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Is Stack Exchange in violation of NY labor law by using volunteer moderators?

250 points by gortok 7y ago

ryanmarsh 7y ago
Judging from the comments in SE the answer is, yes.
JoshTriplett 7y ago
This would break a lot more services, including a substantial number of Open Source projects and communities (specifically, any that are primarily run by a company rather than a non-profit).
- namewasmypw 7y ago
  Maybe that's a good thing? Companies are ruining the Internet.
- jasonlotito 7y ago
  No it wouldn't. It's not just the fact that people are doing unpaid work. There are a number of other requirements that have to be met, which SE seems to meet with regards to how it handles moderators. Just being an unpaid moderator doesn't run afoul of the laws.
  - danShumway 7y ago
    I'd really appreciate if you'd be willing to expand on this. It's not clear to me what the difference is between the moderation happening on StackOverflow and the moderation happening on Wikipedia, other than that Wikipedia is non-profit. But having non-profit designation be the key factor in deciding whether or not someone can volunteer seems like a rule that would have some really negative side-effects. The 5 points I see online are: - Degree of Control Exercised - Profit, Loss, and Investment - Skill and Independent Initiative - Integral Part of Business Are there others that I'm missing?
    - shkkmo 7y ago
      > having non-profit designation be the key factor in deciding whether or not someone can volunteer seems like a rule that would have some really negative side-effects. This is literally the distinction discussed in the posted question and is pretty standard law in the US. What negative consequences do you see as a result of this?
      - danShumway 7y ago
        Not all Open Source companies are nonprofit. See Redhat Linux, Gitlab, Chromium, Docker. If a volunteer helps triage issues for these projects, is it a violation of labor laws? If only nonprofit Open Source companies can use the benefits of Open Source development -- community involvement, community moderation and support, 3rd-party patches, etc... that's a really big reduction in who can participate in Open Source, particularly during a time when we're increasingly worried about Open Source funding and sustainability. Gitlab even organizes events around community contributions.[0] If the effect of a law is to make it harder for a community to get directly involved with a product, that's likely a negative consequence. I really like that I can get involved with Gitlab. I don't feel like Gitlab is exploiting me. [0]: https://about.gitlab.com/community/issue-bash/ https://about.gitlab.com/community/issue-bash/
        jasonlotito 7y ago
        This is begging the question. > If only nonprofit Open Source companies can use the benefits of Open Source development -- community involvement, community moderation and support, 3rd-party patches, There is more involved here than any one of those things mentioned. There are certain requirements that need to be met. You listed the five criteria New York has, and so in New York's case, those requirements would have to be considered. Simply having moderators doesn't mean you run afoul of the laws behing discussed.
        danShumway 7y ago
        Sure, but... that's what I asked. I wanted someone to expand on the requirements that had to be met. Would anyone be willing to explain in more detail on how the criteria differ and why this doesn't apply to Open Source companies like Gitlab/Wikipedia/etc? I brought up for-profit companies like Gitlab only to clarify why I thought drawing a bright line based on purely nonprofit status as the only distinction would have negative consequences. > This is literally the distinction discussed in the posted question and is pretty standard law in the US. What negative consequences do you see as a result of this?
- csomar 7y ago
  If the Open Source project is free, then there are no profits generated from it. Doesn't seem to be applicable under this law.
  - danShumway 7y ago
    You wouldn't say that Redhat is generating money from Linux?
    - freedomben 7y ago
      Red Hat's money comes from support subscriptions, which are all provided by paid employees. Red Hat doesn't use volunteers to provide support to customers. Volunteer work is done at many levels (linux kernel, GNU libs, GNOME, Fedora, etc.) but Red Hat does not make money from those projects directly (no more than any other company would/could). In fact Red Hat employs people to just work on those projects, and gives all the output to the community for free to benefit everyone. Disclaimer: I work for Red Hat but I'm speaking as myself, not as a Red Hat employee
- CM30 7y ago
  Not just services. It'd also theoretically break (if taken to an extreme): Wikis, since most wikis don't pay their admins/bureaucrats. Like most of the ones on Wikia, Gamepedia, the NIWA, etc. Old school fan sites, which often went with volunteer staff teams Quite a few media/fan run/gaming news sites, which also often have volunteer writers. etc
  - dx034 7y ago
    It wouldn't kill Wikis, it would just force them to operate as non-profits. Maybe not such a bad change. If they want to be a for-profit, they can still have volunteer writers but no volunteer admins.
- ShinTakuya 7y ago
  Good. I've had enough of these companies tricking people into working for them for free.
sokoloff 7y ago
I read through the comments specifically to see how long it would be until someone recommended the question be closed as off topic. Was not disappointed.
- _Codemonkeyism 7y ago
  Classic SO.
partingshots 7y ago
Does this hold true for sites like Quora as well?
- TheHypnotist 7y ago
  How about Reddit mods?
  - neom 7y ago
    These companies may also need to be head quartered in NY like Stack Exchange is.
    - alistairSH 7y ago
      Is that true, or would they just need to have "employed" a moderator who resides in NYS?
      - neom 7y ago
        I did some reading and I think you are correct.
  - docdeek 7y ago
    If I start a subreddit, I become a moderator. Reddit didn’t ask me to start the sub so I’m not sure it would be the same thing. Unless they are actively recruiting mods for larger subreddits, perhaps.
    - mreome 7y ago
      The law doesn't seem to make a distinction about who initiated the relationship, only the nature of it. And the existence of organized/moderated subreddits is definitely an "integral part of the employer's business."
