The Worst Job In the Digital World

Wow by WrongSizeGlass · 2012-03-06 01:15 · Score: 3, Funny

I thought the worst job in the world was digitally editing all of those pics of 'Octo-mom' so she only looked like she has 4 appendages instead of 8.

So the moral of the story is... by betterunixthanunix · 2012-03-06 01:19 · Score: 5, Insightful

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?

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Palm trees and 8

Re:So the moral of the story is... by kragniz · 2012-03-06 01:21 · Score: 5, Insightful

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... by _8553454222834292266 · 2012-03-06 01:23 · Score: 2

News to me. Has it been publicly confirmed anywhere else that this goes on? Sure, it was always a good guess but still, even from this article it's not clear they're just going through private content on a whim. It sounds like it needs to be flagged first so I guess the other lesson is choose better "friends".
Re:So the moral of the story is... by Anonymous Coward · 2012-03-06 01:24 · Score: 3, Insightful

Because if Facebook says something is only visible to "Me and My Friends", you'd expect them to be actually telling the truth.
Of course you and I know better now.
Re:So the moral of the story is... by betterunixthanunix · 2012-03-06 01:29 · Score: 4, Interesting

even from this article it's not clear they're just going through private content on a whim.
Well, perhaps this article from 5 years ago will help to clarify the issue for you:

http://gawker.com/315901/facebook-employees-know-what-profiles-you-look-at

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Palm trees and 8
Re:So the moral of the story is... by LordSnooty · 2012-03-06 01:35 · Score: 3, Insightful

Facebook employees and their contracted third party agents.
Re:So the moral of the story is... by fuzzyfuzzyfungus · 2012-03-06 01:37 · Score: 5, Funny

"Just think of us as friends you haven't met yet and never will."

XOXO,
-The Facebook Team
Re:So the moral of the story is... by rufty_tufty · 2012-03-06 01:39 · Score: 2

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.

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"The weirdest thing about a mind, is that every answer that you find, is the basis of a brand new cliche" -
Re:So the moral of the story is... by na1led · 2012-03-06 01:41 · Score: 5, Insightful

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.

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-- By all means let's be open-minded, but not so open-minded that our brains drop out.
Re:So the moral of the story is... by camperdave · 2012-03-06 01:42 · Score: 5, Insightful

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!

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When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
Re:So the moral of the story is... by Anonymous Coward · 2012-03-06 01:44 · Score: 5, Interesting

It's not, but this is part of why I left Facebook (as an employee). I've whined about it anonymously here for a couple years.
Even if you have a photo 'private', if it is reported, screeners will have access to it. We had one screener, who was found to be taking USB thumb drives of pictures home from the internet cafe where he worked, all pornographic. There have been cases, nothing major, where pictures leak out to the internet through these means. Nobody was willing to do anything about this gaping security hole.... infuriated me.
Re:So the moral of the story is... by DigiShaman · 2012-03-06 01:54 · Score: 1

Hey, you might be friended. You never know ;)

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Life is not for the lazy.
Re:So the moral of the story is... by icebraining · 2012-03-06 01:55 · Score: 2

and never use Twitter
You don't use Twitter because they might misuse your private data? Can you even post something privately on Twitter?

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Dilbert RSS feed
Re:So the moral of the story is... by betterunixthanunix · 2012-03-06 01:58 · Score: 5, Insightful

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.

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Palm trees and 8
Re:So the moral of the story is... by Anonymous Coward · 2012-03-06 02:01 · Score: 2, Funny

Does that mean the enemy of facebook's enemy is also my friend?
Re:So the moral of the story is... by JosKarith · 2012-03-06 02:01 · Score: 3, Funny

""Just think of us as friends you haven't met yet and hope you never will."
TFTFY

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'Don't worry' said the trees when they saw the axe coming, 'The handle is one of us.'
Re:So the moral of the story is... by biodata · 2012-03-06 02:12 · Score: 1

Sysadmins are not generally allowed to see people's passwords because they are PRIVATE. Somehow we have let FB and the like convince us that there is no such thing as private data.

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Korma: Good
Re:So the moral of the story is... by biodata · 2012-03-06 02:15 · Score: 2

I highly doubt that only one screener does this, I would bet good money that the figure is about 50%.

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Korma: Good
Re:So the moral of the story is... by TheLink · 2012-03-06 02:23 · Score: 4, Insightful

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.
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- Too many replies beneath your current threshold
Re:So the moral of the story is... by fermion · 2012-03-06 02:24 · Score: 1

No the moral of the story is that the average person have sex is no interest to someone who sees it hundreds of times a day. Despite what your teachers may have told you, you are not especially special.
Combine this with the fact that if these people are doing this job, they probably need the money and are going to be unwilling to take risks. Sure, there are some who are in for criminal gain. Just like it is crazy to give a credit card to any person who takes it out of your sight, even for a second.
There is really little difference between this and what probably happens at insurance companies. Low paid employees get a hold of embarrassing data and then make fun of the client. It is one thing to be cautious about what one puts on line. It is another to turn an unfortunate job category into an egotistical fright fest.

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"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
Re:So the moral of the story is... by rufty_tufty · 2012-03-06 02:27 · Score: 2

I'm well aware of cryptography and encryption.
However I'm fairly certain that it doesn't apply here. Please correct me if I'm wrong but the reason we can have things like secure passwords is that once encrypted, they are never decrypted. When i supply my password to a secure system it is encrypted at the time of creation and the hash stored. This then is checked against the re-encrypted version supplied every time a person check it.
To perform a private/public key check on photos you want to share with a select group of people would mean effectively sharing that public key with that select group. Fine, totally possible, but what happens when it goes wrong, when the page doesn't render correctly for that photo, then you need to call in the sysadmin who can see it as you see it, much as root can su to my user account to check things from my perspective.
root always has access to all your data unless you deny them access to the private key, which is possible but I doubt we would see that on any day to day system because it would mean inputting the private key every time you wanted to view it.
I just don't know how you could have a real world sharing website that was also secure against the admins.

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"The weirdest thing about a mind, is that every answer that you find, is the basis of a brand new cliche" -
Re:So the moral of the story is... by rufty_tufty · 2012-03-06 02:31 · Score: 3, Insightful

sysadmins are not able to see passwords because it is possible to encrypt them before they are sent to the central server. passwords are never actually decrypted in order to authenticate them.
photos that have to be shared would have to be decrypted at some stage. If the 3rd party you are sharing with could see them then so could the sysadmin.
Now unless you wanted to encrypt every photo independently with every person you share it with's public key, but that would be very inefficient.
Also in that case who would you police things like bullying? now you may argue that it is not the place of a website to do that, but (for example) I would expect a pub landlord to monitor his premises for illegal activity, so why not a website/forum?

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"The weirdest thing about a mind, is that every answer that you find, is the basis of a brand new cliche" -
Re:So the moral of the story is... by AdrianKemp · 2012-03-06 02:37 · Score: 1

Not sure if you're dense or trolling...
Passwords can be hidden completely from sysadmins because they're being provided by the user each time. You don't need the ability to decrypt the resulting data because you're just checking the existing encrypted blob against the new one - if they match the password is right.
Photos and status updates don't work that way.
Re:So the moral of the story is... by avgjoe62 · 2012-03-06 02:42 · Score: 2

Well, I don't know about whether or not you should have been modded down, but I do think there is an distinction between Facebook and "the internets" in general.
Facebook is designed to find out about you. It knows what you like, who you like, where you are and when you were there and most times even how you got to where you are. It stores your photos, your random thoughts and even your aspirations. This is far different from the vast majority of the internet, but you are right that at least Facebook IS more up front about letting you know what they will do with that information.
The lesson? There was an old adage I used to hear, well before the internet was in everyone's lives - the only sure way to keep a secret is to never tell it to anyone else and take it to your grave with you.

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How come Slashdot never gets Slashdotted?
Re:So the moral of the story is... by similar_name · 2012-03-06 02:46 · Score: 4, Informative

Because if Facebook says something is only visible to "Me and My Friends", you'd expect them to be actually telling the truth.
They may be telling the truth; from TFS

moderating photos and posts on Facebook and other social networking sites flagged as unsuitable by other users.
I may be wrong but it seems to me, one of your 'friends' would have to mark it as unsuitable first. This is a pretty much universal rule whether online or in meat-space. If you tell a friend a secret they may tell someone else your secret.
Re:So the moral of the story is... by na1led · 2012-03-06 03:32 · Score: 1

Employers will sift through Twitter and Facebook. All it takes is one slipup and it could affect your career for the rest of your life.

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-- By all means let's be open-minded, but not so open-minded that our brains drop out.
Re:So the moral of the story is... by jamstar7 · 2012-03-06 03:43 · Score: 1

According to Facebook, it is. YMMV.

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Understanding the scope of the problem is the first step on the path to true panic.
Re:So the moral of the story is... by the_B0fh · 2012-03-06 03:57 · Score: 1

Never had imaginary friends...?
Re:So the moral of the story is... by betterunixthanunix · 2012-03-06 04:24 · Score: 1

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
That is why we need to start deploying systems that protect users from malicious parties. Web browsers currently ship with support for basic encryption and signing of messages exchanged by the browser and the web server. Yet with social networking, what we really need is a secure way to communicate between two clients, through the server; moreover, it needs to allow users to log in from different systems. What we need is a multiparty computation system that offers security against malicious parties, and which is built in to web browsers so that we do not have to rely on Facebook to deploy some sort of applet (e.g. Hushmail's approach, which fails to protect its users and which we all knew would fail to protect its users even before the DEA walked into court with multiple DVDs of decrypted data).

It is still research-level stuff -- still not quite practical for the volumes of data that Facebook deals with -- but there is no reason to think that it is impossible or that it could not be practical. The biggest challenge is getting this sort of thing built in to browsers; browsers have a vested interest in helping advertisers and related companies (like Facebook), and so the politics and economics wind up getting in the way.

