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Facebook Is Not Protecting Content Moderators From Mental Trauma, Lawsuit Claims (reuters.com)
A former Facebook contract employee has filed a lawsuit, alleging that content moderators who face mental trauma after reviewing distressing images on the platform are not being properly protected by the social networking company. Reuters reports: Facebook moderators under contract are "bombarded" with "thousands of videos, images and livestreamed broadcasts of child sexual abuse, rape, torture, bestiality, beheadings, suicide and murder," the lawsuit said. "Facebook is ignoring its duty to provide a safe workplace and instead creating a revolving door of contractors who are irreparably traumatized by what they witnessed on the job," Korey Nelson, a lawyer for former Facebook contract employee Selena Scola, said in a statement on Monday. Facebook in the past has said all of its content reviewers have access to mental health resources, including trained professionals onsite for both individual and group counseling, and they receive full health care benefits. More than 7,500 content reviewers work for Facebook, including full-time employees and contractors. Facebook's director of corporate communications, Bertie Thomson, said in response to the allegations: "We take the support of our content moderators incredibly seriously, [...] ensuring that every person reviewing Facebook content is offered psychological support and wellness resources."
It looks like it's time to call in a relief crew and let them get a rest. Call in the B Team -- or the /b/ team, rather.
You get all the best talent when they do it for free.
How is the Riemann zeta function like Trump rallies? Both have an endless number of trivial zeros.
I've read that for the police officers who work combating child porn, there's stuff you can't unsee.
People who have to deal with that to keep the rest of us from seeing it should have reasonable resources and therapy available to deal with it. I'm not talking carte blanche, but something serious if they need it. Just because you can find someone to work a job without that support doesn't mean it's okay to mess people up for doing their job. You can find people to work a sawmill even if you don't give them health insurance if they cut off your hand, but it's still not okay.
A country of weaklings. If you don't think you can handle that shit (and I'm sure it is horrible) don't take the fucking job. Butch the fuck up.
And what if you do think you can handle it but end up with PTSD? Yes, it can cause PTSD. Also, how does your perspective align with soldiers? Are you going to tell the one's that saw their friends blown to pieces that they should "Butch the fuck up" when they are having a flashback?
I for one would love to draft all the ACs like you into the being content moderators until you squeal at the very sight of a webpage loading.
Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
Given that it is impossible to do what this disgruntled worker demands (which is to pre-filter the offensive content, that THEY are hired to filter!!), what I see happening instead is the addition of new job requirements...
So, Mr Smith. I assume that you have reviewed and agreed to our initial screening waiver while we administer the 4CHAN-Reddit test battery to determine your candidacy for this position-- are you ready to proceed?
Excellent! This equipment will measure your emotional responses to the images and other content in this test battery, which have been selected at random from some of the most infamous place on the internet, and which represent a sampling of the worst kind of content humans are able to produce. The test will last 30 minutes, after which, we will review your data and inform you if you have made our candidate list.
(Begin horror scene from A Clockwork Orange)
-----
You know, that kind of thing.
I bet that facebook moderators only rarely see a truly grisly image. (Those posting child porn or mob killings tend to do it in less public forums than facebook.). 99% is acceptable pictures - tons and tons of really boring stuff from the lives of people.
And occationally, there is an exposed tit that somehow isn't acceptable to Americans, and therefore has to be deleted. Even if it is posted in a Russian-language art pictures group local to Vladivostok.
Also, the occational troll who toss some plain porn into discussions. Not exactly horrible to reject either.
But still - if they want less "horrible pictures", use their power to ban people. Don't just delete the picture, delete the user & blacklist him. E.g. lock someone out of facebook a month for porn, or for life for an IS beheading. As for fake accounts - no need to have them. Account validated by official ID or it gets closed.
I'm asking for a friend...
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Facebook, who is it good for, except for the owner. :D
What could go wrong when someone who seems to be anti-social, created a "social" website.
L'Idiot
There's some people who must enjoy looking at this stuff (otherwise it wouldn't get posted), so why not just hire them?
