5 ms·

It's knowledge workers vs unskilled labour.

McWobbleston 7y ago
It's also people not being paid nearly the value they produce for an organization. Everything is always a race to the bottom for us
eswat 7y ago
I was thinking about this more but you’re right. I doubt there’s any acquired knowledge needed to know what’s repugnant to the human mind.
- cldellow 7y ago
  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/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.
  - qudat 7y ago
    > 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 going to get into that much trouble for being slightly over-zealous. I could be wrong but I feel like after a week of being on the job you'd get the hang of it.
    - baud147258 7y ago
      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-dirty-work-in-ireland-i-had-to-watch-footage-of-a-person-being-beaten-to-death-1.3841743 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.
isolli 7y ago
No, it's market forces. If the world was overflowing with employment opportunities, then unskilled labor would leave unpleasant jobs, and employers would have to pay them as much as it takes for someone to put up with the unpleasantness.
- sneak 7y ago
  US unemployment rates are lower than they have been in more than a decade. There are more jobs than applicants. It could be people prefer working at a desk and a screen in an air conditioned office to, say, schlepping boxes in a warehouse.
  - eswat 7y ago
    > It could be people prefer working at a desk and a screen in an air conditioned office to, say, schlepping boxes in a warehouse. And judging from the article, agencies hiring content moderators are going to do more to paint the work more colourful and being a career-builder, by outright lying about what contractors will actually do day-to-day. Of course that’s going to look more attractive at face-value than being pitched a warehouse job by the foreman.
    - sneak 7y ago
      There is no penalty to quitting if the workers are unhappy with the work or feel it was misrepresented to them, and the warehouse jobs are still there waiting.
      - jschwartzi 7y ago
        The penalty is the amount of time you have to spend looking for a new job, and doing it while you're still working your soul-sucking current job.
baud147258 7y ago
There are enough rules that I'd say it still qualify as knowledge work (not as much as developer, but still some level of knowledge): -Public (https://www.facebook.com/communitystandards https://www.facebook.com/communitystandards) and private guidelines - A "Known Question" document (15k words) - Facebook internal Workplace, with real-time (and sometime contradictory) decisions, for breaking news events from https://www.theverge.com/2019/2/25/18229714/cognizant-facebook-content-moderator-interviews-trauma-working-conditions-arizona https://www.theverge.com/2019/2/25/18229714/cognizant-facebo...
skybrian 7y ago
It's not "unskilled" so much as (a) it can be learned on the job and (b) people don't see why they should pay more for top talent. The second one is pretty important. Consider that sales, sports, and entertainment work similarly, where you can make a case that you should pay more to get the best and workers (or their agents) can use this to good effect.
- svachalek 7y ago
  I think "unskilled" and "can be learned on the job" are usually considered equivalent. Nearly anything you need to hire a human to do requires some kind of learning, at least to do "well" or "our way".

It's also people not being paid nearly the value they produce for an organization. Everything is always a race to the bottom for us

eswat 7y ago

I was thinking about this more but you’re right. I doubt there’s any acquired knowledge needed to know what’s repugnant to the human mind.

cldellow 7y ago
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/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.
- qudat 7y ago
  > 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 going to get into that much trouble for being slightly over-zealous. I could be wrong but I feel like after a week of being on the job you'd get the hang of it.
  - baud147258 7y ago
    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-dirty-work-in-ireland-i-had-to-watch-footage-of-a-person-being-beaten-to-death-1.3841743 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.

isolli 7y ago

No, it's market forces. If the world was overflowing with employment opportunities, then unskilled labor would leave unpleasant jobs, and employers would have to pay them as much as it takes for someone to put up with the unpleasantness.

sneak 7y ago
US unemployment rates are lower than they have been in more than a decade. There are more jobs than applicants. It could be people prefer working at a desk and a screen in an air conditioned office to, say, schlepping boxes in a warehouse.
- eswat 7y ago
  > It could be people prefer working at a desk and a screen in an air conditioned office to, say, schlepping boxes in a warehouse. And judging from the article, agencies hiring content moderators are going to do more to paint the work more colourful and being a career-builder, by outright lying about what contractors will actually do day-to-day. Of course that’s going to look more attractive at face-value than being pitched a warehouse job by the foreman.
  - sneak 7y ago
    There is no penalty to quitting if the workers are unhappy with the work or feel it was misrepresented to them, and the warehouse jobs are still there waiting.
    - jschwartzi 7y ago
      The penalty is the amount of time you have to spend looking for a new job, and doing it while you're still working your soul-sucking current job.

baud147258 7y ago

There are enough rules that I'd say it still qualify as knowledge work (not as much as developer, but still some level of knowledge): -Public (https://www.facebook.com/communitystandards https://www.facebook.com/communitystandards) and private guidelines - A "Known Question" document (15k words) - Facebook internal Workplace, with real-time (and sometime contradictory) decisions, for breaking news events from https://www.theverge.com/2019/2/25/18229714/cognizant-facebook-content-moderator-interviews-trauma-working-conditions-arizona https://www.theverge.com/2019/2/25/18229714/cognizant-facebo...

skybrian 7y ago

It's not "unskilled" so much as (a) it can be learned on the job and (b) people don't see why they should pay more for top talent. The second one is pretty important. Consider that sales, sports, and entertainment work similarly, where you can make a case that you should pay more to get the best and workers (or their agents) can use this to good effect.

svachalek 7y ago
I think "unskilled" and "can be learned on the job" are usually considered equivalent. Nearly anything you need to hire a human to do requires some kind of learning, at least to do "well" or "our way".