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Palm trees and 8
Re:So the moral of the story is... by icebraining · 2012-03-06 04:31 · Score: 1

But for that matter, so can not having a Twitter account.

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Dilbert RSS feed
Re:So the moral of the story is... by betterunixthanunix · 2012-03-06 04:33 · Score: 1

To perform a private/public key check on photos you want to share with a select group of people would mean effectively sharing that public key with that select group.
Or using attribute based encryption, which allows a ciphertext to be decrypted by anyone who possesses a key with particular attributes. Now, when it comes to social networking, I envision the "trusted key issuer" (a necessary component of ABE) to be the person making posts, and "friending" to be the process of issuing someone a key (with particular attributes). Facebook would act as a key store, and would simply send keys to browsers (which would perform all decryption locally; this is critical to maintaining user privacy). This may also involve a secure computation protocol that protects users from a malicious party (i.e. Facebook itself), so that some processing can be done by Facebook's own servers (perhaps to manage the addition of new people to the social network; maybe you want to allow anyone from your school to be able to see which classes you are enrolled in, but do not want to be forced to issue key after key whenever a new user joins the social network).

Now, at the moment these systems are still very much "research level" systems, which is why it will be a while before we can deploy them. If Facebook wanted to help in that research, they would be welcome -- their resources and experience in social networking would probably help a lot. Unfortunately, that is not something we are likely to see happen any time soon, since it works against Facebook's own goals (monetizing privacy violations).

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Palm trees and 8
Re:So the moral of the story is... by betterunixthanunix · 2012-03-06 04:45 · Score: 1

No the moral of the story is that the average person have sex is no interest to someone who sees it hundreds of times a day. Despite what your teachers may have told you, you are not especially special.

Then you won't mind telling me your home address so that I can come over and put a camera in your bedroom?

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Palm trees and 8
Re:So the moral of the story is... by uncledrax · 2012-03-06 04:47 · Score: 1

Mod Parent up.
Also, worst case, I change your password.. do what I want to impersonate you, then restore your password from the original hash you used.
It's obvious that the days of 'Not using a system because I don't trust the system owner' gone?

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----- The internet has given everyone the ability to have their voice heard equally as loud.. even if they shouldn't be
Re:So the moral of the story is... by ColdWetDog · 2012-03-06 05:42 · Score: 1

His bedroom? Ewww!

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Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
Re:So the moral of the story is... by Xeranar · 2012-03-06 05:48 · Score: 1

Why would you assume that? Facebook is like a really large nightclub. You & your circle of friends are in the VIP room but if a fight breaks out the bouncers are going to come in and deal with it. If anybody had taken an US Political theory course would know that privacy exists in two places, in a private residence & between patient & doctor.
Slashdot tends to rattle on about privacy like you're all spies or horrible sex fiends hiding from the past. You're just not that unique, snowflake.
Re:So the moral of the story is... by darjen · 2012-03-06 06:11 · Score: 1

Sooner or later, people will have to learn that they can't always believe or trust everything they read. especially on the internet.
Re:So the moral of the story is... by Tuan121 · 2012-03-06 06:37 · Score: 1

How is that news?
It's not.. and that's not what the article or summary was about. That was YOU trying to turn the discussion into tinfoil-hat-no-privacy world.
But I guess you accomplished your goal, enjoy eating your mod points tonight.
Re:So the moral of the story is... by biodata · 2012-03-06 07:20 · Score: 1

When you say 'very inefficient', how long does it take a decent laptop to encrypt a lores pic for FB? Not long I reckon. Thinking of the children (which is of course always a big concern), policing bullying would be easy enough if the person complaining about bullying were able to submit their unencrypted stream to the site for assessment. I might argue that it is not the place of the website to do this anyway, and it might be better to make it easy for users to submit evidence of possible crimes to the police. I would expect a pub landlord to monitor their premises for illegal activity, but websites are not a pub, they are more like a phone service with intrusive advertising.

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Korma: Good
Re:So the moral of the story is... by rufty_tufty · 2012-03-06 21:18 · Score: 1

Efficient means the wastage of resources, not the raw availability of them.
If we assume the average person shares their photo with around 10 people (I think you're more likely to talk about 100, but let's work in your favour here) then we're instantly talking about an order of magnitude more data needed. Again, possible, but not efficient, not making good use of available resources.
I'm not just thinking of the children, if you think adults aren't bullied or intimidated then you're very wrong. If you think people don't stalk their exs or spread lies about co-workers then you need to wake up.
I agree the police need to get involved, but for that you need evidence, and for that you need the ability for law enforcement to access the materials from all sides - i.e. sysadmins need access.

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"The weirdest thing about a mind, is that every answer that you find, is the basis of a brand new cliche" -
Re:So the moral of the story is... by johny42 · 2012-03-06 22:53 · Score: 1

Because if Facebook says something is only visible to "Me and My Friends", you'd expect them to be actually telling the truth.
Of course you and I know better now.
If your friends can access your photos on Facebook, they can save them to their hard drives and then e-mail them to whoever they decide to -- or upload them to their Facebook accounts and share with whomever they want (even set them as "public"). This is no different -- by reporting your photos, your friends have decided to share these photos with Facebook employees.
Re:So the moral of the story is... by biodata · 2012-03-07 00:03 · Score: 1

Sharing pictures of yourself drunk with your friends can in no way be considered an efficient use of computing resources, and so the efficiency argument falls completely flat. If people buy a computer, and want to use it to share such pictures, then it is up to them. Similarly, if people want to use said computer to do this privately, using encryption, then who are we to argue that they are not making good use of their own resources? I disagree that sysadmins need access. Complainants should be the ones giving access to evidence to law enforcement, and sysadmins should not be in the picture imo. Complainants would have access to the decryption keys, in order to have something to complain about, so ought to be facilitated in forwarding the unencrypted stream, rather than law enforcement wiretapping the service provider, imo. If law enforcement want to wiretap an individual user, because they have reasonable grounds to believe a crime is being committed, then they should go get a warrant from a judge, and wiretap that user's computer. Why should every innocent conversation that anyone has be subject to warrantless wiretapping and intrusion by nosy and corrupt law enforcement and sysadmins?

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Korma: Good

Moose knuckles by Rik+Sweeney · 2012-03-06 01:23 · Score: 1

I've never heard that one before, not sure I should look it up at work either :)

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Summation 2

flag en masse by nozzo · 2012-03-06 01:24 · Score: 5, Funny

A wizard wheeze would be to flag pictures of landscapes and kittens - let's give them something nice to view for a change instead of the facebook equivalent of rottencom?

Re:flag en masse by fuzzyfuzzyfungus · 2012-03-06 01:36 · Score: 4, Interesting

I haven't tested; but it wouldn't be a huge surprise to discover that, while the UI never changes, one's ability to 'flag' is silently adjusted in the background based on the past agreement between your 'flag' attempts and the facebook rater's assessments. That seems like the easiest way to quietly blow off the axe-grinding crazies of the world without either verifiably proving that you've 'banned them from flagging' or allowing them to DoS their pet victim's kitten pictures, or all vaguely homosexual content, or whatever their personal vendetta happens to be...
Re:flag en masse by __aaltlg1547 · 2012-03-06 01:44 · Score: 2

The unmentioned pain for reviewers is the realization that all of the people in the pictures have way more money than they have and are still obviously living empty, miserable lives.
Re:flag en masse by mikael_j · 2012-03-06 02:47 · Score: 4, Interesting

This is sometimes called "hellbanning", the user continues seeing content but his/her actions are ineffective (on some forums the user sees his/her own posts but others do not see them, thus giving the user the impression of being ignored by everyone).

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Greylisting is to SMTP as NAT is to IPv4
Re:flag en masse by Anne_Nonymous · 2012-03-06 04:21 · Score: 1

>> the user continues seeing content but his/her actions are ineffective
Otherwise known as IRL.

I know someone by Anonymous Coward · 2012-03-06 01:25 · Score: 1

Sounds like a job for Mike Rowe

facebook cheat sheet by Custard+Horse · 2012-03-06 01:25 · Score: 2

"foreplay allowed.... even for same sex (man-man/woman-woman)" - I'm glad they clarified that...

Re:facebook cheat sheet by fuzzyfuzzyfungus · 2012-03-06 01:33 · Score: 5, Interesting

I wonder if their moderators ever run into trouble with the local authorities because of the material they are accessing?

If your job is to review an endless stream of too-nasty-for-facebook stuff, and you live in a slightly puritanical jurisdiction, I imagine that you could relatively easily end up handling a fair amount of material that is theoretically illegal, if not necessarily well enforced(and, unlike the higher-ups at facebook HQ, who probably benefit from the 'obviously, we are just screening material in order to hand over anything wicked to the cops' presumption, it might not be easy for Joe Temp to prove that he is just doing his job)...
Re:facebook cheat sheet by camperdave · 2012-03-06 01:44 · Score: 3, Insightful

"foreplay allowed.... even for same sex (man-man/woman-woman)" - I'm glad they clarified that...
Same sex does not necessarily mean same species.

