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Open Letter from Facebook Content Moderators
- anoncow 6y agoThe best corporations are heartless machines (in this case this applies to the contractors primarily, not sure if FB would mind if the work is getting done). We should be thankful for the jobs that we have today. Corporations of the future will not need as many warm bodies. (Sarcasm)
- metachor 6y agoWhat the heck kind of take is that? We should be fighting tooth and nail today to not let that kind of future come into existence.
- SteveGerencser 6y agoSome of us have tried for decades. But people like cheap/free stuff and don't care what happens behind the curtain for the most part.
- PTOB 6y agoAnd many people matching that description are also running corporations. And the wheel turns.
- anoncow 6y agoAgreed. I was being sarcastic. We should be striving for better working conditions.
- cambalache 6y agoWe should, but we are not doing that. We have been cleverly manipulated to care more about what a soon-to-be-ex president said or didnt say or how many genders actually exist. You can protest against everything except those things that are against the interests of the rich and powerful. The protests are channel to serve their interests, not the other way around. Dont believe me? Just a sample: https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=today%205-y&geo=US&q=BLM https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=today%205-y&ge...
- AnimalMuppet 6y agoI'm glad that you don't have a time machine. So you can't back and persuade those who worked 16-hour days in unsafe conditions that they should be thankful for the jobs they had then.
- anoncow 6y agoWas being sarcastic.
- gtrhtrhtrhtr 6y agoWhat's interesting is that Facebook, like Google, and other similar companies, are absolutely the best places to work at with the way they treat their employees, the benefits, etc. So now imagine how most companies treat their employees...
- exogeny 6y agoThey’re not employees, they’re often contractors. I think that’s the point.
- PragmaticPulp 6y agoThe TL;DR is that around 200 content moderators, location unspecified, are protesting decisions to move them back into the office. It's not immediately clear from the letter that this was Facebook's decision. In fact, it appears that Facebook subcontracts content moderation to Accenture and CPL, both of which are named in this letter. The letter also takes shots at Mark Zuckerberg's growing wealth and attacks Facebook's attempts to augment the human content moderators with AI pre-filters to remove the worst content. The latter claim is strange, as the content moderators are the ones most likely to benefit from AI pre-filtering. They try to claim that Facebook "failed" to create a workable AI, but I seriously doubt that Facebook has given up on the project. More likely that they're still iterating. I suspect these people feel they need to attack the AI angle to protect their jobs. The letter goes on to demand 50% higher hazard pay, demands that the subcontracted content moderators be hired directly into Facebook as full employees, out of their contracting jobs under consulting firms.
- satya71 6y agoFacebook should bear the brunt. In a more reasonable arrangement (in which, the generator of risk has to bear the liability), these people would be direct employees of Facebook.
- jefftk 6y ago> in which, the generator of risk has to bear the liability Do you think this in general, or just for content moderation? For example, is it reasonable that I can buy car insurance that covers me if I cause an accident?
- monkin 6y ago> 5. Offer real healthcare and psychiatric care. Facebook employees enjoy various benefits, including private health insurance and visits to psychiatrists. Content moderators, who bear the brunt of the mental health trauma associated with Facebook’s toxic content, are offered 45 minutes a week with a ‘wellness coach’. These ‘coaches’ are generally not psychologists or psychiatrists and are contractually forbidden from diagnosis or treatment. And they generally cannot build a relationship of trust with moderators, since workers know that Facebook management (and Accenture/CPL management) ask ‘coaches’ to reveal confidential details of counselling sessions. Moderators deserve at least as much mental and physical health support as full Facebook staff. Low pay and no psychiatric help with that kind of content?! This is just outrageous. Mark should moderate this stuff by himself to see how huge burden it is. And, this is not Rotten or Goatse type of shock it’s entirely different level.
- johnchristopher 6y agoEven with trained psychologists or psychiatrists there's a limit to how many times you can put your hands in the fire before it's impossible to craft some skin back.
- zentiggr 6y agoI'd love to see everyone in Facebook's chain of command above the moderators being required to do a week worth of the actual moderating. Then let them say in public that they're doing their best for their employees.
- grecy 6y agoI agree with you wholeheartedly, but capitalism has allowed this kind of thing for generations. Mining magnates should be forced to work at the coalface. The Waltons should be forced to stock shelves, Bezos should be in the distribution centres. The list is endless, and unfortunately this is nothing new. The best we can do is minimum wage laws and unions to try and "negotiate" with billionaires to give us a crumb.
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- alkonaut 6y agoWtf, people who work at computers, having to work in offices, now? It’s the very worst it’s ever been! What are they thinking? I’d expect almost everyone who works at a computer screen to be working from home since March. Even if it requires expensive technical solutions to ensure it. I can’t imagine moderators need more than an internet connection and computer.
