6 ms·

Facebook employs hundreds of young Filipinos to remove offensive material

44 points by recursion 9y ago

eswat 9y ago
The low wage isn’t surprising given the typical take-home pay in the Philippines. But it’s a force multiplier in depressing work when they have to filter through a lot of material that’s potentially traumatizing to a moderate Filipino that’s probably not mentally fit to handle this.
- need2sleep 9y ago
  Violence and dead bodies are a part of their daily life.
  - kevingadd 9y ago
    Based on that logic we should outsource this work to Syrian refugees. C'mon, think a bit harder before posting. :( This sort of content is troubling for anyone to be exposed to - that's the whole reason why Facebook has to filter it. How can you possibly justify it by saying someone should already be desensitized? To child porn? Beheadings?
  - threeseed 9y ago
    Not sure if you've been to Phillipines but it's a pretty unusual country. According to Wikipedia there are over 2000 inhabited islands so the regional differences are quite stark. Blanket statements like this don't make much sense.
  - Gigablah 9y ago
    That's like reading this thread [1] and coming to the conclusion that America is a hellhole. [1]: https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/26mhbl/americans_of_reddit_what_is_the_scariest_place_in/ https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/26mhbl/americans...
  - dirtylowprofile 9y ago
    I've been here for 31 years. Yet to see violence and dead bodies in person. I don't know where you got this. You need to stop reading news, get the fuck out of your chair and come here.
- pmorici 9y ago
  Frankly the amount of traumatizing material they are exposed to is probably pretty low. They aren't watching this materiel start to finish by the articles own admission they only have a few seconds to make a judgement. 99% of terrorist propaganda videos can be spotted by only watching the first few frames of video. They all have the same music / tone / symbolism.
burkaman 9y ago
For reference, the average household income in the Phillipines in 2015 was 22,000 pesos per month (https://psa.gov.ph/content/average-family-income-2015-estimated-22-thousand-pesos-monthly-results-2015-family-income https://psa.gov.ph/content/average-family-income-2015-estima...). Regardless, 48 hours a week of this sounds like a horrible job at any salary.
ouid 9y ago
Can anyone compare this to average pay for outsourced unskilled labor?
gravypod 9y ago
I was about to throw away this napkin. Glad I hung on to it for a little longer. When I see things like this, I often ask myself "Why would people take this job?" and some times I find it's because it pays very well from the perspective of the local economy. 1. £1.36 = 86.68 Philippine Peso (according to Google) 2. average annual family income ... 267 thousand pesos [0] 3. 267000 / 2 = ~133500 yearly person income 4. There are about 2,087 work hours in a year [1] 5. yearly/hours 133500/2087 = ~64 Philippine Peso * Average Guesstimated Salary: 64 Philippine Peso/hour * Facebook Censurer Take Home: 87 Philippine Peso/hour That's about 30% more then the average take home. Let me crunch the numbers again for the top 10% earners [0] bracket. 1. (786000/2)/2087 = 188 Philippine Peso/hour That means a person in a top 10% earners household is only making about (188/87) 2.16 times what you make. According to Investopedia the "average household income for the top 10% of earners is higher, at $295,845". which means that running the same numbers... 1. (295845/2)/2087 = 70 2. 70 / 2.16 = $32 USD/HR Since they are earning 2.16 times less then the top 10% bracket I'd guess that taking (top 10% hourly wage / 2.16) would give you a localized approximation for your economy. Doing this job is the local equivalent of ~$32 USD/HR in USA money for reading Facebook posts and deciding if it is terrorism or not. I know I've definitely gotten some stuff wrong here. Please correct me if you know better. [0] - https://psa.gov.ph/content/average-family-income-2015-estimated-22-thousand-pesos-monthly-results-2015-family-income https://psa.gov.ph/content/average-family-income-2015-estima... [1] - https://www.opm.gov/policy-data-oversight/pay-leave/pay-administration/fact-sheets/computing-hourly-rates-of-pay-using-the-2087-hour-divisor/ https://www.opm.gov/policy-data-oversight/pay-leave/pay-admi... [2] - http://www.investopedia.com/news/how-much-income-puts-you-top-1-5-10/ http://www.investopedia.com/news/how-much-income-puts-you-to...
- developer2 9y ago
  I don't think anyone is disputing the "benefit" to the worker, from their perspective. The outrage is that corporations take advantage. They refuse to employ US employees because they would have to pay reasonable wages, provide healthcare, offer stock options, etc. So they outsource to skirt millions on all of the above. I'm really sick and tired of "but they're happy to have the abysmally low-paying job, because in their currency it's above-average!". Companies like Facebook aren't outsourcing to "give jobs to the needy"; they only do it because it's disgustingly cheap for them. The destitute, desperately grasping at the crumbs dropped on the floor by the rich, is not a positive thing. It's depressing. What's next? Do we defend companies who hold immigrants' passports hostage, enslaving people indefinitely with no way out? After all, they pay X% above average! Those workers should be thankful just to have a job! Who cares that they'll never see their family again, and likely die while living in squalor?