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When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
Re:facebook cheat sheet by Anrego · 2012-03-06 02:21 · Score: 4, Interesting

Conversely, I wonder if people specifically seek out this kind of job for an excuse to access this material. That whole no background check/criminal check thing worries me a little more than the privacy concerns.
Re:facebook cheat sheet by fuzzyfuzzyfungus · 2012-03-06 02:30 · Score: 4, Interesting

Even if they don't specifically seek it out, and you start with a normal subset of the population at hiring, I'd assume that attrition would leave you with an employee pool consisting of newbs who haven't burned out yet, people who really need the job, and people who are entirely too happy about what they do(and, if you are running hackedFBchix.cx on the side, the buck an hour is just a bonus)...
Re:facebook cheat sheet by Anonymous Coward · 2012-03-06 02:33 · Score: 5, Interesting

I used to work at a Moderation company in Australia processing similar pictures/text to this. This was an issue that came up regularly but which we couldn't get an answer from our legal team.
The general issues are:
-We had to view blatantly illegal material in the line of our job.
-The servers were often in the USA/Europe, so the company technically transported child porn across international borders. (unencrypted no less)
-Even after it's been marked as illegal, action taken, and maybe even sent to the authorities, the original copy is not deleted. It's marked as deleted but still stored in that big old database.
-Police forces around the world want you to keep a copy. If a user posts illegal material, the police want a copy of it. If the police request information about somebody after they bust a child porn ring, saying 'we wipe everything illegal - sorry!' just doesn't cut it.
If authorities combed through their picture database, they'd find tens of thousands of illegal to own that have been transported across borders. IANAL, but it does sound very tricky.
Re:facebook cheat sheet by ae1294 · 2012-03-06 05:43 · Score: 2

need the job, and people who are entirely too happy about what they do(and, if you are running hackedFBchix.cx on the side, the buck an hour is just a bonus)...
Just wanted to let everyone know that hackedFBchix.cx is available! Inconceivable!
Re:facebook cheat sheet by ColdWetDog · 2012-03-06 05:48 · Score: 1

Insightful?
Somebody didn't pass their Turing test today.

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Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
Re:facebook cheat sheet by KhabaLox · 2012-03-06 07:27 · Score: 1

If authorities combed through their picture database, they'd find tens of thousands of illegal to own that have been transported across borders. IANAL, but it does sound very tricky.
Surely Safe Harbor applies, no? As long as the host makes sufficient effort to prevent the dissemination of the content I'd think they'd be OK. Might want to get a letter from the DoJ of the respective jurisdictions though.

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Ceci n'est pas un sig.

Psychological support? by Nick+Fel · 2012-03-06 01:27 · Score: 4, Insightful

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? by Trepidity · 2012-03-06 01:46 · Score: 4, Insightful

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.

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10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
Re:Psychological support? by snowgirl · 2012-03-06 01:48 · Score: 1

Is Facebook avoiding this moral duty by farming it out abroad?
Is Facebook a corporation?

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WARNING! This girl exceeds the MAXIMUM SAFE standards established by the FDA for BRATTINESS
Re:Psychological support? by DigiShaman · 2012-03-06 02:03 · Score: 1

You assume they care? Pal, let me tell you something. Whey those fresh young executives are living the post graduate party life with booze and fast cars, what in the hell makes you think they give a damn!

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Life is not for the lazy.
Re:Psychological support? by Dyinobal · 2012-03-06 02:30 · Score: 1

Who would be stupid enough to upload nude photos of themselves to facebook?
Re:Psychological support? by JDG1980 · 2012-03-06 02:47 · Score: 2

All offshore outsourcing is about avoiding moral (and legal) duties to US employees.
Re:Psychological support? by Anonymous Coward · 2012-03-06 05:07 · Score: 2, Insightful

Who would be stupid enough to upload nude photos of themselves to facebook?
Maybe someone would upload photos of someone else...

What about the benefits package? by fuzzyfuzzyfungus · 2012-03-06 01:27 · Score: 2

Are the moderators at least provided with a health insurance package that will pay for the eyebleach?

A buck an hour ... by Barbara,+not+Barbie · 2012-03-06 01:28 · Score: 4, Insightful

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.

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Let's call it what it is, Anti-Social Media.

Re:A buck an hour ... by Hentes · 2012-03-06 01:50 · Score: 2

Welcome to the face of globalization, where the rush to the bottom has given us jobs that pay only 1/10 of a McJob.
I'm pretty sure that in Morocco McDonald's doesn't pay 10$/hour. Even here in eastern Europe they only pay about 2$/hour.
Re:A buck an hour ... by JoeMerchant · 2012-03-06 01:56 · Score: 3, Insightful

Sorry to weigh in with an insensitive elitist perspective, but this 1/10th of a McJob salary is injecting money into an economy that wouldn't have it otherwise. If you're a champion of economic equality, it's better for them to get some pay than none at all, especially when that money is coming from outside the country.
Pity about the type of work they're offering. I'd be in favor of requiring companies that export this kind of crap work to also export decent (more desirable to the local population) work to the same labor pool.
Re:A buck an hour ... by fuzzyfuzzyfungus · 2012-03-06 01:56 · Score: 2

Perversely, the best strategy might be to attempt to find ways to move globalization and outsourcing up the food chain as fast as possible...

Completely unshockingly, people in positions not experiencing strong downward pressure from globalization tend to be quite philosophical, even stoic, about the downsides and nearly rhapsodic about the upsides.

For that reason, the opponent of globalization might find no tactic more effective than identifying the intersection between 'people whose livelihoods are currently subject to substantial barriers to offshoring' and 'people who possess social and political influence' and then working to offshore the jobs held by that intersection population as rapidly and viciously as possible.

Going by this, I'd say that news of brutal law-mills where well-educated Indians earning $2/hour, and a few starving liberal-arts majors stateside earning 30k/year to show up in a suit for functions where physical presence is required, grinding out legal product would do more than any number of stories of the gutted formerly blue-collar class to freak congress out...
Re:A buck an hour ... by dkleinsc · 2012-03-06 01:58 · Score: 5, Insightful

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.

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Re:A buck an hour ... by icebraining · 2012-03-06 02:08 · Score: 2

Being against globalization (and/or automation) is like looking at a car with faulty brakes and fix it by removing the engine.
We have the potential of doing the necessary political and social reforms to ensure much higher worldwide prosperity, but globalization opponents prefer to condemn hundreds of millions to abject poverty because it's easier to just ban offshoring.

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Re:A buck an hour ... by Barbara,+not+Barbie · 2012-03-06 02:23 · Score: 2

You missed the point - any job that can be outsourced somewhere cheaper will be. So instead of paying someone $10 an hour in a first world country, they go where they can pay 1/10 that.

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Re:A buck an hour ... by Barbara,+not+Barbie · 2012-03-06 02:27 · Score: 1

We have anti-dumping laws for a reason. The same laws should be extended to off-shoring.

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Let's call it what it is, Anti-Social Media.
Re:A buck an hour ... by fuzzyfuzzyfungus · 2012-03-06 02:41 · Score: 3, Insightful

I suspect that part of the impetus behind anti-globalization sentiment is the (arguably quite realistic, based on present experience) belief that while "We have the potential of doing the necessary political and social reforms to ensure much higher worldwide prosperity", it'll be a cold day in hell before we actually exercise that potential, because it's easier and more profitable to just drive down the cost of 'human resources' and go jurisdiction shopping for favorable tax status and environmental non-regulation...

The 'gains from trade' argument certainly offers a strong foundation for the position that globalization can deliver greater overall wealth; but the domestic experience, at least, has been that the income distribution skews even faster than the pie grows. It's not a huge surprise that this leaves those holding a smaller slice looking back fondly on the days when they had a bigger slice of a smaller pie...
Re:A buck an hour ... by Mr.+Slippery · 2012-03-06 02:50 · Score: 3, Insightful

If you're a champion of economic equality, it's better for them to get some pay than none at all, especially when that money is coming from outside the country.
No, it is not always better to accept some pay rather than none. If you get laid off from a decent job, you don't take a minimum wage grind-down right away, you spend that time looking for another decent job, because the long-term results are better.
Developing nations would do better if they could develop their own industries, rather than being used as sources of cheap exploitable labor for foreign corporations.

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You cannot wash away blood with blood
Re:A buck an hour ... by Freddybear · 2012-03-06 03:02 · Score: 1

Yeah, it's much better if they exploit their own cheap exploitable labor instead of letting some rich bastard in another country do it.
Re:A buck an hour ... by Ihmhi · 2012-03-06 03:04 · Score: 2

I'm all for the globalization thing, but I think a country needs to take care of itself before it can take care of others. Part of that responsibility should extend to companies as well. Why should we even allow them to send out jobs to other countries when our unemployment is so high?
It's (practically) slavery all over again. Is it really much better to run someone for $1/hr. / 12 hours a day compared to having them as actual slaves? Sure it's a few steps up the ladder, but only enough to keep Amnesty International off your back for the moment. A lot of our country's businesses have a whole bunch of third world people making less in a day that an American would make in a hour.

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Re:A buck an hour ... by sydneyfong · 2012-03-06 03:05 · Score: 1

Your whole post assumes that the people in developing countries are making non-optimal decisions (i.e. they have the capability/skills to develop their own high end industries) because someone in a first world country is providing them low wage jobs.
Hint: Most of them are not that stupid to take $1/hour jobs if there are any better alternatives.

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Don't quote me on this.
Re:A buck an hour ... by icebraining · 2012-03-06 03:41 · Score: 1

Did you skip my post, or were you just unable to comprehend it?

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Re:A buck an hour ... by Ihmhi · 2012-03-06 03:44 · Score: 1

I would suggest you watch The Yes Men Fix the World. They have a special Internet edition that's very easy (and legal!) to find as a torrent. It largely talks about this particular subject and why it's not exactly good for our country as of late. Be warned, much like Food Inc. it can end up a little depressing at times... although the newspaper at the end was a wonderful moment not just in the movie but in human culture.

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Random Thoughts From A Diseased Mind (Not For Dummies)
Re:A buck an hour ... by icebraining · 2012-03-06 04:03 · Score: 1

it'll be a cold day in hell before we actually exercise that potential, because it's easier and more profitable to just drive down the cost of 'human resources' and go jurisdiction shopping for favorable tax status and environmental non-regulation...
It's not more profitable for "us", it's more profitable for a very small segment of the population. It's everyone else that needs to act.

The 'gains from trade' argument certainly offers a strong foundation for the position that globalization can deliver greater overall wealth; but the domestic experience, at least, has been that the income distribution skews even faster than the pie grows. It's not a huge surprise that this leaves those holding a smaller slice looking back fondly on the days when they had a bigger slice of a smaller pie...
No, it's not surprising, but it's essentially an algorithm stuck in a local maximum. The fact that the current slope is a bad path doesn't mean others won't lead to higher hills.