      - docdeek 7y ago
todd3834 7y ago
Wouldn’t social networks fall under a similar category? I get that they are different but there is a lot of overlap. If they are in violation then I think the law needs to be updated.
- thrav 7y ago
  Reddit certainly would. Moderating a top subreddit is definitely as much work as most part time jobs, and essential to that site actually being good.
  - vonmoltke 7y ago
    Subreddit moderators are controlled by those who control the subreddit, not by Reddit itself (with, IIRC, a few exception where the moderators are Reddit employees).
  - kube-system 7y ago
    It doesn't matter how much work it is or whether it is important. What matters is whether or not the circumstances of the working arrangement qualify it legally as an employment. AFAIK, Reddit doesn't organizationally require their community mods to do anything at all.
- alistairSH 7y ago
  Facebook already pays its moderators.
- jasonlotito 7y ago
  > Wouldn’t social networks fall under a similar category? Most social networks I'm aware of pay moderators.
mrunkel 7y ago
By this logic, shouldn't the people posting questions also be considered illegal volunteers?
- nhumrich 7y ago
  I dont think so. The question askers and answers arent expected to do anything, and you could argue they are doing it out of their own self interest, which is the whole point of the site. In other words, they are the customers. Moderators on the other hand are held to certain standards, have to maintain a certain amount of moderations, and are actually doing it to better SO as a whole.
  - harshreality 7y ago
    Moderators are doing it out of their own self interest, too. They're not doing it for money, so if they aren't enjoying it they can quit with zero repercussions, right? ETA: So because of the psychic toll that it may or may not take on volunteer moderators, moderating for free for a for-profit company is illegal? I guess I can understand this: It's half protecting people from getting into an unhealthy psychological trap where they're on a hamster wheel for a for-profit company but their reward is continued volunteer status rather than income. And it's half forcing for-profit companies to redistribute wealth by mandating that essentially no labor shall be free. Unfortunately that hurts people who, with their eyes open from the beginning, want to volunteer and who don't care that the organization is making money from it. It also hurts companies by shrinking their labor pools for tasks that could potentially be shifted to volunteers.
    - intended 7y ago
      Yes and that's pretty much the definition of volunteering too. Volunteers get laws and protections to prevent exploitation, which is what the NY laws were probably created to prevent. Turns out that the genuine and thorny question of free labor keeping Reddit/FB and other platforms alive is going to be tackled via NY laws. (Yes, FB also has its own paid moderators and outsourced staff who suffer PTSD etc.) I for one think this is a great conversation - moderating isn't cost less, and takes a toll on the moderators, for which there is little recognition.
fortran77 7y ago
Maybe they're in violation of some of those new "anti-bullying" laws. Ever try asking (or answering) a question there?
Shivetya 7y ago
moderators, why not contributors too? can any for profit be associated with open source or similar without falling under one of these laws?
- yabadabadoes 7y ago
  It has a lot to do with how much power the "employer" has (one of the 5 factors discussed in the answers).. its pretty normal that someone can employ you today to contribute to opensource and choose your direction, or not employ you and hope your direction and theirs doesn't fork.. (When they try to control all the PMs, etc but accept public work when it happens to fit, then I do think they are in the grey area.) edit-terms&redundancy..
neom 7y ago
I would have thought for this to be true, both the company and volunteer would need to be in NY state. IIRC I don't need to extend my NY labour obligations to my Californian employees (however as a NY company I would still be required to follow Californian labour laws with regards to employees there).
pmlnr 7y ago
> except for a short term recreational or amusement event run by that organization. Looking at the recent developments at stack exchange, it fits "Amusement event".
mreome 7y ago
This raises some serious questions for anywhere with user/volunteer based content/moderation. Sites like Reddit operate on a model very similar to Stack Exchange, and any user-moderated forum that runs ads to pay for hosting/maintenance costs would seem to have the same issues. It also raises questions about the status of Instagram influencers, you-tube personalities, or anyone on a platform that derives it's value from those it hosts but does not treat/pay them as employees. Even games with user-generated/managed content. If a game developer is paid for generating content, why would the create of such user-generated content not qualify? Virtually anywhere someone is doing something that they arguably could be paid for would seem subject to a law like this.
- semiotagonal 7y ago
  I'm not a lawyer, but there is a common-sense difference between Stack Exchange and Reddit. On Reddit, it's just a community having a discussion. The participants, even the moderators, are mainly involved in guiding a discussion, and Reddit just facilitates that. On Stack Overflow, the moderators really are working directly on improving the site's content. They're practically unpaid editors.
  - klmr 7y ago
    > On Stack Overflow, the moderators really are working directly on improving the site's content. They're practically unpaid editors. So do non-moderators. In fact, there are some users who do more work towards improving the site’s content (via editing, handling suggestions, etc.) than some moderators. In fact, “trusted users” have access to many of the same moderation tools as moderators, and editing content is actively encouraged (via functionality, badges …) for all users.
  - mreome 7y ago