ChoGGi 9y ago
Hard to call this news http://gawker.com/5885714/inside-facebooks-outsourced-anti-porn-and-gore-brigade-where-camel-toes-are-more-offensive-than-crushed-heads http://gawker.com/5885714/inside-facebooks-outsourced-anti-p... https://www.wired.com/2014/10/content-moderation/ https://www.wired.com/2014/10/content-moderation/
cttet 9y ago
Poor Butters
dirtylowprofile 9y ago
I'm from the Philippines and 6 day week is frowned upon. I can't believe Facebook has tolerated this. As with other countries, we only work for 5 days. Corporate greed is taking advantage of the small rates here. I know outsourcing is good here. I know a lot of small startups here who does not take advantage of the cheap talent rates here. But this is Facebook. They preach "work life balance" on their blogs but seem to tolerate modern slavery here in my country. This is wrong. I hope this gets to the front page of your blogs and newspaper here.
- mistermann 9y ago
  Things like this bother me.....why insist upon 6 day weeks, what difference does it make to Facebook really, compared to just hiring a few more people? It's almost like they're not happy unless their employees are unhappy.
  - lovich 9y ago
    If its like the outsourced firms I've worked with at my employers, unless you make specific clauses in your contract about how the employees of your contractor will be treated, the managers of these would just pocket any money given to treat the employees better and continue on as normal
- brogrammernot 9y ago
  I have no frame of reference for that pay. Is the pay low or normal? Is the main issue the required 6 days/week?
  - dirtylowprofile 9y ago
    The pay is decent enough. But the job description for a kid straight out of college, filtering disturbing videos is not something I would recommend. And imagine doing this for 6 days per week with a quota. And you get fired for not getting the quota. This terror, fake news, live disturbing videos has been going on for Facebook for years now, I think they should have developed some kind of machine learning to at least detect and reduce a sort of percentage than get this fresh college kids to filter them. Instead they prioritize releasing new emotions stickers and transforming their messenger to a Snapchat clone.
kartan 9y ago
> Facebook employs hundreds of young Filipinos - some with limited English skills - to remove offensive and terror related material from the site 1984 was wrong on this one. The censorship doesn't come from an all knowledgable goberment, but it comes from low-cost teenagers. What impact is going to have into the global communications to introduce such a specific bias? What impact is going to have in the psychology of these young employees, that already live in a violent country?
- bananaXbanana 9y ago
  These people don't make any individual decision. They have a word document in front of them with official guidelines for any case.
  - kartan 9y ago
    > These people don't make any individual decision. Yes, they have. If it were possible to fully automate the task, Facebook will not hire humans. From the article: "The moderators have to check posts that have been flagged up and make a snap judgement on whether they should be taken down.". Some videos are probably easy to identify, but the world is a scale of grays.
- tajen 9y ago
  Will young Philippinos empathize with terrorist causes after reading too much?
  - kartan 9y ago
    > Will young Philippinos empathize with terrorist causes after reading too much? I didn't say anything about terrorism. I was talking about "One ex-manager who helped recruit Facebook moderators said staff were often traumatised by material.". Sorry for not being more clear. Stressful traumatizing jobs can have a worse impact in a poor country that in one where there is more help available.
beedogs 9y ago
I'm pretty much done with Facebook for good. They simply don't give a shit about the rampant racism, sexism, and homophobia going on all over their site. Reporting comments gets you nowhere. Calling out these idiots gets you banned. And now, come to find out, they're paying their moderators subsistence wages to do all the work of policing the place. I'm moving on.
pasta 9y ago
This is not a news article, this is sugar for the brain. They are 'forced' to do the job? They only get paid $'x' without any reference to local income? Some workers work 6 days a week? Do they choose to do so to earn more? This is very bad reporting and for me has near zero value.
louithethrid 9y ago
Imagine this is your only impression of the west- you go to work and get to see 4chan as a constant stream on a daily basis, without the larger context. My argument is that this outsourcing has a hidden cost, of radicalizing a anti-western, anti-captialistic youth wherever it happens. This is not just some shit-job exported- this is a problem creator at its finest. This is hurting progress in this countrys. This is supporting religions who where constantly in decline. Sorry facebook, this might be a solution for you, but for the rest of humanity, this is a problem.

