. And as time goes, they get more and more damaged, to the point that the company eventually fires them, and they are left with no money, no psychological help and traumatized for who knows how long.