Facebook Working Conditions: Too Horrible to Believe

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For sanity’s sake, let’s look at some of God’s stuff for a moment–like this red eft.

I hardly know what to make of this story, and I would rather not believe it.

WARNING: The link will take you to the Fox News story, details of which I prefer not to mention–especially those involving animal abuse. Read at your own risk. I wish I hadn’t read it.

A Facebook “content moderator,” 42 years old, recently died “after viewing horrific videos” of child and animal abuse, pornography, and other violently bizarre behavior (https://www.foxnews.com/tech/facebook-moderator-dies-horrific-videos-others-share-disturbing-incidents). Some of his co-workers report symptoms suggestive of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, and working conditions that constitute “a terrible, terrible environment.”

Facebook employs some 15,000 moderators worldwide, each expected to review more than 1,000 posts a week so they can strike out content that violates Facebook’s enormous number of rules defining unacceptable content. Some of them told Fox News that they experience stress that is “unworldly.”

They also reported working conditions that featured bedbugs, “body waste” at work stations, blood and feces on bathroom walls, and numerous fights and arguments among the staff.

Again, I would rather not believe this; but there it is.

So why cover it at all? Because Facebook has taken it upon itself to decide on the fitness of billions of posts put up by many millions of viewers–in a fallen world, in a particularly evil epoch of world history–and all with a relative handful of overworked moderators. Playing God isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.

You’d think, with so much vile and filthy content pouring in, they’d spare themselves the labor of ruling whether posts were politically acceptable. They’ve got this stuff to contend with, and they’re worried about some user not being supportive of abortion? I mean, these guys don’t even get paid all that much! Is it really worthwhile, banning people who say mean things about liberals?

Frankly, I don’t know what ought to be done about this. I suppose they could hire more moderators, pay them more, and clean up the workplace–and just drop the whole business of political censorship. There would seem to be more than enough of the really toxic content to keep them busy.

 

8 comments on “Facebook Working Conditions: Too Horrible to Believe

  1. I remember reading about this a few weeks back. As I understand it, Facebook contracts out the moderating to other companies, which is how they can get away with not being held accountable for the horrific conditions and poor pay. 🙁

  2. This doesn’t surprise me at all. There are a lot of people in the younger generation whom possess an extremely erratic moral compass. Cleanliness and consideration for others have their roots in morality.

  3. It is like pornography pre-Hugh Hefner – it was not easy to come by. Now porn sites are the most visited ones on the WWW. People used to just think of horrible things they would like to disgust other people with, but now they can get a YouTube channel to do it with. Technology and prosperity seem to magnify man’s expression of his sin nature. It is said that during WWII in England depressions and suicide rates went down. Isaiah said “When God’s judgments are in the earth, the people of the world learn righteousness.”

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