44 points by recursion 9y ago

The low wage isn’t surprising given the typical take-home pay in the Philippines. But it’s a force multiplier in depressing work when they have to filter through a lot of material that’s potentially traumatizing to a moderate Filipino that’s probably not mentally fit to handle this.

need2sleep 9y ago
Violence and dead bodies are a part of their daily life.
- kevingadd 9y ago
  Based on that logic we should outsource this work to Syrian refugees. C'mon, think a bit harder before posting. :( This sort of content is troubling for anyone to be exposed to - that's the whole reason why Facebook has to filter it. How can you possibly justify it by saying someone should already be desensitized? To child porn? Beheadings?
- threeseed 9y ago
  Not sure if you've been to Phillipines but it's a pretty unusual country. According to Wikipedia there are over 2000 inhabited islands so the regional differences are quite stark. Blanket statements like this don't make much sense.
- Gigablah 9y ago
  That's like reading this thread [1] and coming to the conclusion that America is a hellhole. [1]: https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/26mhbl/americans_of_reddit_what_is_the_scariest_place_in/ https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/26mhbl/americans...
- dirtylowprofile 9y ago
  I've been here for 31 years. Yet to see violence and dead bodies in person. I don't know where you got this. You need to stop reading news, get the fuck out of your chair and come here.
pmorici 9y ago
Frankly the amount of traumatizing material they are exposed to is probably pretty low. They aren't watching this materiel start to finish by the articles own admission they only have a few seconds to make a judgement. 99% of terrorist propaganda videos can be spotted by only watching the first few frames of video. They all have the same music / tone / symbolism.

burkaman 9y ago

For reference, the average household income in the Phillipines in 2015 was 22,000 pesos per month (https://psa.gov.ph/content/average-family-income-2015-estimated-22-thousand-pesos-monthly-results-2015-family-income https://psa.gov.ph/content/average-family-income-2015-estima...). Regardless, 48 hours a week of this sounds like a horrible job at any salary.

ouid 9y ago

Can anyone compare this to average pay for outsourced unskilled labor?

gravypod 9y ago

I was about to throw away this napkin. Glad I hung on to it for a little longer. When I see things like this, I often ask myself "Why would people take this job?" and some times I find it's because it pays very well from the perspective of the local economy. 1. £1.36 = 86.68 Philippine Peso (according to Google) 2. average annual family income ... 267 thousand pesos [0] 3. 267000 / 2 = ~133500 yearly person income 4. There are about 2,087 work hours in a year [1] 5. yearly/hours 133500/2087 = ~64 Philippine Peso * Average Guesstimated Salary: 64 Philippine Peso/hour * Facebook Censurer Take Home: 87 Philippine Peso/hour That's about 30% more then the average take home. Let me crunch the numbers again for the top 10% earners [0] bracket. 1. (786000/2)/2087 = 188 Philippine Peso/hour That means a person in a top 10% earners household is only making about (188/87) 2.16 times what you make. According to Investopedia the "average household income for the top 10% of earners is higher, at $295,845". which means that running the same numbers... 1. (295845/2)/2087 = 70 2. 70 / 2.16 = $32 USD/HR Since they are earning 2.16 times less then the top 10% bracket I'd guess that taking (top 10% hourly wage / 2.16) would give you a localized approximation for your economy. Doing this job is the local equivalent of ~$32 USD/HR in USA money for reading Facebook posts and deciding if it is terrorism or not. I know I've definitely gotten some stuff wrong here. Please correct me if you know better. [0] - https://psa.gov.ph/content/average-family-income-2015-estimated-22-thousand-pesos-monthly-results-2015-family-income https://psa.gov.ph/content/average-family-income-2015-estima... [1] - https://www.opm.gov/policy-data-oversight/pay-leave/pay-administration/fact-sheets/computing-hourly-rates-of-pay-using-the-2087-hour-divisor/ https://www.opm.gov/policy-data-oversight/pay-leave/pay-admi... [2] - http://www.investopedia.com/news/how-much-income-puts-you-top-1-5-10/ http://www.investopedia.com/news/how-much-income-puts-you-to...

developer2 9y ago
I don't think anyone is disputing the "benefit" to the worker, from their perspective. The outrage is that corporations take advantage. They refuse to employ US employees because they would have to pay reasonable wages, provide healthcare, offer stock options, etc. So they outsource to skirt millions on all of the above. I'm really sick and tired of "but they're happy to have the abysmally low-paying job, because in their currency it's above-average!". Companies like Facebook aren't outsourcing to "give jobs to the needy"; they only do it because it's disgustingly cheap for them. The destitute, desperately grasping at the crumbs dropped on the floor by the rich, is not a positive thing. It's depressing. What's next? Do we defend companies who hold immigrants' passports hostage, enslaving people indefinitely with no way out? After all, they pay X% above average! Those workers should be thankful just to have a job! Who cares that they'll never see their family again, and likely die while living in squalor?