- delroth 6y agoMy understanding is that there are certain legal requirements associated with content moderators who may have to review illegal content, especially around child abuse / sexual imagery. This is what I've been told in the past by friends in other companies working on content moderation -- I don't have any specific evidence for or against it, but it passes the smell test. The whole thing in the article about Facebook suddenly trying to automate this part of the content moderation job seems to also point in that direction. > Management told moderators that we should no longer see certain varieties of toxic content coming up in the review tool from which we work— such as graphic violence or child abuse, for example.
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- sleepybrett 6y agoIf they are forced to be in the office then the office should be as covid safe as possible. I imagine these content moderators work in something akin to a facebookized phone bank 'pit'. Given that no other facebook employees are being forced to work in their expansive offices perhaps the content moderators, if they are required to work on site for security purposes, should be given the run of the empty space. That way they can easily social distance appropriately.
- bilbo0s 6y agoLots of space to do the work does seem like the most reasonable, and obvious, solution to the problem.
- supernova87a 6y agoAlternate version, points #1-5: We're so tired, so very very tired of doing this.
- justiceforsaas 6y agoIs there a particular logical reason why Facebook required these people to get back to office? Is it related to productivity? Would be curious to hear Facebook's take on this.
- bilbo0s 6y agoThink about it for a second. Where else can an employee browse filth all day in a secured environment? Free from the eyes of children who may be doing pandemic schooling from home? And indemnified against criminal liability for opening up certain troubling related content by an authoritative, audit ready, third party recorded video feed? There are just legal requirements around certain types of porn for example. Or videos of illegal activities up to and sometimes even including murder. Law enforcement authorities only tolerate a certain number of mistakes in this regard. With certain content, they may not tolerate any mistakes. I'm not saying FB is right. In fact, FB probably didn't even make the decision. They outsource. What I am saying is that FB, with the content they want their contractors to moderate, are putting those third parties in highly precarious legal positions. I don't blame those companies for acting to protect themselves if FB is not willing to take on all legal responsibility for things that may go wrong.
- pgrote 6y ago>There are just legal requirements around certain types of porn for example. Or videos of illegal activities up to and sometimes even including murder. If I understand your point, it is law enforcement doesn't allow moderation of these items outside of a certain environment? If so, can you suggest further reading of the laws for this area? I have never heard of them.
- bilbo0s 6y agoMy point is not that law enforcement won't allow moderation outside certain environments. It's that law enforcement specifically forbids possession of, or even access to, these materials by anyone. FB likely has some kind of working agreement with law enforcement which allows them to do the business of moderating and reporting. Does that agreement extend to allowing FB contractors to access child porn from home? I'm in no position to say since I'm not privy to the details of the arrangement. I'm saying as a contractor, as the low man on the totem pole, there is no way I would want any of that content touching my home network without an iron-clad assurance from every level of law enforcement that I would not be prosecuted. An assurance from your local prosecutor probably means nothing to the guys at the US Attorney's office. (And sometimes even vice-versa.) Accessing those materials in a secure environment that is audited and recorded, in direct partnership with every level of law enforcement, avoids issues of that content touching your router altogether. I can't imagine that any person who understands criminal liability would actually want to do this kind of work from their own home networks.
- IronRanger 6y agoAccording to the statistics from Sweden and Germany, 2020 deaths are tracking the same as prior years, and the death spike in Sweden from COVID is about the same as the 2009 Swine flu pandemic. So in regions with reasonably healthy people, its not clear that COVID is actually more deadly than the regular seasonal viruses we have been dealing with for the past few decades. https://www.statista.com/statistics/525353/sweden-number-of-deaths/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/525353/sweden-number-of-... https://swprs.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/sweden-monthly-deaths-1851.jpg https://swprs.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/sweden-monthly-...
- fbelzile 6y agoRight, but if deaths are the same even with extra precautions in place, don't you think it would be much worse without?
- djsumdog 6y agoWeird assumption. There is new evidence showing masks don't seem to really have that significant an impact on getting infections: https://www.acpjournals.org/doi/10.7326/M20-6817 https://www.acpjournals.org/doi/10.7326/M20-6817 ..may still prevent transmission based on the new CDC guidelines, but I don't think they based those on any actual studies. Honestly the rules are all dumb, random and arbitrary at this point. People keep yelling "science" when it's really just new superstition.
- spurgu 6y agoMasks, social distancing, restrictions on public events, people working from home, the list goes on.