    In many of the subreddits the mods are directly improving the site's contents through extensive manual filtering and moderation. Some subreddit mods also manually manage "flair" including various forms of "verification." There are may subreddits that would be effectively unusable due to spam and irrelevant content without such moderation. Some social media sites pay people to conduct this kind of filtering and curation, so it doesn't feel like a stretch to me to say Reddit mods might qualify here. I'm not saying that there isn't a "common-sense" counter-argument to some of the cases I noted, but "common-sense" is a defense to be raised in court, the case is brought based on if the law could apply. In my mind that's troubling as it weaponizes the law in a way it could easily be abused.
adrianmonk 7y ago
Why just moderating? In a sense, it's every action you do that adds value to the site by drawing people in or improving their experience. When users write a comment (such as what I'm writing right now on Hacker News), they are acting as writers who generate text for people to read. When they submit a link, they are locating content for people to read. When they upvote or downvote, they are acting somewhat like editors by helping to curate content. In traditional media (a newspaper, for example), these functions would typically be performed by paid staff. In social media, it doesn't work that way. But then the whole point of social media is to interact with other people. And interaction is two-way. You could argue that the value users receive from interacting is the reason they come to the site. And consuming content is part of that value, but you could also argue that being heard is part of the value you receive as a user. When I do any of any of these things, am I doing labor by giving up my valuable time in service of the business? Or am I receiving value because the site allows me to be heard? Maybe the answer is both. Probably we should look at every aspect of the transaction. Continuing the newspaper comparison, look at letters to the editor. Does anyone argue that people who write letters to the editor are unpaid volunteers? Not that I know of, because everyone understands that people write those letters because they want their opinion to be heard. So even in traditional media there's a little precedent for this.
- pimterry 7y ago
  It's not about unpaid work though, it's employee-like unpaid work. https://meta.stackexchange.com/a/337123/345240 https://meta.stackexchange.com/a/337123/345240 has some interesting discussion of this. In practice, that means that normal commenters or people using social media aren't relevant for two reasons: * There's minimal control over their actions from the 'employer'. There's some basic rules on what content is not allowed, but nobody says "you must write a question about Java every day". You can use the tools available however you'd like, and you have freedom over when and how you use SO/social media - there's no obligation to post with any specific frequency. That's not true for moderators: they have specific tasks they must complete, and they must continue to be active, or they lose their moderation status. * There's no permanent relationship: you can use social media/SO once, leave, and return any time you like, and leave again. This is not true for moderators.
fweespeech 7y ago
Reason #4000 to not have a physical presence in the state of New York. I'm sorry but this law is kinda ridiculous.
- Spooky23 7y ago
  What state allows for-profit organizations to solicit unpaid volunteer labor from people outside of prison? It’s a pretty obvious violation of Federal law and multiple state laws.
  - thekyle 7y ago
    What are unpaid internships if not unpaid volunteer labor?
    - biddlesby 7y ago
      A quick Google suggests some difference in the US, in law if not practice. In particular that the internship experience is for the benefit of the intern and the company derives no immediate benefit from the intern's activities (and may even be impeded by them)
    - Spooky23 7y ago
      A: Big compliance issues! Most employers that I’ve work with that utilize unpaid interns do so through a college to ensure a linkage to the interns development. Outside of that, it’s cheaper to pay minimum wage than to deal with the overhead of making sure your managers follow the rules.
    - alistairSH 7y ago
      There are specific criteria that should be met for an internship to be offered without payment. Generally, an unpaid internship must be purely educational, not displace employees, employer does not derive profit from the intern, and there is no expectation of a job offer at the end. At my employer, interns are effectively additional staff for the duration of their employment, so they are paid market wages. The main difference between their position and that of a junior employee is hourly wages vs salaried.
Tomasz_Papka 7y ago
Is this being inspired by a bunch of former moderators?
jsonne 7y ago
Seems like there's also a good case for Reddit moderators to not be volunteers as well. To be honest I've always thought the community moderated model has seemed like somewhat of a loophole that was eventually going to be closed. It's having your cake and eating it too. IMHO you can either have UGI with a professional moderator team OR you can have professionally made content with no moderator team.
- criddell 7y ago
  Maybe Reddit should be turned into a shopping mall type of business where subs can be run however the sub mods want, but they have to pay a monthly rent to Reddit. I wonder if that would make things better or worse there?
  - Endy 7y ago
    It would kill 99.9% of the subs there and utterly change the culture.
    - criddell 7y ago
      Do you think it would make things better or worse?
      - meddlepal 7y ago
        Depends on your definition of better or worse, it would be different that's for sure.
      - Endy 7y ago
        Personally, I believe it would be worse. I'm in favor of free speech, and free online expression. Imagine what might happen to any of the pun-related subreddits, or r/keming if someone had to pay.
  - mertd 7y ago
    r/NBA brought to you by Huawei.
iron0013 7y ago
I haven't been paying too much attention to the whole thing, but is this related to the transphobic moderators who resigned a few weeks ago? I don't understand the motivations of all the players in this game--people would really try to shut down SO rather than just address each other by their preferred pronouns? That's wild to me
- Spooky23 7y ago
  When you're dealing with something that is relatively new or novel, it often takes controversial actions to bring issues to light, because nobody thought of them. The recent controversey got attention, and with attention people take notice.