Psychopaths need jobs too you know.
Also, I very much doubt that much illegal content gets uploaded to Facebook, were it should be pretty easy to identify who did it.
You'd be surprised...
...gis sdrawkcab (usually not responding to ACs; don't bother posting as AC)
When asked for a comment Mark Zuckerberg was heard saying: "You want mental health? Go moderate for MySpace. Here we move fast and break things and that includes your sanity bitch."
Law enforcement officers who work on child-pornography cases have their own specialized therapists. There's even a name for the stuff they face: Secondary Traumatic Stress Disorder (STSD), brought on by repeatedly witnessing events that traumatize people.
It wouldn't surprise me at all if many Facebook mods needed this same kind of treatment, given the stuff they have to deal with. Hell; some Slashdot mods could probably use it.
That's called the users, numbnuts. Moderates nominally only get involved after users report "illegal content". Ergo, these moderators are specifically watching content that has a substantial probability of being illegal.
Criminals do stupid shit and post it all the time, which is part of the reason they get got. Actually tracking down the source of an illegal video and not merely it's poster is not something that's inherently trivial or necessarily something which law enforcement will rapidly act on, especially as moderators are each expected to go through 10 million potential rule breaking post per week. Someone engage in a murder-suicide, suicide bombing, or generally suicide (which is oddly enough illegal in most places) also likely won't be around to face charges. There's also VPNs, bots, etc. Meanwhile, a lot of videos of stuff is perfectly legal even if the actions themselves are illegal/accidents. Would you like to watch 5 hours straight of car accidents?
So with your head firmly up your ass, what is the lawsuit demanding? That Facebook follows industry standards--things like reducing the resolution/quality of reported potential rule breaking content (with presumably an ability to restore quality as necessary)--and "On behalf of herself and all others similarly situated, Ms. Scola brings this action to stop these unlawful and unsafe workplace practices, to ensure Facebook and Pro Unlimited (collectively, “Defendants”) provide content moderators with proper mandatory onsite and ongoing mental health treatment and support, and to establish a medical monitoring fund for testing and providing mental health treatment to the thousands of former and current content moderators affected by Defendants’ unlawful practices." which can't use Pro Unlimited to contractual avoid nominal good industry practices.
Honestly, you're a contemptible asshole. You refuse to recognize the plainly obvious that people post horrible stuff online, whether it's illegal or not, and people whose job it is to process this, unless they're mentally defective, will develop mental defects without substantial ongoing counseling. The whole notion that people would seek these jobs and to have contempt for them because they suffer in them is as horrible as the standards in the past before the likes of OSHA where jobs that maimed people were common and expected without compensation or any serious effort to protect workers. If you honestly believe that that's the sort of workplace that should exist, I invite you to turn your own home into that sort of a physical death trap. Certainly, you're already a mental death trap.
Account validated by official ID or it gets closed.
Why do you think minorities shouldn't be allowed on facebook? I mean, isn't that the reason we don't require ID's for voting?
You are suggesting that minorities should only have a voice at the ballot box but otherwise that their voices should not be heard.
Shame on you!
I guess America is the only country in the world where you don't need an ID for voting.
Pretty retarded that you are proud about that.
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
Well, HALF of America believes we shouldn't need an ID for voting, and a large minority of the other half doesn't want to appear "racist" so they go along with them... Buying alcohol, getting a job, driving, going to school, paying taxes, flying in an airplane, getting a bank account - all require an ID and that isn't racist at all. But somehow requiring an ID to prove who are when you vote is "racist".
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
Are you going to tell the one's that saw their friends blown to pieces that they should "Butch the fuck up" when they are having a flashback?
Actually: yes!
They should have not been there in the first place. After WWII there hardly was any engagement that was justified by anything ... american soldiers simply should stay at home. The world would be a better place then.
Yeah, the military doesn't work that way. You go where you're told.
I think there's a whole weird world of Facebook that ordinary people who have friend lists that mostly mirror their real lives never see.