ChoGGi 9y ago

Hard to call this news http://gawker.com/5885714/inside-facebooks-outsourced-anti-porn-and-gore-brigade-where-camel-toes-are-more-offensive-than-crushed-heads http://gawker.com/5885714/inside-facebooks-outsourced-anti-p... https://www.wired.com/2014/10/content-moderation/ https://www.wired.com/2014/10/content-moderation/

cttet 9y ago

Poor Butters

dirtylowprofile 9y ago

I'm from the Philippines and 6 day week is frowned upon. I can't believe Facebook has tolerated this. As with other countries, we only work for 5 days. Corporate greed is taking advantage of the small rates here. I know outsourcing is good here. I know a lot of small startups here who does not take advantage of the cheap talent rates here. But this is Facebook. They preach "work life balance" on their blogs but seem to tolerate modern slavery here in my country. This is wrong. I hope this gets to the front page of your blogs and newspaper here.

mistermann 9y ago
Things like this bother me.....why insist upon 6 day weeks, what difference does it make to Facebook really, compared to just hiring a few more people? It's almost like they're not happy unless their employees are unhappy.
- lovich 9y ago
  If its like the outsourced firms I've worked with at my employers, unless you make specific clauses in your contract about how the employees of your contractor will be treated, the managers of these would just pocket any money given to treat the employees better and continue on as normal
brogrammernot 9y ago
I have no frame of reference for that pay. Is the pay low or normal? Is the main issue the required 6 days/week?
- dirtylowprofile 9y ago
  The pay is decent enough. But the job description for a kid straight out of college, filtering disturbing videos is not something I would recommend. And imagine doing this for 6 days per week with a quota. And you get fired for not getting the quota. This terror, fake news, live disturbing videos has been going on for Facebook for years now, I think they should have developed some kind of machine learning to at least detect and reduce a sort of percentage than get this fresh college kids to filter them. Instead they prioritize releasing new emotions stickers and transforming their messenger to a Snapchat clone.

kartan 9y ago

> Facebook employs hundreds of young Filipinos - some with limited English skills - to remove offensive and terror related material from the site 1984 was wrong on this one. The censorship doesn't come from an all knowledgable goberment, but it comes from low-cost teenagers. What impact is going to have into the global communications to introduce such a specific bias? What impact is going to have in the psychology of these young employees, that already live in a violent country?

bananaXbanana 9y ago
These people don't make any individual decision. They have a word document in front of them with official guidelines for any case.
- kartan 9y ago
  > These people don't make any individual decision. Yes, they have. If it were possible to fully automate the task, Facebook will not hire humans. From the article: "The moderators have to check posts that have been flagged up and make a snap judgement on whether they should be taken down.". Some videos are probably easy to identify, but the world is a scale of grays.
tajen 9y ago
Will young Philippinos empathize with terrorist causes after reading too much?
- kartan 9y ago
  > Will young Philippinos empathize with terrorist causes after reading too much? I didn't say anything about terrorism. I was talking about "One ex-manager who helped recruit Facebook moderators said staff were often traumatised by material.". Sorry for not being more clear. Stressful traumatizing jobs can have a worse impact in a poor country that in one where there is more help available.

beedogs 9y ago

I'm pretty much done with Facebook for good. They simply don't give a shit about the rampant racism, sexism, and homophobia going on all over their site. Reporting comments gets you nowhere. Calling out these idiots gets you banned. And now, come to find out, they're paying their moderators subsistence wages to do all the work of policing the place. I'm moving on.

pasta 9y ago

This is not a news article, this is sugar for the brain. They are 'forced' to do the job? They only get paid $'x' without any reference to local income? Some workers work 6 days a week? Do they choose to do so to earn more? This is very bad reporting and for me has near zero value.

louithethrid 9y ago

Imagine this is your only impression of the west- you go to work and get to see 4chan as a constant stream on a daily basis, without the larger context. My argument is that this outsourcing has a hidden cost, of radicalizing a anti-western, anti-captialistic youth wherever it happens. This is not just some shit-job exported- this is a problem creator at its finest. This is hurting progress in this countrys. This is supporting religions who where constantly in decline. Sorry facebook, this might be a solution for you, but for the rest of humanity, this is a problem.