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Re:A buck an hour ... by Barbara,+not+Barbie · 2012-03-06 04:13 · Score: 1

No, I didn't skip your post, and I was quite able to understand it. I just disagree with it. Neither globalization nor political and social reforms will take into account the cost of externalities, which is why we need to re-instate trade and tariff barriers.
Companies that want to avoid the trade and tariff barriers would incur the same total costs - if they want to avoid the barriers, they can pay an equivalent wage (wages+benefits+other external costs) in the offshore country. THAT would do more to improve worker conditions in the rest of the world than any amount of hollowing out our own economies will do.

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Let's call it what it is, Anti-Social Media.
Re:A buck an hour ... by icebraining · 2012-03-06 04:28 · Score: 1

helping someone is good and moral.
helping someone at the expense of another is neither good nor moral.
Helping someone is always at the expense of someone else that could benefit from those resources. The only thing you can do is prioritize your goals.

a company offshoring jobs and damaging the economy of a whole country (and possibly the world) just to get short-term profit is, in my opinion, acting in an immoral way.
That's irrelevant, for two reasons. Firstly, morality is irrelevant unless you're looking as a CEO, shareholder or consumer; if your goal is to fix an economy, you need to look at it as an economist and lawmaker.
Secondly, you don't fix an economy by looking at each company individually - it's like trying to decide whether eating 4000 calories/day is adequate without knowing if the person is a couch slob or Micheal Phelps.
Offshoring is fine as long as you compensate for it in other ways.

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Re:A buck an hour ... by icebraining · 2012-03-06 04:53 · Score: 1

If it cost the same, why would companies offshore? Instead of a slow but steady improvement of third world salaries, you'd be left with widespread poverty.

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Re:A buck an hour ... by kilfarsnar · 2012-03-06 05:18 · Score: 1

Sorry to break it to you, but globalization has nothing to do with lifting people out of poverty.

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"What the American public doesn't know is what makes them the American public." -Ray Zalinsky (Tommy Boy)
Re:A buck an hour ... by Jmc23 · 2012-03-06 07:29 · Score: 1

What's wrong with this? First, it's not 1/10 of US minimum wage. Second, do you even know what minimum wage is in Mexico? This is a dream job for most people in Mexico since all you need is an internet connection. Minimum wage in mexico is less than $40 a week for working 6 days a week 10-12 hours a day. You do the math.
Like most complainers, you're probably just complaining to hear yourself whine, after all are you truly upset that this job isn't available to you for $10/hour? No, like most first world citizens you wouldn't touch a job like this with a ten foot pole, and like most other undesirable jobs the only ones who take them are teens.
It's all relative. Which is what's good about globalization. Besides, mexicans aren't as squeamish as US'ians, considering the fact that newspapers regularly publish pictures of dead people with their heads blown off.

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Re:A buck an hour ... by Jmc23 · 2012-03-06 07:35 · Score: 4, Interesting

And what's wrong with that? Seriously. They're people just the same as people in first world countries. If they can do the job and make a decent living relative to thier economy what's wrong with that? Perhaps the real problem is the unsustainability of the first world lifestyle that requires you to make tons of money to buy all your unnecessary luxuries created buy raping other countries of their resources.
Let's face it, what is really happening is that US'ians are really starting to learn that they aren't WORTH 10 times the amount as citizens from other countries. Regardless of how much money you want for your unsustainable lifestyles you really aren't worth it.

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Don't complain about syntax, grammar, or spelling. There is no.hell like input on android.
Re:A buck an hour ... by icebraining · 2012-03-06 07:41 · Score: 1

OK, so why are the Chinese salaries growing year after year? Due to their almost non-existent internal demand?
http://web.mit.edu/krugman/www/smokey.html

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Re:A buck an hour ... by sandytaru · 2012-03-06 08:00 · Score: 1

You're right, a great many jobs done in the US are not worth $10 an hour. Unfortunately, the majority of the ones that fall into that description are the jobs that are getting paid ten times that much already.

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Occasionally living proof of the Ballmer peak.
Re:A buck an hour ... by shutdown+-p+now · 2012-03-06 09:41 · Score: 2

Those "third-world people" are grateful for the income, and I'm grateful for the prices this practice makes possible. It's a win-win.
You'll be grateful right until the point where your own job is the one that's outsourced. Then you'll suddenly find that the prices this practice makes possible are not all that affordable when you're working for the same wage as the guy your job was outsourced to. End result, you both end up earning less. Guess who pockets the difference?
Re:A buck an hour ... by JoeMerchant · 2012-03-06 09:42 · Score: 1

It's (practically) slavery all over again. Is it really much better to run someone for $1/hr. / 12 hours a day compared to having them as actual slaves?
Ummm, yes, the $1/hr is optional, you only take it if it's better than your other alternatives. Slaves are not allowed to pursue other alternatives.
Re:A buck an hour ... by Ihmhi · 2012-03-06 09:46 · Score: 2

Those "third-world people" are grateful for the income, and I'm grateful for the prices this practice makes possible. It's a win-win.
I believe similar arguments were used by slave holders who were certain that their African slaves were surely glad to be out of the "savage lands" and living on good ol' America soil.

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Random Thoughts From A Diseased Mind (Not For Dummies)
Re:A buck an hour ... by shutdown+-p+now · 2012-03-06 09:50 · Score: 1

We have the potential of doing the necessary political and social reforms to ensure much higher worldwide prosperity
Who is "we", and how exactly do you propose it be done?
Re:A buck an hour ... by shutdown+-p+now · 2012-03-06 09:54 · Score: 1

You know what's the difference between outsourcing and H1Bs?
H1Bs work in the country, and are paid according to local market value. Even when they're underpaid, they're still paid much, much more than if they were working from China/India.
For that matter, historically, US didn't have work visas (or most other kinds) for most of its history. It just wasn't a problem. If someone wants to come to the country to work and live, why not? They'll be purchasing goods for local prices, so they'll be demanding wages that would actually cover that; and they will pay taxes from what they earn.
Free trade, on the other hand, is a recent invention. Tariffs were the way to go for most countries until mid-20th century.
Re:A buck an hour ... by icebraining · 2012-03-06 10:10 · Score: 1

We, the population of developed countries. And I don't exactly have a plan, but a good first step would be to not let Mr. Norquist win.

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Re:A buck an hour ... by Barbara,+not+Barbie · 2012-03-06 10:16 · Score: 1

They would offshore for the same reason given for H1-B visas - no local talent available.

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Re:A buck an hour ... by shutdown+-p+now · 2012-03-06 10:16 · Score: 1

The population of developed countries is not enough to pull such a thing off. It needs to involve the population of developing countries, too. Otherwise, all you'll achieve is their governments being mighty glad that you subsidize them from your own pocket.
Re:A buck an hour ... by Barbara,+not+Barbie · 2012-03-06 10:22 · Score: 1

Lower wages in one portion of a field tend to depress wages further up the line. In other words, if wages for entry-level jobs drop by 90%, then that puts pressure on the next tier in 4 ways:
1. Local talent no longer has access to those entry-level jobs, so no job path to the next level jobs
2. Local talent no longer has access to those entry-level jobs, so no experience - "to get a job you need experience, to get experience you need a job";
3. Jobs one or more levels higher now also experience downward wage pressures.
4. It makes it even easier to lay off someone as they age, since there's a larger pool of cheap talent globally.
So the natural tendency is for wage erosion to creep higher up as time goes by - to the point that we're now seeing employers trying to hire programmers in North America for $300 a week - and people desperate enough to apply for those jobs.

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Let's call it what it is, Anti-Social Media.
Re:A buck an hour ... by Rakarra · 2012-03-06 10:33 · Score: 1

Yeah, it's much better if they exploit their own cheap exploitable labor instead of letting some rich bastard in another country do it.
You are, in fact, exactly right. It benefits both countries, as develops its own industries to raise their own standard (slowly), and from the first-world perspective outsourcing acts as a money drain, sending jobs out of the country and leaving few here (the whole "oh, but this opens the path for other, newer jobs those people could take" thing is mentioned a lot in pro-outsourcing speeches but never seems to materialize). The only person it doesn't benefit is that rich bastard in the 1st world.
Re:A buck an hour ... by Rakarra · 2012-03-06 10:42 · Score: 1

Offshoring is fine as long as you compensate for it in other ways.
It's interesting how we're very very quick to offshore, but we rarely seem to get around to the compensation part.
Re:A buck an hour ... by icebraining · 2012-03-06 10:52 · Score: 1

Without the money to improve infrastructures and education that offshoring for cheap manufacturing work brought to those developing countries, that would make much less sense financially for a company.

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Re:A buck an hour ... by icebraining · 2012-03-06 11:33 · Score: 1

Which is exactly what we need to change.

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Re:A buck an hour ... by Freddybear · 2012-03-06 12:37 · Score: 1

Well for the path-opening to happen there has to be an economic environment favorable to starting new businesses. Low barriers to entry (regulation), low taxes, etcetera. Exactly the kind of environment that we don't have in the USA.
Re:A buck an hour ... by Barbara,+not+Barbie · 2012-03-06 12:45 · Score: 1

It's not the companies that paid for the infrastructure and schooling, so your point is ... pointless?
India had schools long before the Internet enabled companies to offshore so much more stuff.

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Re:A buck an hour ... by Jmc23 · 2012-03-06 13:41 · Score: 1

Again, what's wrong with that? There's very few jobs where people actually get underpaid. Unfortunately, those underpaid jobs are usually for craftsmans and artisans. Most jobs require no education and just a bit of training for the same repetitive task day in day out.
Let's face it, the largest portion of the population isn't worth their pay and only receive more than they're worth because of minimum wage laws.

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Don't complain about syntax, grammar, or spelling. There is no.hell like input on android.
Re:A buck an hour ... by Barbara,+not+Barbie · 2012-03-06 15:29 · Score: 1

I'm sure that somewhere there's someone who is looking at you and thinking the same thing - you're overpaid.
Decreasing the total amount of $$$ that the population takes home is a lose-lose game.
How do you justify you getting even the minimum wage? Or (to quote Isaac Asimov), "How do you justify your existence?"