- guscost 6y agoBalance with missed heart bypasses, cancer screenings, emergency stroke interventions, and increased stress, and interrupted vaccine programs, and alcoholism, drug abuse, suicide, and that list goes on too.
- djsumdog 6y agoI understand these moderators are contracted out, but maybe, just maybe, this is a sign they really need to change the way moderation is done. Maybe they need to bring people back in-house and change moderation policies before legislation does it for them: https://battlepenguin.com/politics/is-meaningful-section-230-reform-possible/ https://battlepenguin.com/politics/is-meaningful-section-230...
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- conductr 6y agoIf ~200 of 35000 signed this, I think Facebook now has ~34800 content moderators
- esja 6y agoAnd to do the job effectively they probably need 100x or 1000x that number.
- aaron695 6y ago> who have, for example, a child with epilepsy There is no interaction between Coronavius and epilepsy. But whatever. This is just a Facebook hate thread. Facts don't matter. Misinformation FTW
- seppin 6y agoSo what do you do at Facebook?
- aaron695 6y agoI post pictures of my kids. What do you do at Facebook? Spread lies about the pandemic that scares a population and make it impossible to contain because everyone thinks they are special and should get special treatment while 80 year olds with respiratory problems living with their working kids die because no one is telling the truth and won't step up against a deadly pandemic wiping out as many people as a major war?
- dang 6y agoWould you please stop posting flamewar comments to Hacker News? You've been doing it often enough that I'm starting to wince when I see your username. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- heyflyguy 6y agoUnpopular opinion? Facebook moderators are not the "heart of the business". Now, they should get better treatment but let's be realistic here.
- sieabahlpark 6y agoThey should honestly be let go with now poorly facebook manages to moderate it's content.
- heleninboodler 6y agoI agree that they're quite important and if they had a general strike, FB would turn into an absolute shit-show overnight, but I also thought that was a bit much.
- grecy 6y agoIf they didn't exist, it wouldn't take long before Facebook didn't exist. They'd either lose users hand over fist, or be sued out of existence for illegal content. That makes them fairly important, in my eyes.
- bigbubba 6y agoThey're the kidneys, responsible for filtering out the crap. And without kidneys, Facebook would die.
- goldenchrome 6y agoExcept in this analogy, Facebook can easily buy new kidneys if the old ones are too annoying.
- disgruntledphd2 6y agoThey definitely are. If people had any idea of what crap these people prevent them from seeing, then they would realise the value. In general, the treatment of content moderators in tech companies is a deep stain on any professed goodness of these companies.
- thoughtstheseus 6y agoCurrent employees should be rewarded some % for creating hundreds of billions in value for equity.
- google234123 6y agoWasn't it the past employees that actually created that value?
- klyrs 6y agoMaintenance ain't free.
- google234123 6y agoThey aren't working for free though
- klyrs 6y agoTrue, I should have said "cheap." Because when you cheap out on maintenance, you're making a choice to lose long-term value in favor of short-term gains.
- 93po 6y agoI agree, I think we should have a society where everyone is free to earn the entirety of the value they create, rather than having others take that value for themselves.
- aerovistae 6y agoPersonally I find it nothing short of horrifying that this isn't a highly paid job. I mean, on the scale of engineers. You would have to pay me far, far more to watch animal/child abuse professionally than to write JavaScript. How is this a low-paid job?
- ggreer 6y agoWages are the price of labor, and like all prices they are dictated by supply and demand. If there were fewer people both capable & willing to do the job, wages would rise. People choose these jobs because they are the best options available to them. This is true for many undesirable occupations (such as janitorial services).
- ArtDev 6y agoRemember when America had Unions? It lifted everyone up. Now its a race to the bottom.
- zests 6y agoHas there ever been a successful union for unskilled labor?
- momokoko 6y agoWhere on the spectrum of skilled would you consider working at a grocery store?
- zests 6y agoIt's quite gauche to label jobs as skilled or unskilled so I'll make no determination. But I assume you're talking about the UFCW. I had no knowledge of this union before your comment; I will admit that it changes my perception of unions as a whole.
- ruined 6y ago
- Igelau 6y agoSide topic: anyone else finding that font hard to read? Those swooshie serifs are really disruptive for me.
- cfv 6y agoLol cry me a river. I couldn't get a report to go forward for a guy who called me a f*cking n-word and threatened to rape my dead dog and their automated tools got me banned for a week for calling a rocking sofa the whitest thing ever. Great job guys, hope you are never ever given something actually important to do. That said, why would someone even need to do this? Just how unprotected is a random worker over there?