- chucksmash 7y ago
  Calling them transphobic when you "haven't been paying too much attention" is uncalled for. You really should make an attempt to understand the situation before making such accusations.
  - iron0013 7y ago
    I'm sorry, maybe I was mistaken that the ex-moderators were engaging in the transphobic behavior of misgendering trans folks?
    - jaspax 7y ago
      You are indeed mistaken about this fact, and it's somewhat telling that this is the version of the story which reached you. Go ahead and read the explanation from the moderator herself - https://judaism.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/5193/stack-overflow-inc-sinat-chinam-and-the-goat-for-azazel https://judaism.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/5193/stack-....
    - sideshowb 7y ago
      As far as has been publicly stated, nobody was advocating misgendering, there was only a question over details of the policy. See footnote 1 to the OP here https://judaism.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/5193/stack-overflow-inc-sinat-chinam-and-the-goat-for-azazel https://judaism.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/5193/stack-... "as a professional writer I, by training, write in a gender-neutral way specifically to avoid gender landmines, and sought clarification that this would continue to be ok"
hirako2000 7y ago
It is just one of the many aberrations that we lived with without noticing. Our digital era, that has only started will pin point those aberrations in people's heads. Until enough of us branch off the regulations and national business laws entirely. It's just a matter of time imo.
hoseja 7y ago
So, this whole time they've been doing it for free AND illegally? Hilarious.
MoronInAHurry 7y ago
A bunch of non-lawyers taking a tiny chunk of law in isolation and speculating about whether something "seems illegal" based on it is really, really useless. And this HN thread is just going to be even more of that.
- wolfgke 7y ago
  > A bunch of non-lawyers taking a tiny chunk of law in isolation and speculating about whether something "seems illegal" based on it is really, really useless. To me, this is rather a sign that the law is far too complicated and should be radically simplified.
  - jacobush 7y ago
    Common Law is rarely simplified.
  - MoronInAHurry 7y ago
    All laws start out as simple concepts. Then they need to be applied to reality, where very few situations are simple.
    - qroshan 7y ago
      Just like programming. An operating system provide a few set of basic services to applications, but the linux kernel is some gazillion lines of code, because it has to work with reality
      - wolfgke 7y ago
        > but the linux kernel is some gazillion lines of code, because it has to work with reality Rather: Because the kernel developers care far too little about keeping it small and minimal.
  - tzs 7y ago
    Humans and human societies are the most complex systems we know of, and are full of people who will exploit any edge cases or loopholes. I think that this greatly limits how much simplification you can have in a legal system and still have it be effective.
datashow 7y ago
What if a moderator is a H1B or F1 holder, or any other foreign nationals who are not authorized to work for SE? Will they have to quit being a moderator immediately? Accepting payment from SE would definitely be violating immigration laws.
shkkmo 7y ago
I am not whole opposed to the idea that companies that extract value from content created by their users should be forced to operate as non-profits that operate for the public good. The biggest drawback I see is that this could lead to large scale lobbying to greatly reduce the limitations placed on sich non-profits.
- TulliusCicero 7y ago
  The biggest drawback is that sites like Reddit become infeasible or much less useful. I find it hard to get outraged that Reddit profits from user contributions and discussions given that the useful bits to me and others are provided at no cost.
SnarkAsh 7y ago
While we're discussing Stack Overflow's legal situation: - Users have raised $9000 to defend a volunteer moderator from defamation by Stack Overflow employees: https://www.gofundme.com/f/stop-stack-overflow-from-defaming-its-users https://www.gofundme.com/f/stop-stack-overflow-from-defaming... - Stack Overflow illegally changed the content license without permission from authors (Creative Commons allows such license changes for adaptations but not collections such as Stack Exchange) and refuse to clarify their legal justification (do they feel they have the right to change to any license they choose?): https://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/333089/stack-exchange-and-stack-overflow-have-moved-to-cc-by-sa-4-0 https://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/333089/stack-exchan... - Their general counsel appears to have left the company a little before all of this happened: https://chat.meta.stackexchange.com/transcript/message/8015437#8015437 https://chat.meta.stackexchange.com/transcript/message/80154...
Animats 7y ago
AOL got hit by that years ago.[1] [1] https://priceonomics.com/the-aol-chat-room-monitor-revolt/ https://priceonomics.com/the-aol-chat-room-monitor-revolt/
bmm6o 7y ago
Didn't AOL go through this exact same thing back in the day? I'm pretty sure I recall them having volunteer moderators was declared illegal.
mthmohan 7y ago
I'm curious if this same argument could be made for reviewers of scientific journals. Don't they perform the same / similar functions?
KorematsuFred 7y ago
Ban Stack Exchange in NY state. Problem solved. On serious note (and to avoid pitchfork holding HN mods) : May be it violates NY labour law under some interpretation, but that is an indication that the law is not well thought through and kills innovation. When people complain that a labour law will kill innovation most people tend to dismiss those suggestions. Well here it is now.
- SnarkAsh 7y ago
  True. Worth noting that this is coming up because the volunteers are being mistreated and people were looking for laws that could protect them, and may have found more than they were looking for.
manicdee 7y ago
They can’t be in violation of labour law if they fire all their moderators for refusing to comply with the mandatory pronouns CoC!