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Let's call it what it is, Anti-Social Media.
Re:A buck an hour ... by Jmc23 · 2012-03-06 16:20 · Score: 1

It's kind of hard for me to be overpaid when i don't get paid anything :) I used to have an overpaid job but unlike most people I tend to take action based on my beliefs and couldn't justify staying in such a job.
Then again, I'm not like most people. Most people need lots of money because they don't know how to do anything else besides the job that they get paid to do. It's very expensive to live that way. I can grow and cook my own food in a healthy manner. I can make my own clothes, my own furniture, my own appliances, my own house, my own cookware, utensils, and diningware, my own house, hell I can even make my own music and musical instruments.
I believe when you can take care of your own existence in a sustainable manner then you can truly contribute to your society.
This comic belief of independence that most first world citizens have is detrimental to the world at large. Less money in these first world countries would be a win-win for the whole world as it would put a stop to an unsustainable lifestyle that rapes the rest of the worlds resources to provide luxury for a select few who really don't deserve it.

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Don't complain about syntax, grammar, or spelling. There is no.hell like input on android.
Re:A buck an hour ... by dodobh · 2012-03-06 18:55 · Score: 1

Developing countries: Capital is expensive. Labous is cheap.
Developed countries: Labur is expensive. Capital is cheap.
The best way to trade would be to swap labour and capital, however immiration controls make it hard to move labour around.

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I can throw myself at the ground, and miss.
Re:A buck an hour ... by Barbara,+not+Barbie · 2012-03-07 01:25 · Score: 1

It's kind of hard for me to be overpaid when i don't get paid anything. I used to have an overpaid job but unlike most people I tend to take action based on my beliefs and couldn't justify staying in such a job.

So, you've risen to your level of incompetence (Peter Principle) and are happy that you're now being paid exactly what you're worth. Nothing.
And when you get sick and die because after all, you can do it all yourself (you can just borrow the "Open Heart Surgery for Dummies" from the library), the problem will have solved itself.
I'll stick with such "luxuries" as modern medicine.
BTW - did you make your own cpu, your own ram, and your own hard disk? Thought not.

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Let's call it what it is, Anti-Social Media.
Re:A buck an hour ... by Jmc23 · 2012-03-07 04:43 · Score: 1

Actually, I was sick and dying under the care of 'modern' medicine. I'm now healthier than I ever was in my whole life. The only sick people I know are those that believe the doctor when he says 'you'll never get better, here's a pill.' Any highly intelligent person realizes that a large portion of the 'facts' that science believes are patently false. It is, after all, how science progresses, by disproving previous theories.
If you haven't realized it, or read any of the studies, heart diseases goes hand in hand with the western diet of 'food'. Prevention is the best medicine, why isn't that bandied about more often? Oh, right, because you can't sell pills to truly healthy people.
You seem bitter about something. How could you say i've risen to my level of incompetence when I've actually risen to my level of competence? I get paid exactly what I'm worth, a healthy lifestyle, healthy food free of poisons cooked at, mostly, gourmet levels that most can't afford, artisan quality goods that most people can't afford, an open unstressed work schedule, plenty of free time to explore anything my heart desires and freedom to travel whenever and wherever i want.
In a way, I did build my own computer. I refined the way I thought, able to solve quadratics and cubes in my head, developed photographic memory, and unfortunately a very bad OO filesystem that lacked source attributions, but hey, we can't all be perfect :) I don't need a computer, I never even used a calculator until I was forced to in university, but it is a convenient tool for interacting with others at a distance and knowledge acquisition. A smart person never turns down a useful tool and it is one of the things that I think everybody in the world should have access to. The sharing of information is vitally important to our future and to the development of a sustainable lifestyle for EVERYBODY on the planet, especially since different cultures have each perfected one or two sustainable techniques.

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Don't complain about syntax, grammar, or spelling. There is no.hell like input on android.

Human filters have it bad all over by Brychanus · 2012-03-06 01:30 · Score: 5, Informative

I had a grad school friend with a similar job at Photobucket in Denver. They had similar no-nudity policies to Facebook but were slightly more permissive about violence. Said roommate was pretty sick of it after 3 months of having to click REJECT for images of breastfeeding and ACCEPT on videos of curb-stomping. On the bright side, when she joined the military she was one of the only recruits not to bat an eyelash when they showed them "this is your brain on IEDs" imagery.

Re:Human filters have it bad all over by SleazyRidr · 2012-03-06 04:32 · Score: 1

How do you get a job like that anyway? I kinda want to try it after seeing it come up in the news so many times. I realise that I'll be scarred after maybe a week, but it's something that I'd like to say I've done.

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Re:Human filters have it bad all over by ColdWetDog · 2012-03-06 05:57 · Score: 2

How do you get a job like that anyway? I kinda want to try it after seeing it come up in the news so many times. I realise that I'll be scarred after maybe a week, but it's something that I'd like to say I've done.
Hang out on /b/ for a week. After a while, the subliminals will start to make sense. You will know who to call.

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Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
Re:Human filters have it bad all over by identity0 · 2012-03-06 07:42 · Score: 2

Perhaps we could get criminals to look over the images - we could strap them down in chairs and keep their eyes open with prongs, while playing Beethoven.
I call it.... the LudoPhotobucket technique.
Re:Human filters have it bad all over by shutdown+-p+now · 2012-03-06 09:55 · Score: 2

Speaking of which, it sounds like they could get the job done for free by just making the live stream into an appropriately named image board with up/down mods and tags, and watching for the tags...

Where is the link to flag ... by wisnoskij · 2012-03-06 01:31 · Score: 1

A post/image as inappropriate?
A few days ago I wanted to do this to some bestiality that someone has posted and the only thing I could find was "mark as spam".

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Troll is not a replacement for I disagree.

Re:Where is the link to flag ... by fuzzyfuzzyfungus · 2012-03-06 01:42 · Score: 4, Funny

I do hope that you didn't end up accusing a poor bestiality enthusiast of being a spammer...

Bestiality may be distasteful, controversial, and potentially unethical; but spamming is just plain evil.

So.... by RobinEggs · 2012-03-06 01:35 · Score: 1

Evil company is evil.

And as usual the people who most need to know won't find out, and the people who already hate Facebook or unabashedly love all news technological will be worrying/whining about it for a week or two.

Slow news day?

Drug war by Anonymous Coward · 2012-03-06 01:36 · Score: 5, Funny

drugs (apart from marijuana) ... are all banned

Personally I think that aspirin should be allowed too, but I guess I'm a bit of a radical.

Re:Drug war by Anrego · 2012-03-06 02:08 · Score: 1

I was actually somewhat surprised at the casual wording in this document.
I guess it's a cheat sheet, but still..
Re:Drug war by Ihmhi · 2012-03-06 03:55 · Score: 1

You start letting the rules slip like that, and before we all know it kids will be consuming Dihydrogen Monoxide. Loads of people have ended up dying due to lack of oxygen and an excessive quantity of DM was a direct cause.

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Random Thoughts From A Diseased Mind (Not For Dummies)

If you're posting porn online.. by js3 · 2012-03-06 01:41 · Score: 2, Insightful

then you don't deserve any privacy to begin with.

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did you forget to take your meds?

Re:If you're posting porn online.. by pla · 2012-03-06 02:08 · Score: 2

If you're posting porn online.. then you don't deserve any privacy to begin with.

Pssst - You can make porn of people other than yourself.

They even have a word for the people who do that on a regular basis - "photographers".

So, in other words... by Jawnn · 2012-03-06 01:41 · Score: 1

This just in! Facebook Thinks of Children. Hires third-world help of undetermined trustworthiness to comb through all your Facebook stuff while looking for kiddie porn.
Wow. I'll sleep better now. You bet.

Too true by Xtense · 2012-03-06 01:42 · Score: 5, Informative

I work for a company that is outsourced by one of the bigger news sites here in Poland and, although I only moderate comments on news items, i can fully confirm that this is one of the worst jobs you can have. Sure, we work shifts, so we have some limited control over whether we have to get up early in the morning or work nights (four this month for me), but the pay is ridiculous (about 330$ a month - lowest legally allowed pay grade in Poland) and the amount of work is sometimes staggering. But that isn't really the problem.

The problem is the kind of shit you have to sift through. I mean, sure, I'm used to dickheads on the 'net, but this is the biggest, saddest collection of misanthropes I've ever seen - not even 4chan comes close (i used to be a regular lurker, stopped some time around the Habbo raids). This being people of my nationality adds further injury and shame. But dickheads being dickheads, there isn't really a lot to tell - we all know or met them at some point. But then there are the special ones. Let's evaluate the most popular personalities:

1. The hyper-national. Everything Polish is good, everything not-Polish is bad. Uses terms like "True Pole", throws a shit-fit every time someone calls him on his no-true-scotsman nature. Accuses everyone of being either a traitor (favourite target: emmigrants) or an SB Agent.
2. The religious fanatic. Every news item is his private piece for preaching and he enjoys lambasting people for "not keeping the faith". His favourite are scientific, astronomic and health-related items.
3. The armchair politic. Knows everything there is to know about the complex social and geopolitical problems the world faces and offers simple, one-point solutions to every one of them. Rages uncontrollably when someone offers a counter-argument, not to mention when he is proven wrong.
4. The racist/antisemite. Every negative event in the world is caused by Jews and they're all secretly plotting to make us their cattle to be used and abused as they see fit. Frequently cites the faked Protocols of the Elders of Zion, uses crappy YouTube movies with no sources, or indeed any truth in them, to "prove" his point. Everyone disagreeing with him is either a Jew or their pawn.

These are just the most basic sampling of commenters, but when thrown all together, we get a critical mass, which I then have to clean up. Every news item becomes a political battlefield between the commenters, even purely scientifical ones. And they resort to such underhanded tactics in insulting one another that sometimes you just sit there, looking at a post and wonder what kind of a person could come up with this.

