The In-House Decency Patrol At Facebook

theodp writes "How'd you like a job where you get fired if you DON'T view porn at work? Newsweek reports on Facebook's internal police force of 150 staffers who are charged with regulating users' decorum, hunting spammers and working with actual law-enforcement agencies to help solve crimes. Part hall monitors, part vice cops, the $50,000-a-year 'porn cops' also keep Facebook safe for corporate advertisers."

Comments

so lest get this straight

[ionix5891]

there are people who get PAID to view porn?!

Re:so lest get this straight

[Anonymous Coward]

yep. my first "job"ã(back in high school) was translating pirated movies for a small video shop somewhere in Eastern Europe.

more than half of what i had to do was porn, and i liked it, because it was easier than normal films, and paid the same.

and the hard ons were for free.

good times ...

Re:so lest get this straight

[impaledsunset]

Call me when they pay me to view porn _and_ read Slashdot.

Re:so lest get this straight

[Anonymous Coward]

I work for a web hosting company that caters to the adult industry. Looking at porn is a job requirement.

However, it's not all it's cracked up to be. Porn doesn't discriminate.

I'll let you figure it out.

Re:so lest get this straight

[jo42]

Imagine that. I've also heard that there are people who get paid to MAKE porn!!

Re:so lest get this straight

[GF678]

there are people who get PAID to view porn?!

You know those porn sites on that there Interwebz? Well guess what... each and every single one needs someone to at the very least maintain and run the sites, if not to adjust/crop/re-size/airbrush the material.

I remember reading the first-hand experiences of a guy hired to maintain such a site. The end result was that he found himself totally desensitized to the material, even the really hardcore stuff, to the point that porn had absolutely no thrill. So be aware of this if you every find the opportunity to check out porn on a daily basis. :)

Re:so lest get this straight

[4D6963]

Call me when they pay me to view porn _and_ read Slashdot.

Maybe CmdrTaco could use a helping hand with getting rid of the goatse links?

Re:so lest get this straight

[DarkOx]

You also have to consider that what you will be looking at is mostly homemade stuff that is probably not very exciting, maybe even a little off putting. Most people don't look to good shoot under poor light with a low res cell phone camera. I suspect this is going to be a good deal of what you find on facebook.

Light does a lot, a photo of female with a shadow on her often makes it appear as if she has hair. Ever wonder why professional photographers almost always use direct light on girls in studio work? They don't do this as much with men which they may shoot under flood because a little darkness on parts of the face make him appear rugged and manly. Then you have all those dorm room fluorescents that are going to make people look pale or green. Finally most people are just not as good looking as models who are almost always air brushed themselves.

Now when this is your girl friend or something your brain can sorta compensate for the unflattering camera effects, you can image what she really looks like and its possible very arousing. When its someone you don't know you are going to see what is on the page. So when you girl or guy friend sends you a titillating image its fun, when you are sifting though other peoples images I don't much of it is going to be a turn on. As to the models being air brushed and such, well again when its someone you have affection for you probably see what you want to see, when its someone you don't know well; her breasts are really uneven and her nose is sort big etc etc.

Finally although our society is much more open about the female form than the male; I am sure Facebook has its share of flamers and men sending pictures to their girlfriends alike. Truly, I don't think many men are as disgusted at seeing other men nude as most of us pretend. Its not like we don't see dick when we look down in the shower every morning. Still this is probably going to be at least of fourth of the images or so; that is 25% of the time you are just classifying what to you are uninteresting images. If I was doing something as dull as identifying common images a quarter of the time I was at the office, I would get to hate work pretty fast.

Frankly sifting though slightly off putting images for eight hours day, with only a handful of them making me go "Nice" sounds like a pretty terrible job.

Re:so lest get this straight

[Kokuyo]

That would be a matter of taste, now wouldn't it? Personally, I'm just fed up with all those Paris Hilton wannabes wit porno pouts and oh so realistic 'acting'. I am fed up with silicone tits on top of malnourished torsos.

I'd rather look at someone's chubby girlfriend really having fun than most of those 'professionals'.

Re:so lest get this straight

[roman_mir]

Heh, let's put it this way, at BellTV there are cubicles on the fifth floor of one of the buildings with explicit 'stop' signs on them with some explanation that if you walk into one of those cubicles you may see something that may offend you, well, if you do walk in you may see maybe 10 monitors with at least some of them showing porn and there are people sitting there looking at it and it is part of the job. They are basically QAs that really have to watch this stuff all the time. And they get paid to do this.

**preps resume**

[downix]

First it's the Sweedish tax collectors, now facebook! I am in the wrong line of business!

Waste of money

[Norsefire]

They pay 150 people $50k a year to do this when if they promised people a few hundred Texas Hold 'Em chips per report they could have millions doing it for free.

I'm sure it gets real old

[mc1138]

As exciting as this seems at first, I'm sure it gets real old real fast, and isn't nearly as cool as it seems.

Re:I'm sure it gets real old

[calmofthestorm]

I suspect they spend more time viewing JEWS DID WTC than porn, but I don't know.

50k$ is not enough

[Bearhouse]

For such a boring job.

Re:50k$ is not enough

[Threni]

Unskilled = anyone can do it = no-one cares what you think = just shut up and do it or we'll get someone eles in = low paid

Re:50k$ is not enough

[Alex Belits]

Facebook is in Palo Alto. For $50K/y you can barely pay for apartment, car, and maybe some kind of food.

Re:50k$ is not enough

[Flere Imsaho]

Just be thankful you're not being paid to watch necrophilia-based porn - that's dead boring. In contrast, the incest related stuff is only relatively boring.

