Three Facebook moderators have broken their NDAs and told The Verge what they saw at the company’s moderation sites. It is a gripping, horrifying, read.
[Kevin] Utley worked the overnight shift at a Facebook content moderation site in Tampa, FL, operated by a professional services vendor named Cognizant. The 800 or so workers there face relentless pressure from their bosses to better enforce the social network’s community standards, which receive near-daily updates that leave its contractor workforce in a perpetual state of uncertainty. The Tampa site has routinely failed to meet the 98 percent “accuracy” target set by Facebook. In fact, with a score that has been hovering around 92, it is Facebook’s worst-performing site in North America. The stress of the job weighed on Utley, according to his former co-workers, who, like all Facebook contractors at the Tampa site, must sign a 14-page nondisclosure agreement. “The stress they put on him — it’s unworldly,” one of Utley’s managers told me. “I did a lot of coaching. I spent some time talking with him about things he was having issues seeing. And he was always worried about getting fired.” On the night of March 9th, 2018, Utley slumped over at his desk.
Check It Out: Moderators Break Facebook NDAs to Tell All
I’ve been thinking about the article and one part keeps coming back to me. How many times the people being interviewed said that they ran across horrible videos, of animal abuse, of child abuse, of unbelievable cruelty, only to have them “not violate Facebook’s rules”. For the very worst, the most sadistic, they were told that Facebook wanted to leave them in place so law enforcement could better trace down the people who committed the acts. That’s bullshit. They could pull the videos, they know the user, they know the time stamp, they have everything they need to go to the police. They just don’t want to take the material down because it might impact the bottom line.
Facebook is the problem.
“On the night of March 9th, 2018, Utley slumped over at his desk.”
Did they kill him?
He had a fatal heart attack from the stress of what he was dealing with.
A company is as good as it’s leadership. That FaceBook and the companies they contract with do this shows what a POS Zuckerburg is. I agree with the one person quoted in the story. I think it needs to shut down.