After working here half a year, I'm beginning to have a hard time telling sarcasm apart, and my cynicism shot way up. It's not apocalyptic to my sanity yet, but I already feel the influence. God help me if I ever will be transfered to monitor user-uploaded material (photos).

--
"We are the music makers, and we are the dreamers of dreams [...]."

Re:Too true by snowgirl · 2012-03-06 01:52 · Score: 2

Interesting... I never thought about how emigrants could be viewed as the problem rather than immigrants (I live in the US, everything here is the immigrants faults :( ), but the idea of "you abandoned us!" Makes total sense.

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WARNING! This girl exceeds the MAXIMUM SAFE standards established by the FDA for BRATTINESS
Re:Too true by snowgirl · 2012-03-06 02:12 · Score: 2

Might just be a typo in the grand parent's post.
That was my first thought, but he talked specifically about "traitors", which would certainly apply to emigrants, and not immigrants.

... Accuses everyone of being either a traitor (favourite target: emmigrants) ...

--
WARNING! This girl exceeds the MAXIMUM SAFE standards established by the FDA for BRATTINESS
Re:Too true by Xtense · 2012-03-06 02:12 · Score: 5, Interesting

It's part of a lingering sentiment in Poland in the last 10 years, ever since we joined the EU. To explain it properly I'll need to focus a bit on how a typical young adult perceives our country.
You see, in the last 30 years we've barely kicked out communism from our doors through the SolidarnoÅÄ (Solidarity) movement. But the leaders of the Party weren't permanently barred from politics in Poland, leading to some discontent. They managed to go back to leadership through democratic vote and have been blamed for "destroying Poland" ever since. While it's true things are very hard here for the average Pole, but most of it can be traced to both tough economic transformation and high rates of corruption. This, in turn, caused a very cynical outlook in people growing up in the transformatory period, with financial success looked upon with suspicion and distrust. Because of these hardships, emigration is often seen as a "rescue" from this and most of our educated have already decided to leave our country. Most of our best healthcare personnel left the country to seek better wages, causing our hospitals to be terribly understaffed and underpayed. This is where the "traitor" thing comes in - people accuse emigrants of "leaving us to our fate", further cementing our economic and political hardships, "diluting our blood" if you will.
I don't agree with this sentiment, but I can see the reasoning standing behind it. What is most often forgotten by those representing this view, however, is that many of those emigrants send money back to Poland to their families, thus allowing them to buy more, in turn strengthening our economy, but such things are unfortunately unaccountable, so there are no ways of determining how much of an impact this has.

--
"We are the music makers, and we are the dreamers of dreams [...]."
Re:Too true by T.E.D. · 2012-03-06 02:27 · Score: 1

I'm guessing the OP really meant "immigrants". Either way, this post exhibits better English than 99.9% of native English speakers are capable of. I'm not exagerating in the slightest. Color me impressed.
Incidentally, I think they have hit on the reason why Americans, famous for being "sarcasm imparied", are that way. We just have way more nutjobs over here. So when someone says something completely assenine, sarcasm isn't nearly as safe a bet as it might be in other places.
Re:Too true by Xtense · 2012-03-06 02:33 · Score: 2

Sorry, I really meant "emigrants" - that double m sort of snuck through ;) . My sibling post earlier describes the sociological problem that stands behind it.
Also, "scientifical". Gah. That's what you get for not reviewing what you wrote.

--
"We are the music makers, and we are the dreamers of dreams [...]."
Re:Too true by HopefulIntern · 2012-03-06 02:35 · Score: 2

Here in Europe, the Polish are often seen as synonymous for cheap labour (they are the Mexicans of Europe, if that makes sense). I could see how some patriotic Mexicans might disagree with their fellow countrymen jumping the border to work in the US.
Re:Too true by tibit · 2012-03-06 03:05 · Score: 1

The people who accuse emigrants of treason just rub me in all the wrong ways possible. Their worldview implies that you're supposed to be imprisoned in a country simply because that's where you were born and schooled. If a country can't figure out how to retain or even re-immigrate the bright/successful emigrants, it's not the emigrants' fault, sorry. Most of Eastern Europe had essentially closed borders for quite a while, and people had to literally escape to the West. Those treason-accusers believe that's the way to keep things, I guess. To hell with them.

--
A successful API design takes a mixture of software design and pedagogy.
Re:Too true by KingAlanI · 2012-03-06 03:11 · Score: 1

that seems to be the problem with a lot of countries in bad shape - the best and brightest are willing and able to get the hell out. Hard to blame them, but it leaves the country even more of a mess.

--
I listen to both RIAA and non-RIAA stuff if I like the music, tangential business/politics nonwithstanding.
Re:Too true by snowgirl · 2012-03-06 03:36 · Score: 1

Um... I don't think that immigrants are at fault for really anything in the USA.
I actually believe in open borders between Mexico, USA, and Canada, much like Europe currently has.
But much like the Polish poster above, I'm quoting the hardline opinion... in American stereotypically immigrants are the problem, while apparently in Poland, it's the emigrants.
So, take your self-righteous condemnation of this stereotype and apply it to people for whom it actually applies, rather than people using it educationally in a discussion about stereotypes, where its application was completely justified and called for.

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WARNING! This girl exceeds the MAXIMUM SAFE standards established by the FDA for BRATTINESS
Re:Too true by dabadab · 2012-03-06 04:30 · Score: 1

I am not really sure if it makes you feel any better but we have the same idiots here in Hungary (though the religious wackos are uncommon).
Polak, Wegier, dwa bratanki ;-)

--
Real life is overrated.
Re:Too true by Xtense · 2012-03-06 04:41 · Score: 1

EgyÃ¼tt harcol, s issza borÃt :D
Cheers mate :) .

--
"We are the music makers, and we are the dreamers of dreams [...]."
Re:Too true by Xtense · 2012-03-06 06:52 · Score: 1

Thank you! It was entirely self-taught through a combination of old school text adventure games and Cartoon Network, so it's still rough around the edges (not to mention frequent mixing up of British and American vatiants), but I try my best. It's nice to hear from fellow Poles from around the world :) . Cheers!

--
"We are the music makers, and we are the dreamers of dreams [...]."
Re:Too true by shutdown+-p+now · 2012-03-06 10:00 · Score: 1

It seems to be a common sentiment in Eastern Europe, and possibly everywhere there's a noticeable brain (and, generally, skilled labor) drain. Emigrants are often viewed with the same kind of derision in Russia, particularly from the nationalist and statist - commies etc - camps.
In any case, I don't see why any person should owe anything to his country of birth just by virtue of being born there. It was exactly that reason that was used by USSR to restrict immigration of Jews to Israel. So when your fellow countrymen persist in labeling emigrees as "traitors", feel free to tell them that they are, essentially, doing what communists did - I'd imagine that would make for a good soundbite in Poland.
Re:Too true by shutdown+-p+now · 2012-03-06 10:03 · Score: 1

How about the robbing the Native Americans of their homeland, destroying their culture, and slaughtering them because they resisted the treatment?
And all that was done by a bunch of immigrants from UK. See?
Re:Too true by shutdown+-p+now · 2012-03-06 10:08 · Score: 1

Ditto for Russia.
In our case it's a little bit more complicated, as category #1 is further split into two more - on one hand, we have the guys who want "The Empire" back - generally speaking; they don't care much if it's USSR, Russian Empire or whatnot, so long as it's huge and mighty and everyone else is afraid of it - and don't care about nationalism. On the other hand we have those who focus on ethnic nationalism, "blood and soil" style. But, aside from a couple keywords and differing preferences - whether they prefer to jack off to Stalin or to Vlasov, for example - the rhetoric is essentially the same.
Well, and our religious wackos are Orthodox, rather than Catholic. I don't know if that makes any big difference, though.
Re:Too true by Xtense · 2012-03-06 10:32 · Score: 2

It doesn't work that way in Poland, unfortunately. That's par for the course in a high corruption country. The first problem is that nepotism is the standard and basic method of hiring - nothing can be done about that, since this is still old-system thinking. A whole generation needs to pass through for this to change.
The other problem is that businesses often don't know what level of expertise they really need from their workers, leading to a totally absurd situation, where you employ Masters to do work suited for BAs (or less). This, of course, means, that everyone who has his head in order is trying desperately to pass Masters, which effectively makes education worthless as a skill measure. Everywhere you turn in Poland, it is expected of you to have at least 3 years experience in your chosen field. This literally murders the field for, for example, architects, who due to how our law is formed, can't work on privately funded projects without the City Planner's approval. Best case scenario, he only accepts submissions from experienced architects. Worst case - he needs to be bribed first.
The third (but not final - there's many more, just can't get my head around them right now) problem is that you need to show your papers certifying your skills. That's a known thing, certificates are useful and so forth, but employers here rely solely on written proof that you really know what you're doing. That kills any prospect of using self-taught skills at work, since there is usually no way of demonstrating them when coming for a job interview.
Myself, I was studying English just to get the damn paper - i didn't really learn anything new in my BA, but on my last term (one fucking month before i was set to defend my thesis) i had a minor brain haemorrhage and had to be hospitalized for longer than a max-term sick leave would allow, which due to how the Uni's policies were formed, meant I was effectively thrown out. The workforce situation being what it is in Poland, i spent 2 years NEETing my head off, sending CVs everywhere i could, until finally, in November last year the company I'm working for right now called me - eight months after I sent them my CV. So yeah, i'm basically long past the point of being bitter, and I know there are skilled, talented people doing even worse than me.

--
"We are the music makers, and we are the dreamers of dreams [...]."
Re:Too true by nhtshot · 2012-03-07 20:18 · Score: 1

Most Americans don't even know the difference between immigrant and emigrant. I fall into the latter category, but have stopped using that word. It doesn't help that they sound almost identical.
I prefer expat now.
Re:Too true by snowgirl · 2012-03-08 11:14 · Score: 1

Indeed.

