451–460 of 620 posts
A classic sweatshop operations except it also destroys the slaves psyche on top of it.
Two parties weren’t really mentioned. The executives that set up the operation and the people posting the content. Both must be pretty twisted
I am surprised after reading a lot of comments here (not all), that I have not seen any discussion of Cognizant and their role. I am no fan of Facebook and I believe that they have significant responsibility here, but the contractor is, imo, the party directly responsible. These people do not work for Facebook, and we don't know the nature of the contract in play. Are they paying per person, or a lump sum for some ca…
It's true that Cognizant has direct power to change things, but ultimately, the buck stops with Facebook, since they seem to be the vast majority of Cognizant's work and thus essentially have direct control of the purse strings. FB has the ability to change how Cognizant treats its workforce, and it's Facebook's choice to take a stand or to wash its hands of it. FB also has indirect say in demanding a certain standar…
> 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.
>likely going to acquire mental illnesses I find hard to believe humans are so sensitive that some visual stimulation is going to give them mental illnesses. We evolved in an environment where violence was part of real life and a real threat to our own well being, seeing it on a screen will elicit emotions we may not be used to in modern life, but causing mental illness is a stretch.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
There's not really a shortcut around having employees do it because Facebook has a significant amount of private content which users will not tolerate being shared, standards vary widely (imagine a vegan flagging every picture with leather visible or a post about eating meat as obscene — if you're requiring this, do you just disable their account once you notice it?), and especially because it's the target of coordin…
You could have a system where multiple people flagging certain content would be a signal to give it manual review.
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 ?
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.
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.
> Just publicly shame the company and ultimately they change or congress passes laws. This just doesn't work in today's world. If it did, Equifax wouldn't be thriving the way it still does today.
It has been shown opinions change depending on what the news is covering.
> 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.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
There's a lot of variance between individuals. Given the choice this sounds like an overall better job than working a busy McDonald's drive through (people are assholes when they're hungry) but I'm not the kind of person that's particularly bothered by graphic violence. My opinion of humanity is dark enough to accommodate it. I'm sure many people would prefer McDonald's though. Some of the people interviewed were com…
Like your dream life—I bet facebook is hiring.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> any issue one side takes up is immediately something that - if possible - is criticized and turned into a point of differentiation This kind of "bothsame" response willfully overlooks that one party has gone to substantial lengths to offer compromises on bills, appointees, and policy goals, while the other very much hasn't.
You're totally right to point out that Republicans are much more shameless in this regard. I didn't intend to imply the two parties are the same here, but that's how it reads. But even if the republican party+electorate are at "fault" here - I don't think that fact is going to help anyone, nor that Democrats are acting like little angels here anymore (if they ever did). They don't have the power to stop this dynamic,…
It certainly doesn't help the Democrats (and reasonable republicans?) that they appear weak when they try to be reasonable or compromise.