The Worst Job In the Digital World

Hugh Pickens writes "The Telegraph reports on one of the worst jobs in the digital world — moderating photos and posts on Facebook and other social networking sites flagged as unsuitable by other users. Last year Amine Derkaoui, a 21-year-old Moroccan man, spent a few weeks training to screen illicit Facebook content through an outsourcing firm, for which he was paid $1 an hour. 'It must be the worst salary paid by Facebook,' says Derkaoui. 'And the job itself was very upsetting – no one likes to see a human cut into pieces every day.' Other moderators, mainly young, well-educated people working in Asia, Africa and Central America, have similar stories. 'Paedophilia, necrophilia, beheadings, suicides, etc,' says one. 'I left [because] I value my sanity.' Facebook's one-page cheat sheet lays out exactly what must be confirmed and deleted by the team. Pictures of naked private parts, drugs (apart from marijuana) and sexual activity (apart from foreplay) are all banned. Once something is reported by a user, the moderator sitting at his computer in Morocco or Mexico has three options: delete it; ignore it; or escalate it, which refers it back to a Facebook employee in California who will, if necessary, report it to the authorities. Emma Barnett adds that although this invisible army of moderators receive basic training, they work from home, do not appear to undergo criminal checks, and have worrying access to users' personal details. 'Maybe disgruntled commuters, old schoolfriends and new mothers will think twice before sharing intimate information with their "friends" – only to find that two minutes later it's being viewed by an under-vetted, unfulfilled person on a dollar an hour in an internet café in Marrakech.'"

Comments

So the moral of the story is...

[betterunixthanunix]

So the moral of the story is that you have no idea who could be reading what you posted to Facebook, and that privacy controls are completely meaningless when it comes to Facebook employees reading through your information? How is that news?

Re:So the moral of the story is...

[kragniz]

Indeed, everything posted to facebook can, and probably will, be public at some point. Why think otherwise?

Re:So the moral of the story is...

[na1led]

It's news to the Ignorants. Especially the young generation! Being in the IT field for many years, I already knew this was going to happen, and that's why I rarely use Facebook, and never use Twitter. Keep a low profile, and watch what you say or post. Never trust someone else to hold your personal data, no mater what they tell you. Keep your memories in a Fireproof safe box.

Re:So the moral of the story is...

[camperdave]

They are telling the truth. Your Facebook friends include all Facebook employees, law enforcement agencies, ad firms, and others. Remember, any friend of Facebook's is a friend of yours!

Re:So the moral of the story is...

[betterunixthanunix]

That's quite naive though because that would mean their sys-admins could not see it if they needed to, also law enforcement(in which jurisdiction?); I'm not sure how you could legally or functionally achieve either of these.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Encryption

We have known for years that the sysadmins who run communication systems could potentially eavesdrop on us, which was one of the big motivations for public research on cryptography and public key encryption systems. I know, I know, "It's hard," "Ordinary people won't do it," "There are a million failure modes," but we are not trying to secure against nation-state intelligence agencies here. If Facebook were serious about protecting user privacy (not that anyone would expect them to be), they would have deployed cryptographic solutions to these problems long ago. If they want to be able to grant law enforcement access to these things, they can use a threshold system so that there is no single person who can read users' messages.

The reality, though, is that Facebook will only devote resources to giving users to appearance of privacy, because Facebook's entire business model is based on privacy violations.

Re:So the moral of the story is...

[TheLink]

The reality is even if Facebook deployed crypto the people who care about crypto won't and CANNOT trust FB to do it in a way secure for the users. Haven't you seen those companies that claim to provide crypto but still hand over decrypted stuff to others?

The reason why crypto sorta works for web banking is you already have made the decision to trust your bank.

If you can't trust Facebook, Facebook deploying cryptography to stop FB from eavesdropping on users is a waste of time and resources for everyone including FB.

Psychological support?

[Nick Fel]

I've read articles about this job before, but those reported on centres in the US where employees are given counselling to cope with the job. Is Facebook avoiding this moral duty by farming it out abroad?

Re:Psychological support?

[Trepidity]

Farming it out to third-party contractors in uncontrolled working conditions (including internet cafes, apparently?) also seems to fail to uphold at least the spirit of their privacy policy. It's one thing to delete a nude photo that violates FB's privacy policy, and another thing to send it outside of Facebook's offices to third parties with nothing stopping them from saving it locally.

A buck an hour ...

[Barbara, not Barbie]

Welcome to the face of globalization, where the rush to the bottom has given us jobs that pay only 1/10 of a McJob.

We've already seen this with programers. If it's in an O'Reilly book, it will be outsourced, crowd-sourced, off-shored, whatever it takes to drive the cost to as near to zero as possible.

Welcome to the future, brought to you by the internet and the law of unintended consequences.

Re:A buck an hour ...

[dkleinsc]

Welcome to the future, brought to you by free trade agreements and completely intended consequences.

FTFY.

Arguments in favor of completely removing all tariffs on Chinese imports occurred in the 1980's and were passed in the 1990's. Then Secretary of the Treasury Larry Summers was giving talks about how globalization ought to be applauded because it made things more efficient (i.e. cheaper) and how it would ultimately benefit Americans because they could pay 15 cents for stuff at Walmart that used to cost 85 cents at the local general store. Both parties were all in favor of increasing the number of available H1B visas, and for making the process convoluted enough that large American firms would have the "efficiency" of hiring people who couldn't make a fuss about low pay or working conditions without risking getting deported, while the smaller firms couldn't jump through the necessary hoops.

This wasn't an accident or an unintended consequence - it was the direct and stated goal of the economic policies of George HW Bush, Bill Clinton, George W Bush, and Barack Obama.

$1 an hour

[DrSkwid]

there's plenty o'people would do it for free

Re:4Chan *shiver

[beowulfcluster]

You've never browsed Slashdot at -1, I see. The mods on here who keep the depravity out of honest, law abiding peoples sight don't even get paid minimum wage, it's an outrage.

Worst job except this one...

[mwvdlee]

From TFA:

which refers it back to a Facebook employee in California who will, if necessary, report it to the authorities

Surely the californian employee who only gets to see the very worst of these pictures every day must have a worse job than the people who also get to filter all the nice pictures.