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WARNING! This girl exceeds the MAXIMUM SAFE standards established by the FDA for BRATTINESS

4Chan *shiver by jjp9999 · 2012-03-06 01:49 · Score: 1

This is exactly why I stopped visiting 4Chan. That site creeps me out. I'm sure the people who check flagged content on /b/ are escaped mental patients.

Re:4Chan *shiver by beowulfcluster · 2012-03-06 02:25 · Score: 4, Insightful

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.
Re:4Chan *shiver by Ihmhi · 2012-03-06 04:00 · Score: 1

It's a community effort - practically an "open source" approach to modding - and it makes it very difficult to abuse or game the system. Much more difficult than your average blog, news site, etc. I'm sure.

--
Random Thoughts From A Diseased Mind (Not For Dummies)

So... Is all that illicit content... by billybob_jcv · 2012-03-06 01:51 · Score: 1

...routed to break.com? That would explain a lot...

I work at Facebook by Anonymous Coward · 2012-03-06 01:58 · Score: 3, Interesting

It's surprising the number of devs you hear joking about seeing "JB"... A bunch of 20-something guys with unlimited access to much of the worlds "private" pictures, isn't always a great idea...

Ear wax? by pla · 2012-03-06 02:06 · Score: 2

"Urine, feces, vomit, semen, pus, and ear wax "

Seriously? Lot of ear-wax fetishists out there, to the point they need a rule banning its depiction?

"Crushed heads, limbs, etc are ok as long as no insides are showing"

Because, y'know, a completely flattened dead cat ("Deep flesh wounds are ok to show") couldn't possibly offend anyone, while showing a packet of chicken livers at the grocery store borders on mass-murderer territory?

"Maps of Kurdistan (Turkey)"

Just - What? And this counts as an "escalated" offense? Hell, the entire "IP Blocks" section pretty much reads like the antithesis of Facebook's sole positive contribution to society - Its ability to help organize people against their governments.

I think I need to go make a facebook page full of flattened dead cats - All named Ataturk, whatever the hell that means.

Re:Ear wax? by drinkypoo · 2012-03-06 02:42 · Score: 1

"Crushed heads, limbs, etc are ok as long as no insides are showing"
Because, y'know, a completely flattened dead cat ("Deep flesh wounds are ok to show") couldn't possibly offend anyone, while showing a packet of chicken livers at the grocery store borders on mass-murderer territory?
Known as the "cartoon rule" or perhaps "looney tunes rule" if you like. any amount of folding, spindling, or mutilation is acceptable so long as there is never any gore.

--
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Re:Ear wax? by tibit · 2012-03-06 03:08 · Score: 1

Ataturk is the father of modern Turkey. He pulled off feats such as transitioning the whole country from arabic to roman alphabets, in a couple of months IIRC.

--
A successful API design takes a mixture of software design and pedagogy.
Re:Ear wax? by Ihmhi · 2012-03-06 04:08 · Score: 1

"Maps of Kurdistan (Turkey)"
Just - What? And this counts as an "escalated" offense? Hell, the entire "IP Blocks" section pretty much reads like the antithesis of Facebook's sole positive contribution to society - Its ability to help organize people against their governments.
My guess is they're caving to the countries who are trying to keep the Kurdish people from getting their own land. Check out this picture from Wikipedia. If the Kurds could cherry pick land, the highlighted area is probably what Kurdistan would look like. My guess is Turkey has some kind of requirement that maps of Kurdistan are to be banned because they want to stop any Kurdish independence movement dead cold.
You can read more about it here, but the whole Kurdistan/Turkey thing is basically the whole Tibet/China thing. "Stop oppressing our culture" / "No you're a part of our country whether you like it or not" etc.

--
Random Thoughts From A Diseased Mind (Not For Dummies)
Re:Ear wax? by Ihmhi · 2012-03-06 04:47 · Score: 1

Alright, I read up on it further. See how it says "International Compliance" under that section? Note, for instance, Holocaust Denial (which is illegal in Germany and Israel). These are essential things that Facebook (and other services) need to watch out for in order to stay compliant in those particular states. The whole Turkey/Ataturk thing (Ataturk was the founder of the modern Turkish nation) is because of Turkey's cultural and political oppression of the Kurds.

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Random Thoughts From A Diseased Mind (Not For Dummies)

Re:Not to worry by elrous0 · 2012-03-06 02:07 · Score: 1

With Slashdot's new "Flag comment as inappropriate" feature

That would leave about 10% of the comments left on any given thread. And even those will only still be there because the moderator is too fucking stupid to appreciate irony.

--
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.

yes, the pay sucks! by cashman73 · 2012-03-06 02:18 · Score: 2

I see I have several mod points here on Slashdot today! And I don't even get $1/hour! Can I get a pay raise? I refuse to moderate this story thread until I do!

As I explained the "inter" nets to my mother by Rogerborg · 2012-03-06 02:20 · Score: 4, Informative

Once what you wrote or sent floats over to that little magic box and goes down the copper wire, you might as well be carving it on the surface of the moon in ten mile high letters of fire. Assume that everybody in the world can see it, immediately and forever after.

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If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.

$1 an hour by DrSkwid · 2012-03-06 02:21 · Score: 4, Insightful

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

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There are places where the networks are not touching,and there are places where they are-Boeing's Lori Gunter

Re:$1 an hour by Inda · 2012-03-06 04:02 · Score: 1

I used to moderate on Direct Connect and various forums for free. Where's the issue?

The ban-hammer was my tool. Filenames were my metadata. Nasty comments were just that, nasty.

It didn't change me.

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This post contains benzene, nitrosamines, formaldehyde and hydrogen cyanide.

Worst job except this one... by mwvdlee · 2012-03-06 02:28 · Score: 4, Insightful

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.

--
Slashdot social media options: AIM, ICQ, Yahoo, Jabber and Mobile Text. Why no MySpace?

Re:Worst job except this one... by IQgryn · 2012-03-06 13:16 · Score: 2

I bet they get paid more, though.

Re:Sexism by mwvdlee · 2012-03-06 02:31 · Score: 1

Can you imagine a group of low-payed men sitting behind a monitor trying to figure out whether a picture of a nipple bulge is male or female?

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Slashdot social media options: AIM, ICQ, Yahoo, Jabber and Mobile Text. Why no MySpace?

Re:no one likes to see a human cut into pieces dai by mwvdlee · 2012-03-06 02:41 · Score: 1

BRING IT ON FAGETS

Why would you want it brought on top of fagets? Is that your "thing"?

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Slashdot social media options: AIM, ICQ, Yahoo, Jabber and Mobile Text. Why no MySpace?

Re:Sexism by drinkypoo · 2012-03-06 02:44 · Score: 1

There's gotta be some way to genocide all the Puritans ...

I've tried every legal character so far, and I just keep getting the rock piercers and such.

--
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"

Help these poor people by gnasher719 · 2012-03-06 03:08 · Score: 5, Funny

Next time you go on Facebook, find some nice photos of flowers, landscapes, birds and butterflies, and flag them as "unsuitable". Give these people something nice to look at for a change.

Re:He obviously doesn' know what a nipple looks li by MickyTheIdiot · 2012-03-06 03:10 · Score: 1

They regularly harass cosplayers that post sexy but otherwise non-offensive photos.

Correction... it turns offensive when you're female and the girl looks better in tights and has better cleavage than you do.

try Stormfront...*shiver by KingAlanI · 2012-03-06 03:16 · Score: 1

I've never been on 4Chan, but Stormfront drove me insane, and the mods are true believers who want that shit there (probably there to control the opposition)

--
I listen to both RIAA and non-RIAA stuff if I like the music, tangential business/politics nonwithstanding.

Just when you thought this wasn't a bitcoin story by slashmydots · 2012-03-06 03:17 · Score: 1

Just when you thought this wasn't a bitcoin story...
http://coinworker.com/
Yeah, people are doing it for BTC too. If you want to peek at the available task list and don't have a BTC address, just borrow my login:
http://coinworker.com/tasks/1E9KYg64m1fceAXTsLY2VfXK5u2eL7a3St
I did take a crack at some of their tasks and it's definitely not worth the headaches for that caliber of pay. The image filtering was mostly dumbasses flashing their abs (which is not allowed), a couple guys showing off certain parts of their bodies, and idiots in inappropriate clothing. Apparently they don't let you flag anyone doing the duck face though, which is absurd because that needs to be ended.

What the f++++ hell ? TURKEY ?? by vikingpower · 2012-03-06 03:22 · Score: 1

From the cheat sheet:

- Mothers breastfeeding without clothes on

(...)

- All attacks on Ataturk

- Maps of Kurdistan

( ... )

- Abdulla ( "Apo" ) Ocalan-related content

WHAT THE F**K ??

Is this what America breeds: pseudo-Christian hypocrisy and bad, badly underpaid jobs for the already-poor ?

My disgust for both Facebook and the society that brought it forth have suddenly skyrocketed.

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Religous speak to God. Insane are spoken to by God. When all shut up, one can finally hear Shostakovich in peace

Re:What the f++++ hell ? TURKEY ?? by Jmc23 · 2012-03-06 07:44 · Score: 1

Um, that's a relatively high paying job in the countries that they're sourced to.