250 points by gortok 7y ago

Judging from the comments in SE the answer is, yes.

This would break a lot more services, including a substantial number of Open Source projects and communities (specifically, any that are primarily run by a company rather than a non-profit).

namewasmypw 7y ago
Maybe that's a good thing? Companies are ruining the Internet.
jasonlotito 7y ago
No it wouldn't. It's not just the fact that people are doing unpaid work. There are a number of other requirements that have to be met, which SE seems to meet with regards to how it handles moderators. Just being an unpaid moderator doesn't run afoul of the laws.
- danShumway 7y ago
  I'd really appreciate if you'd be willing to expand on this. It's not clear to me what the difference is between the moderation happening on StackOverflow and the moderation happening on Wikipedia, other than that Wikipedia is non-profit. But having non-profit designation be the key factor in deciding whether or not someone can volunteer seems like a rule that would have some really negative side-effects. The 5 points I see online are: - Degree of Control Exercised - Profit, Loss, and Investment - Skill and Independent Initiative - Integral Part of Business Are there others that I'm missing?
  - shkkmo 7y ago
    > having non-profit designation be the key factor in deciding whether or not someone can volunteer seems like a rule that would have some really negative side-effects. This is literally the distinction discussed in the posted question and is pretty standard law in the US. What negative consequences do you see as a result of this?
    - danShumway 7y ago
      Not all Open Source companies are nonprofit. See Redhat Linux, Gitlab, Chromium, Docker. If a volunteer helps triage issues for these projects, is it a violation of labor laws? If only nonprofit Open Source companies can use the benefits of Open Source development -- community involvement, community moderation and support, 3rd-party patches, etc... that's a really big reduction in who can participate in Open Source, particularly during a time when we're increasingly worried about Open Source funding and sustainability. Gitlab even organizes events around community contributions.[0] If the effect of a law is to make it harder for a community to get directly involved with a product, that's likely a negative consequence. I really like that I can get involved with Gitlab. I don't feel like Gitlab is exploiting me. [0]: https://about.gitlab.com/community/issue-bash/ https://about.gitlab.com/community/issue-bash/
      - jasonlotito 7y ago
        This is begging the question. > If only nonprofit Open Source companies can use the benefits of Open Source development -- community involvement, community moderation and support, 3rd-party patches, There is more involved here than any one of those things mentioned. There are certain requirements that need to be met. You listed the five criteria New York has, and so in New York's case, those requirements would have to be considered. Simply having moderators doesn't mean you run afoul of the laws behing discussed.
        danShumway 7y ago
        Sure, but... that's what I asked. I wanted someone to expand on the requirements that had to be met. Would anyone be willing to explain in more detail on how the criteria differ and why this doesn't apply to Open Source companies like Gitlab/Wikipedia/etc? I brought up for-profit companies like Gitlab only to clarify why I thought drawing a bright line based on purely nonprofit status as the only distinction would have negative consequences. > This is literally the distinction discussed in the posted question and is pretty standard law in the US. What negative consequences do you see as a result of this?
csomar 7y ago
If the Open Source project is free, then there are no profits generated from it. Doesn't seem to be applicable under this law.
- danShumway 7y ago
  You wouldn't say that Redhat is generating money from Linux?
  - freedomben 7y ago
    Red Hat's money comes from support subscriptions, which are all provided by paid employees. Red Hat doesn't use volunteers to provide support to customers. Volunteer work is done at many levels (linux kernel, GNU libs, GNOME, Fedora, etc.) but Red Hat does not make money from those projects directly (no more than any other company would/could). In fact Red Hat employs people to just work on those projects, and gives all the output to the community for free to benefit everyone. Disclaimer: I work for Red Hat but I'm speaking as myself, not as a Red Hat employee
CM30 7y ago
Not just services. It'd also theoretically break (if taken to an extreme): Wikis, since most wikis don't pay their admins/bureaucrats. Like most of the ones on Wikia, Gamepedia, the NIWA, etc. Old school fan sites, which often went with volunteer staff teams Quite a few media/fan run/gaming news sites, which also often have volunteer writers. etc
- dx034 7y ago
  It wouldn't kill Wikis, it would just force them to operate as non-profits. Maybe not such a bad change. If they want to be a for-profit, they can still have volunteer writers but no volunteer admins.
ShinTakuya 7y ago
Good. I've had enough of these companies tricking people into working for them for free.

sokoloff 7y ago

I read through the comments specifically to see how long it would be until someone recommended the question be closed as off topic. Was not disappointed.

_Codemonkeyism 7y ago
Classic SO.

partingshots 7y ago

Does this hold true for sites like Quora as well?