- 3gg 6y agoIt is absolutely disgusting to read about the brutality and disrespect with which Facebook treats its moderators, but that disgust can only pale in comparison with what the moderators must be going through every day. "AI"-driven content moderation at scale is completely detached from reality and from the nuances of human language, a target that only naive technophiles would pursue. These moderators truly are the heart of the company like they claim, yet receive the worst possibly treatment. Get your shit together, Facebook. Everybody who works there is complicit for the brutal treatment of your coworkers.
- nikanj 6y agoNaive technophiles? In a FAANG company? Surely you must be kidding
- zests 6y agoYou can't determine the toll being a content moderator will have on you. How are you supposed to determine whether the job is worth the salary? The true costs come later. This suggests a legislative approach to the problem but, good luck. It was hard enough for California to define "contractor". I doubt this approach will be fast, accurate or effective enough.
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- ElijahLynn 6y agoCan't believe they subject humans to psychological trauma daily and they don't offer unlimited pyschotherapy. Sheesh. I really gotta cancel my Facebook account. What greed.
- awak3ning 6y agoThis post sheds light on a very simple but important age old lesson. Judge people by what they do, and not what they say. While corporations like FaceBook would purport to have liberal values, in reality they hold these beliefs only insofar as it furthers their own financial well-being. While the elites in this company seek to concentrate wealth and power, those at the bottom receive scorn and poor working conditions. Image having to work such an emotionally draining job, and not being given the mere dignity of being a full-time employee. This sounds rather dehumanizing in my view. You are just there for labor, and they will do everything they can to minimize the amount of monetary value that they provide to you. This means humane working conditions, inclusion, respect, and psychological support and are all liabilities for them.
- esja 6y agoIt's not just the corporations and the elites. It's the people working at these companies, and that includes many HN contributors. Would they vote en masse to form a Union to stop these issues arising in the first place? Personally I doubt it. It seems to me that many people are happy to take the large pay check every day, and see themselves as "the good guys" (as everyone does) because they donated to Biden and attended a BLM march or put pronouns in their bio. Yet the homeless problem outside their front door never seems to get better, and they have terribly paid and horribly treated people working in their own company, and they seem (from the outside at least) to be doing very little about it. Of course Facebook is just one of many companies with the same problems. And the political Left abandoned the working class a long time ago. It's a systemic issue.
- awak3ning 6y agoThe diagnosis of the fact that it is a systemic issue is certainly accurate in my eyes. We need a system of incentives that would make the class of people that you identify as "HN contributors" to feel that the cost of their cowardice and complicity is greater than the affluence and power that they obtain by going along with the system that they are beneficiaries of.
- helloycombinat 6y agoI never had facebook on my phone and I dropped whatapp for signal. IG is the last piece I need to get rid of besides those apps I don't care about with the "sign in with facebook" crap. I'm trying to quit IG so my next phone will be fb free but does anyone have any recommendations on how to make dropping IG easier? So far I made a group with friends so we can spam pics but it's not the same (probably cause not enough of us is spamming it) Does anyone know of a IG replacement?
- rantwasp 6y agoyou don’t replace drinking with smoking.
- octoberfranklin 6y agobecause you replace it with bath salts, McAfee style.
- rantwasp 6y agohah. still waiting on BTC to hit 500K. McAfee told us it’s gonna happen!
- octoberfranklin 6y agoNo, he said it would happen or else he would...
- rantwasp 6y agoimho this is the reason he allowed the authorities to catch him. it was between getting caught or keeping his promise
- seppin 6y agoWhatsapp (haha). But seriously the answer for me to de-social media myself in general was to focus on the few relationships that matter to me and message them directly. Phone calls, facetime, direct messages. Whatsapp is the primary way I do this because of it's global reach, but you could get away with sms too.
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- esja 6y agoLeaving aside the obvious horrors exposed by this letter... one of the buried ledes here is the internal confirmation that AI-driven moderation has failed, and the implication that FB will have to spend significantly more money on human beings going forward. How many people do you need to moderate the interactions of half the world's population? It's going to require a lot more than tens of thousands of people, and those people will need to be paid a lot more than 18 dollars an hour.
- mrweasel 6y agoIf I where a Facebook investor and read this, the thing I would focus on is: The AI wasn’t up to the job. Important speech got swept into the maw of the Facebook filter—and risky content, like self-harm, stayed up. The lesson is clear. Facebook’s algorithms are years away from achieving the necessary level of sophistication to moderate content automatically. They may never get there. Most technical people have guessed that Facebooks AI wasn't actually any good. The non-technical world, like politicians, assumed that it was easy for Facebook to moderate. Facebooks magical AI could censor anything that governments deemed offensive. It turns out it can't, but Facebooks has done nothing do inform the world that their AI is no good. Admittedly I guessed that it didn't actually exists and was simply a keyword filter.