Sorry, size matters

[tomhudson]

How do I apply and am I allowed to save the images to my computer?

Neither your hard drive, nor your [censored}, are big enough.

They don't want people who will end up filing for workers' comp for "tennis elbow".

Re:Sorry, size matters

[Snarky McButtface]

I have had wanker's cramp since I was fifteen and it hasn't slowed me down. Where do I need to send my resume?

Rampant Sexism

[corsec67]

I hate how incredibly sexist the filtering is. Both sexes (generally) have a pair of nipples that appear very similar, so for one pair to be fine for prime-time television, and another pair to be fined for a fleeting appearance on TV seems very silly.

It isn't the shape of the female breast that is the issue, as a picture of a model wearing a skimpy swimming suit would pass. Male nipples? Also just fine.

Female Nipples? WHOAH, STOP THE PRESSES!
(Even if the nipple is currently feeding a child)

Re:Rampant Sexism

[Swizec]

Unlike the average slashdotter I'm exposed to breasts at least every day and to be quite honest, they never stop being the single best toy in the world. Breasts are fun. End of story.

Re:Rampant Sexism

[oliderid]

There are protests around the world where women basically go topless and get arrested for it

Not in most european countries IMHO (Techno parades, beaches,etc).

I didn't think that the restrictive Facebook policy could be that conservative. Topless "forbidden!", mothers breast feeding children "forbidden!"...I'm quite surprised.

American media companies have no problem to show a crime scene with blood everywhere and a victim lying on the ground. but a healthy female body is considered more obscene than that. I find it so absurd in a way.

Re:Rampant Sexism

[orange47]

aww, how cute, baby learned to type already..

Their advertizers are scum anyway

[sam_handelman]

I'm aware that the advertizing is targeted, but all I ever see are ads for dating sites or russian mail-order brides.

  Oh, and those "free" credit report companies, who make the russian mailorder bride people look reputable.

  Also, isn't facebook losing money hand over fist anyway? They'd probably do better if they moved to a subscription model that let you look at other user's porn.

No thanks

[runlevelfour]

Familiarity breeds contempt. Not only would the questionable perk of viewing porn and other amusing things become boring after constant exposure, you get to wade through the eyesore garbage people post on their page as well. Sounds like an easy gig, but one can imagine that there is a constant mountain of paperwork and reports to fill out. If you ask me it smacks of a highly paid glorified clerk job.

Re:No thanks

[tomhudson]

Familiarity breeds contempt. Not only would the questionable perk of viewing porn and other amusing things become boring after constant exposure,

Kind of makes you want to feel sorry for gynecologists ...

... except the blind ones - they can still read lips.

lolwut

[sqrt(2)]

There are ads on facebook?

Being spied upon

[ickleberry]

The fact that these guys actually exist make me glad i'm not on facebook. Ya know facebook pretends to care about privacy all that but how can they keep that up when they have 150 paid staff who'se job it is to snoop through your stuffs?

Facebook might be in for a surprise!

[Vinegar Joe]

Wait till they find pictures of their mothers on my page!

I know... And it's a shame

[Anonymous Coward]

I've worked in internet advertising and know how important ads are to many useful services AND that they often contain info I actually want to see and click (job openings, products that interest me, etc.).

So while I use adblock, I have very limited block list that I have personally made. It consists of: Ads that blink so much they literally hurt your eyes, ads that very clearly lie ("you are millionth visitor" or adult friend finder ads) and... that's pretty much it. The list has gotten quite long but still only contains those.

For long, I tried to struggle not to add facebook ads to the list. However, all the ads I am getting are VERY deceptive. There are numerous, poorly translated "[celebrity name] IQ is 136, test your's!" (sometimes using a friend's name instead of celebrity's) or "[Friend's name] has done [insert new thing], try it out" when they haven't... And then there are all the ads designed to look just like facebook buttons so that you would accidentally click them...

Though I have worked in the business, I have never seen any other site so consistently filled with that shady ads. Even porn sites mostly have real poker ads. Google has MUCH stricter policies on ads allowed. I can't imagine this kind of ad policy being good for FB in the long run.

Internal Corruption

[pilsner.urquell]

I used to have a neighbor who was a homicide detective on the Los Angeles Police Department, when I lived in that fine city.

He got transferred to the Vice Unit which seen like a demotion for a homicide detective. His explanation was that no police officer spent more that eighteen months in the Vice Unit because it tended to corrupt the offices and turn them into the criminals they where fighting.

If this holds true, and I have mo reason to doubt my former neighbor, will this be a temporary assignment? Or will we start seeing these employees start posting there own girl meet donkey videos?

--

The American Form of Government

Re:Internal Corruption

[drinkypoo]

If you've been following what the LAPD has been up to in the last few months, you'd know that cops get cycled through the vice unit after only 18 months so that the next guy can get a turn.

You wouldn't like it at all

[SmallFurryCreature]

I had the job ages ago of invesitgating complaints about a large dutch ISP's servers and user accounts content. If you send a mail that on our network there was inappropriate content, then I investigated and took appropriate action.

Do not think this inappropriate content is restricted to some David Hamilton pics ("this content is legal with in the jurisdiction of the account it is hosted from")or even the early ancestors of "two girls and a cup" ("No laws are broken").

Times might have changed a bit. The internet is a bit less of a wild west zone and facebook might not attract the very worsed of content as it is by its nature linked to your indentity but then, so was your IP to your account in my time.

I quit after a few months despite a fairly high salary because there is only so much child porn, dead bodies or both you can look at.