TheHypnotist 7y ago
How about Reddit mods?
- neom 7y ago
  These companies may also need to be head quartered in NY like Stack Exchange is.
  - alistairSH 7y ago
    Is that true, or would they just need to have "employed" a moderator who resides in NYS?
    - neom 7y ago
      I did some reading and I think you are correct.
- docdeek 7y ago
  If I start a subreddit, I become a moderator. Reddit didn’t ask me to start the sub so I’m not sure it would be the same thing. Unless they are actively recruiting mods for larger subreddits, perhaps.
  - mreome 7y ago
    The law doesn't seem to make a distinction about who initiated the relationship, only the nature of it. And the existence of organized/moderated subreddits is definitely an "integral part of the employer's business."
    - docdeek 7y ago

todd3834 7y ago

Wouldn’t social networks fall under a similar category? I get that they are different but there is a lot of overlap. If they are in violation then I think the law needs to be updated.

thrav 7y ago
Reddit certainly would. Moderating a top subreddit is definitely as much work as most part time jobs, and essential to that site actually being good.
- vonmoltke 7y ago
  Subreddit moderators are controlled by those who control the subreddit, not by Reddit itself (with, IIRC, a few exception where the moderators are Reddit employees).
- kube-system 7y ago
  It doesn't matter how much work it is or whether it is important. What matters is whether or not the circumstances of the working arrangement qualify it legally as an employment. AFAIK, Reddit doesn't organizationally require their community mods to do anything at all.
alistairSH 7y ago
Facebook already pays its moderators.
jasonlotito 7y ago
> Wouldn’t social networks fall under a similar category? Most social networks I'm aware of pay moderators.

mrunkel 7y ago

By this logic, shouldn't the people posting questions also be considered illegal volunteers?

nhumrich 7y ago
I dont think so. The question askers and answers arent expected to do anything, and you could argue they are doing it out of their own self interest, which is the whole point of the site. In other words, they are the customers. Moderators on the other hand are held to certain standards, have to maintain a certain amount of moderations, and are actually doing it to better SO as a whole.
- harshreality 7y ago
  Moderators are doing it out of their own self interest, too. They're not doing it for money, so if they aren't enjoying it they can quit with zero repercussions, right? ETA: So because of the psychic toll that it may or may not take on volunteer moderators, moderating for free for a for-profit company is illegal? I guess I can understand this: It's half protecting people from getting into an unhealthy psychological trap where they're on a hamster wheel for a for-profit company but their reward is continued volunteer status rather than income. And it's half forcing for-profit companies to redistribute wealth by mandating that essentially no labor shall be free. Unfortunately that hurts people who, with their eyes open from the beginning, want to volunteer and who don't care that the organization is making money from it. It also hurts companies by shrinking their labor pools for tasks that could potentially be shifted to volunteers.
  - intended 7y ago
    Yes and that's pretty much the definition of volunteering too. Volunteers get laws and protections to prevent exploitation, which is what the NY laws were probably created to prevent. Turns out that the genuine and thorny question of free labor keeping Reddit/FB and other platforms alive is going to be tackled via NY laws. (Yes, FB also has its own paid moderators and outsourced staff who suffer PTSD etc.) I for one think this is a great conversation - moderating isn't cost less, and takes a toll on the moderators, for which there is little recognition.

fortran77 7y ago

Maybe they're in violation of some of those new "anti-bullying" laws. Ever try asking (or answering) a question there?

Shivetya 7y ago

moderators, why not contributors too? can any for profit be associated with open source or similar without falling under one of these laws?

yabadabadoes 7y ago
It has a lot to do with how much power the "employer" has (one of the 5 factors discussed in the answers).. its pretty normal that someone can employ you today to contribute to opensource and choose your direction, or not employ you and hope your direction and theirs doesn't fork.. (When they try to control all the PMs, etc but accept public work when it happens to fit, then I do think they are in the grey area.) edit-terms&redundancy..

neom 7y ago

I would have thought for this to be true, both the company and volunteer would need to be in NY state. IIRC I don't need to extend my NY labour obligations to my Californian employees (however as a NY company I would still be required to follow Californian labour laws with regards to employees there).

pmlnr 7y ago

> except for a short term recreational or amusement event run by that organization. Looking at the recent developments at stack exchange, it fits "Amusement event".

mreome 7y ago

This raises some serious questions for anywhere with user/volunteer based content/moderation. Sites like Reddit operate on a model very similar to Stack Exchange, and any user-moderated forum that runs ads to pay for hosting/maintenance costs would seem to have the same issues. It also raises questions about the status of Instagram influencers, you-tube personalities, or anyone on a platform that derives it's value from those it hosts but does not treat/pay them as employees. Even games with user-generated/managed content. If a game developer is paid for generating content, why would the create of such user-generated content not qualify? Virtually anywhere someone is doing something that they arguably could be paid for would seem subject to a law like this.

semiotagonal 7y ago
I'm not a lawyer, but there is a common-sense difference between Stack Exchange and Reddit. On Reddit, it's just a community having a discussion. The participants, even the moderators, are mainly involved in guiding a discussion, and Reddit just facilitates that. On Stack Overflow, the moderators really are working directly on improving the site's content. They're practically unpaid editors.
- klmr 7y ago
  > On Stack Overflow, the moderators really are working directly on improving the site's content. They're practically unpaid editors. So do non-moderators. In fact, there are some users who do more work towards improving the site’s content (via editing, handling suggestions, etc.) than some moderators. In fact, “trusted users” have access to many of the same moderation tools as moderators, and editing content is actively encouraged (via functionality, badges …) for all users.
- mreome 7y ago
  In many of the subreddits the mods are directly improving the site's contents through extensive manual filtering and moderation. Some subreddit mods also manually manage "flair" including various forms of "verification." There are may subreddits that would be effectively unusable due to spam and irrelevant content without such moderation. Some social media sites pay people to conduct this kind of filtering and curation, so it doesn't feel like a stretch to me to say Reddit mods might qualify here. I'm not saying that there isn't a "common-sense" counter-argument to some of the cases I noted, but "common-sense" is a defense to be raised in court, the case is brought based on if the law could apply. In my mind that's troubling as it weaponizes the law in a way it could easily be abused.