--
Don't complain about syntax, grammar, or spelling. There is no.hell like input on android.
Re:What the f++++ hell ? TURKEY ?? by Kingston · 2012-03-06 08:40 · Score: 1

Yes this is clearly for people editing Facebook Turkey. Notice they remove messages supporting Abdullah Ocalan and the PKK but allow messages attacking Ocalan and the PKK.
Re:What the f++++ hell ? TURKEY ?? by Johann+Lau · 2012-03-06 10:10 · Score: 1

"threats against heads of state or law enforcement officials, even if not credible, should always be escalated".
Uhm, what? How's that not just wasting time and money.. or are they really *that* much into sucking up to the authorities? But hey, at least crushed heads and limbs are "okay, as long as no insides are showing" o.O
Re:What the f++++ hell ? TURKEY ?? by vikingpower · 2012-03-06 19:32 · Score: 1

That ( the tone and intention of your post ) is paternalizing at best. It is NOT. $ 1 per hour, in Morocco, is a hunger wage : http://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/country_result.jsp?country=Morocco This is sheer exploitation of poverty. I was in Morocco, several times. The country is full of young people desperately looking for a job,

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Religous speak to God. Insane are spoken to by God. When all shut up, one can finally hear Shostakovich in peace
Re:What the f++++ hell ? TURKEY ?? by Jmc23 · 2012-03-07 04:59 · Score: 1

Your link is based off user submissions, and most likely being an english website dedicated to information to english speakers reflects a more western type of lifestyle. $1 per hour is pretty much minimum wage in Morocco, and is above minimum wage in Mexico. Coupled with the fact that people get paid for 40 hours of work but regularly work 60 hours or more in third world countries, then yes it is a good wage. I've lived in Mexico for two years and lived a good lifestyle on less, however, if i had to buy prepared food and designer clothing I would have lived miserably, and unfortunately that's exactly what a lot of mexicans do trying to emulate the US lifestyle. I'm actually happy that my fellow mexicans have access to these jobs, because a lot of the time you can't even get a job that pays minimum wage because of rampant corruption, so more large corporations who at least pay the minimum wage is a good thing.
Sure it's a horrible wage for someone wanting to live a western lifestyle, but maybe it's time we realize that the western lifestyle is what is currently destroying our planet.

--
Don't complain about syntax, grammar, or spelling. There is no.hell like input on android.

Not necesarily by geoffrobinson · 2012-03-06 03:23 · Score: 1

There are all sorts of factors that come into play.

You have energy costs, infrastructure, education of local population.

--
Except for ending slavery, the Nazis, communism, & securing American independence, war has never solved anything.

Re:Not necesarily by Barbara,+not+Barbie · 2012-03-06 04:06 · Score: 1

None of those barriers has done much except slow down the shift. Even language is no longer a barrier, now that computers can translate stuff so easily.

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Let's call it what it is, Anti-Social Media.

You broke the moral of the story by Sloppy · 2012-03-06 03:59 · Score: 1

Why did you replace $SOMEONE_ELSES_SERVER with "Facebook?" You should leave the binding for later, when people are applying the moral of the story.

--
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.

Re:You broke the moral of the story by betterunixthanunix · 2012-03-06 04:43 · Score: 1
Well, I see the following differences:
1. I do not personally look at what members of my research group are doing on the servers that I am the (de facto) administrator for. Facebook employees were caught reading user communications at least 5 years ago, if not earlier than that; this is not a hypothetical risk, they were caught red handed and have evidently not changed their ways.
2. Facebook gives users the illusion of privacy by allowing them to set various "privacy controls." This leads people to believe that their data is somehow protected, especially when people are not technically literate. Facebook has even tried to deflect attention to the real privacy issue -- that their employees can read through anything a user posts -- by shifting to the focus to whether or not privacy settings are easy to use.
Otherwise, I agree -- and this issue was well known long before Facebook, back when people were complaining about invasive sysadmins reading their email. This is the sort of thing that (to a large extent) motivated civilian crypto research and public key cryptography.
--
Palm trees and 8

A prime example of why the minimum wage sucks by llZENll · 2012-03-06 04:03 · Score: 1

http://www.europac.net/commentaries/minimum_wage_maximum_stupidity

Re:A prime example of why the minimum wage sucks by Barbara,+not+Barbie · 2012-03-06 04:24 · Score: 2

Before bringing on another worker, an employer must be convinced that the added productivity will exceed the added cost (this includes not just wages, but all payroll taxes and other benefits.) So if an unskilled worker is capable of delivering only $6 per hour of increased productivity, such an individual is legally unemployable with a minimum wage of $7.25 per hour.

False premise. The employer also has the option of figuring out a way to increase that same job's productivity so that it now becomes profitable to hire someone at the higher wage.
For example, introducing air conditioning into assembly plants can increase productivity AND reduce defects, and save more than enough money to offset the cost of AC, leaving more money for wages.
Investing in more training and things like feedback circles can show similar increases.
Putting in a system so workers are rewarded for suggestions that are adopted will pay back more than the cost of the rewards paid out, while increasing the business' competitiveness, again allowing for higher wages and higher profits.
The higher the minimum wage, the more incentive there is to increase productivity rather than treat people as a source of cheap labour - in other words, the higher the minimum wage, the more productive a business is per worker.

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Let's call it what it is, Anti-Social Media.

Re:Always by Neil+Boekend · 2012-03-06 04:29 · Score: 1

Some people should start by thinking once.

--
Well, I might have a way, but it only works on a semi spherical planet in a vacuum.

I've done this - over third shift, no less by mr_spatula · 2012-03-06 04:52 · Score: 5, Interesting

This was an unofficial duty that I had while working third shift at a web hosts - Granted, it was more researching complaints of abuse as well as law enforcement requests, but there were many users who had forum software that would get "overrun" with rather graphical posts. The company basically contracted out moderation services to these customers, and passed it off to third shift - We were to patrol these forums, and deal with objectionable content. Now, we didn't get $1 an hour, we DID at least get something that barely beat unemployment, but it still wasn't enough given the effect that the job had.

There were funnier sides to this, though.

We didn't have any great spam controls at the time other than PCRE filters... So one job was going through the hostmaster/postmaster emailboxes, and looking for spam patterns, and creating rules around them. The problem became how to prevent spam without blocking legitimate email that may be mentioning viagra or fisting. Having your female boss walk into a conversation in which you are discussing the fact that someone could legitimately be sending an email with the subject line of "fisting sluts" is always a good time.

Also, they wanted to launch an international video dating website - this was pretty early on, when the tech was new. Pretty standard dating site stuff at the time, except you could record your own video to include with it, with some "cutting-edge" webcam app. These videos had to be approved before they went live. And that job went to? Yep, me. I handled most of the backend server work and some custom PHP code, and this was my reward - Moderation.

This drove home a fundamental difference in how the genders handled dating sites at the time... The womens ads were generally approved, as they were almost always very tasteful- Fully clothed full body views, or simply a talking head, while they talked a bit about themselves, their interests, and what they want in a partner. This was what we encouraged, and was in accordance with guidelines. This part wasn't so bad - You got to hear a lot of fun stories from different cultures at best, and at worst, it would be in a language you didn't understand.

Now, that was the women. The men? Sure, they talked about themselves the same way, and had the same distribution of stories, but the overwhelming majority of the video was unclothed lower torso at best, and feverishly masturbating at worst. This was not a small percentage, it was BY FAR the majority. There's something seriously bizzare about hearing someone talk about loving walks on the beach or whatever, while there's a camera focused on an erection.

So that was third shift - click, penis, reject. click, pantless sweaty guy, reject. click, tasteful ad, approve. click, fat hairy abdomen and rapid motion, reject, and now eye bleach. And so on.

It was that and the spam filtering for the majority of third shift - A good solid 9 hours of offensive imagery, spam headers and penii, which lead to a rather warped view of the world outside of work.

Re:I've done this - over third shift, no less by ColdWetDog · 2012-03-06 06:14 · Score: 1

In old country we had to work in salt mine, better to pickle body than brain.
Kids these days....

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Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!

Is it dangerous, too? by WoodstockJeff · 2012-03-06 05:59 · Score: 1

Just think - someone reports pictures, and the moderator views them. Finding them to be kiddie porn, the moderator escalates them to be reported to authorities.

But, what protects the moderator from now being arrested for viewing kiddie porn, besides common sense? We know THAT has little to do with law nowadays. Is that why they have the moderators in other countries? Countries where there might not be any legal protection for them?

More often than not... by J'raxis · 2012-03-06 06:01 · Score: 1

More often than not, the people who take these kinds of jobs want to see these kinds of images. Of course they're going to talk about how "awful" they are, in public, in their job interview, whatever. How else would they get the job?

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Liberty in your lifetime

Whats wrong with maps of Kurdistan, Turkey by uneek · 2012-03-06 07:36 · Score: 1

See subject

Re:Sexism by pseudofengshui · 2012-03-06 07:51 · Score: 1

There's gotta be some way to genocide all the Puritans ...

I've tried every legal character so far, and I just keep getting the rock piercers and such.

People in the office are wondering why I'm laughing so hysterically. I doubt I'll be able to explain it.

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[Text goes here]

Worst? by interkin3tic · 2012-03-06 08:43 · Score: 1

I seem to recall a slashdot article about law enforcement people whose job it is to patrol the internet for child porn, or search through hard drives suspected of containing child porn. I'd guess they see higher concentrations of that than facebook moderators. I'd also guess that "seeing people getting cut into pieces" is easier to get desensitized to.

Pay is likely worse, but I'd rather police facebook, assuming I wasn't going to starve.

Re:Photos and statuses *could* use PKI by SockPuppetOfTheWeek · 2012-03-07 03:32 · Score: 1

Oh, please. The reason you'll never see GMail incorporate "trustworthy, cilent-side" encryption/decryption is because GMail could never incorporate "trustworthy, client-side" encryption/decryption.

Trustworthy client-side encryption/decryption can, and will always, only be possible vie a third-party non-GMail plugin.

If GMail is doing the encryption/decryption client-side, you'll have to trust GMail not to transmit the unencrypted data right back to Google. You're in the absurd position of handing someone unencrypted data and telling them "here, I don't want you to have this data, so please encrypt it".

What a joke ... by Barbara,+not+Barbie · 2012-03-07 06:17 · Score: 1

It's impossible to have a sustainable lifestyle for everybody on the planet. We're way past that. Like about 5-6 billion past that.

Hard economic realities are the only way to force the population down to something that can be managed long-term above subsistence levels.

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Let's call it what it is, Anti-Social Media.

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The Worst Job In the Digital World

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