adrianmonk 7y ago

Why just moderating? In a sense, it's every action you do that adds value to the site by drawing people in or improving their experience. When users write a comment (such as what I'm writing right now on Hacker News), they are acting as writers who generate text for people to read. When they submit a link, they are locating content for people to read. When they upvote or downvote, they are acting somewhat like editors by helping to curate content. In traditional media (a newspaper, for example), these functions would typically be performed by paid staff. In social media, it doesn't work that way. But then the whole point of social media is to interact with other people. And interaction is two-way. You could argue that the value users receive from interacting is the reason they come to the site. And consuming content is part of that value, but you could also argue that being heard is part of the value you receive as a user. When I do any of any of these things, am I doing labor by giving up my valuable time in service of the business? Or am I receiving value because the site allows me to be heard? Maybe the answer is both. Probably we should look at every aspect of the transaction. Continuing the newspaper comparison, look at letters to the editor. Does anyone argue that people who write letters to the editor are unpaid volunteers? Not that I know of, because everyone understands that people write those letters because they want their opinion to be heard. So even in traditional media there's a little precedent for this.

pimterry 7y ago
It's not about unpaid work though, it's employee-like unpaid work. https://meta.stackexchange.com/a/337123/345240 https://meta.stackexchange.com/a/337123/345240 has some interesting discussion of this. In practice, that means that normal commenters or people using social media aren't relevant for two reasons: * There's minimal control over their actions from the 'employer'. There's some basic rules on what content is not allowed, but nobody says "you must write a question about Java every day". You can use the tools available however you'd like, and you have freedom over when and how you use SO/social media - there's no obligation to post with any specific frequency. That's not true for moderators: they have specific tasks they must complete, and they must continue to be active, or they lose their moderation status. * There's no permanent relationship: you can use social media/SO once, leave, and return any time you like, and leave again. This is not true for moderators.

fweespeech 7y ago

Reason #4000 to not have a physical presence in the state of New York. I'm sorry but this law is kinda ridiculous.

Spooky23 7y ago
What state allows for-profit organizations to solicit unpaid volunteer labor from people outside of prison? It’s a pretty obvious violation of Federal law and multiple state laws.
- thekyle 7y ago
  What are unpaid internships if not unpaid volunteer labor?
  - biddlesby 7y ago
    A quick Google suggests some difference in the US, in law if not practice. In particular that the internship experience is for the benefit of the intern and the company derives no immediate benefit from the intern's activities (and may even be impeded by them)
  - Spooky23 7y ago
    A: Big compliance issues! Most employers that I’ve work with that utilize unpaid interns do so through a college to ensure a linkage to the interns development. Outside of that, it’s cheaper to pay minimum wage than to deal with the overhead of making sure your managers follow the rules.
  - alistairSH 7y ago
    There are specific criteria that should be met for an internship to be offered without payment. Generally, an unpaid internship must be purely educational, not displace employees, employer does not derive profit from the intern, and there is no expectation of a job offer at the end. At my employer, interns are effectively additional staff for the duration of their employment, so they are paid market wages. The main difference between their position and that of a junior employee is hourly wages vs salaried.

Tomasz_Papka 7y ago

Is this being inspired by a bunch of former moderators?

jsonne 7y ago

Seems like there's also a good case for Reddit moderators to not be volunteers as well. To be honest I've always thought the community moderated model has seemed like somewhat of a loophole that was eventually going to be closed. It's having your cake and eating it too. IMHO you can either have UGI with a professional moderator team OR you can have professionally made content with no moderator team.

criddell 7y ago
Maybe Reddit should be turned into a shopping mall type of business where subs can be run however the sub mods want, but they have to pay a monthly rent to Reddit. I wonder if that would make things better or worse there?
- Endy 7y ago
  It would kill 99.9% of the subs there and utterly change the culture.
  - criddell 7y ago
    Do you think it would make things better or worse?
    - meddlepal 7y ago
      Depends on your definition of better or worse, it would be different that's for sure.
    - Endy 7y ago
      Personally, I believe it would be worse. I'm in favor of free speech, and free online expression. Imagine what might happen to any of the pun-related subreddits, or r/keming if someone had to pay.
- mertd 7y ago
  r/NBA brought to you by Huawei.

iron0013 7y ago

I haven't been paying too much attention to the whole thing, but is this related to the transphobic moderators who resigned a few weeks ago? I don't understand the motivations of all the players in this game--people would really try to shut down SO rather than just address each other by their preferred pronouns? That's wild to me

Spooky23 7y ago
When you're dealing with something that is relatively new or novel, it often takes controversial actions to bring issues to light, because nobody thought of them. The recent controversey got attention, and with attention people take notice.
chucksmash 7y ago
Calling them transphobic when you "haven't been paying too much attention" is uncalled for. You really should make an attempt to understand the situation before making such accusations.
- iron0013 7y ago
  I'm sorry, maybe I was mistaken that the ex-moderators were engaging in the transphobic behavior of misgendering trans folks?
  - jaspax 7y ago
    You are indeed mistaken about this fact, and it's somewhat telling that this is the version of the story which reached you. Go ahead and read the explanation from the moderator herself - https://judaism.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/5193/stack-overflow-inc-sinat-chinam-and-the-goat-for-azazel https://judaism.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/5193/stack-....
  - sideshowb 7y ago
    As far as has been publicly stated, nobody was advocating misgendering, there was only a question over details of the policy. See footnote 1 to the OP here https://judaism.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/5193/stack-overflow-inc-sinat-chinam-and-the-goat-for-azazel https://judaism.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/5193/stack-... "as a professional writer I, by training, write in a gender-neutral way specifically to avoid gender landmines, and sought clarification that this would continue to be ok"

hirako2000 7y ago

It is just one of the many aberrations that we lived with without noticing. Our digital era, that has only started will pin point those aberrations in people's heads. Until enough of us branch off the regulations and national business laws entirely. It's just a matter of time imo.

hoseja 7y ago

So, this whole time they've been doing it for free AND illegally? Hilarious.

MoronInAHurry 7y ago

A bunch of non-lawyers taking a tiny chunk of law in isolation and speculating about whether something "seems illegal" based on it is really, really useless. And this HN thread is just going to be even more of that.

wolfgke 7y ago
> A bunch of non-lawyers taking a tiny chunk of law in isolation and speculating about whether something "seems illegal" based on it is really, really useless. To me, this is rather a sign that the law is far too complicated and should be radically simplified.
- jacobush 7y ago
  Common Law is rarely simplified.
- MoronInAHurry 7y ago
  All laws start out as simple concepts. Then they need to be applied to reality, where very few situations are simple.
  - qroshan 7y ago
    Just like programming. An operating system provide a few set of basic services to applications, but the linux kernel is some gazillion lines of code, because it has to work with reality
    - wolfgke 7y ago
      > but the linux kernel is some gazillion lines of code, because it has to work with reality Rather: Because the kernel developers care far too little about keeping it small and minimal.
- tzs 7y ago
  Humans and human societies are the most complex systems we know of, and are full of people who will exploit any edge cases or loopholes. I think that this greatly limits how much simplification you can have in a legal system and still have it be effective.

datashow 7y ago

What if a moderator is a H1B or F1 holder, or any other foreign nationals who are not authorized to work for SE? Will they have to quit being a moderator immediately? Accepting payment from SE would definitely be violating immigration laws.

shkkmo 7y ago

I am not whole opposed to the idea that companies that extract value from content created by their users should be forced to operate as non-profits that operate for the public good. The biggest drawback I see is that this could lead to large scale lobbying to greatly reduce the limitations placed on sich non-profits.

TulliusCicero 7y ago
The biggest drawback is that sites like Reddit become infeasible or much less useful. I find it hard to get outraged that Reddit profits from user contributions and discussions given that the useful bits to me and others are provided at no cost.

SnarkAsh 7y ago

While we're discussing Stack Overflow's legal situation: - Users have raised $9000 to defend a volunteer moderator from defamation by Stack Overflow employees: https://www.gofundme.com/f/stop-stack-overflow-from-defaming-its-users https://www.gofundme.com/f/stop-stack-overflow-from-defaming... - Stack Overflow illegally changed the content license without permission from authors (Creative Commons allows such license changes for adaptations but not collections such as Stack Exchange) and refuse to clarify their legal justification (do they feel they have the right to change to any license they choose?): https://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/333089/stack-exchange-and-stack-overflow-have-moved-to-cc-by-sa-4-0 https://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/333089/stack-exchan... - Their general counsel appears to have left the company a little before all of this happened: https://chat.meta.stackexchange.com/transcript/message/8015437#8015437 https://chat.meta.stackexchange.com/transcript/message/80154...

Animats 7y ago

AOL got hit by that years ago.[1] [1] https://priceonomics.com/the-aol-chat-room-monitor-revolt/ https://priceonomics.com/the-aol-chat-room-monitor-revolt/

bmm6o 7y ago

Didn't AOL go through this exact same thing back in the day? I'm pretty sure I recall them having volunteer moderators was declared illegal.

mthmohan 7y ago

I'm curious if this same argument could be made for reviewers of scientific journals. Don't they perform the same / similar functions?

KorematsuFred 7y ago

Ban Stack Exchange in NY state. Problem solved. On serious note (and to avoid pitchfork holding HN mods) : May be it violates NY labour law under some interpretation, but that is an indication that the law is not well thought through and kills innovation. When people complain that a labour law will kill innovation most people tend to dismiss those suggestions. Well here it is now.

SnarkAsh 7y ago
True. Worth noting that this is coming up because the volunteers are being mistreated and people were looking for laws that could protect them, and may have found more than they were looking for.

manicdee 7y ago

They can’t be in violation of labour law if they fire all their moderators for refusing to comply with the mandatory pronouns CoC!