My guess is its comprised of people making low-end money pushing scams and social-media-as-a-career, various swaths of low-income populations, bored and lonely shut-ins who will friend/like anything and have zero privacy settings, and then the truly weird and crazy bottom end of the population.
Plus, it's an international system. You can participate in high weirdness outside your geography.
I've been in lots of bars, but I've never seen a bar fight, gang rape or other type of horrible thing in a bar. I think it mostly just means I don't associate with those kinds of people or go to those kinds of bars, not that they don't exist.
They require ID to go into the court buildings, many if not most federal buildings, etc.
There are a TON of things requiring an ID....try boarding an airplane without one and see how that goes for you.
And yet, you can't produce one to vote?
IN most states that require an ID, you can GET a FREE ID....
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
The reason it's racist is because the voter ID laws are made to target poor people (often minorities) without access to a valid ID and for whom it would be a large burden to get one. Voter fraud is practically non-existent and the laws only get passed in places where those types of people would vote against the establishment. Doesn't take a genius to figure it out.
Many people have jobs, go to school, and generally live as normal citizens without a driver's license (which is the primary form of ID)
Again I have to ask: what has being left or right to do with that?
Why is "lefty" an insult in the USA?
Or more precisely: why do you insult people who have a "left attitude" in politics?
Because Leftists are basically Marxists with various flavors of authoritarianism and tyranny (e.g. socialism, communism). Marxism in it's various forms has killed more of it's own citizens than disease, starvation, or wars between foreign nations.
All forms of Marxism are authoritarian by their very nature, as it forces individuals to act in the best interests of the collective and the State, not necessarily in their own best interests. That is evil.
Marxism in it's various forms is actually and literally worse than cancer.
Strat
Progressivism (aka US 'Liberalism'): Ideas so good they need a police/surveillance-state to enforce.
You're seriously comparing someone sitting in their comfy office moderating videos and pictures to someone who is 5 thousand miles from home and family, half blinded and deafened by war while witnessing first hand their own friends literally getting blown apart while their own life is in peril? Because that what it essentially reads like.
Look back up at my post, now look back down, you're on the Internet. Now look back up. I'm a signature.
You can be completely unaffected by an image and still understand the image meets a classification of not being acceptable.
This is my signature. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
I am not really trying to argue with you here. I just want to clarify a point:
Also, how does your perspective align with soldiers? Are you going to tell the one's that saw their friends blown to pieces that they should "Butch the fuck up" when they are having a flashback?
Long story short, I walked into the movie Saving Private Ryan without any clue whatsoever it about its content. The theater was full and there was only one seat available, front row center.
I sat down, saw some old guy at Arlington, and thought to myself, "Fuck. Why did I come to see this movie? This is going to be another "feel good" boring story."
So the old guy fades out and the next 20 minutes or so were just fucking intense. Totally unexpected to me. I sat through the ENTIRE movie without feeling the need to go smoke a cigarette. I was that riveted.
What is the point of all this?
I have had mortar and rocket rounds land around me. People have died in my vicinity. I have had bullets whiz by my head. I am speaking of being in an actual war zone with actual death being present.
While Saving Private Ryan was intense to view, it was nowhere near actually being there. It was a GREAT depiction, but there was no immediate danger for anyone in the audience and that makes a HUGE difference. Actually having a mortar round punch holes in your door where you are trying sleep is not even in the same book as watching a video about it. They are not similar experiences.
I am old enough to have seen pretty much everything, and I have. For some people, watching a video of an actual live dismemberment of a naked and helpless man could be traumatizing. I do not look down at someone who is traumatized by such things. Such things are not within normal human experience and are extreme.
You can not know beforehand if you would be traumatized by watching something or actually experiencing something. Even watching something will not let you know if you can handle the actuality of it.
Long story short, since it is possible for a person to be traumatized, there should be some attention given to that possibility. This is especially true since there is no way to tell beforehand whether or not a particular person could be traumatized merely by viewing an image.
All of that being said, it took me 9 months to recover enough to not be SEVERELY startled by sudden loud noises. I still get startled, but it is within expected norms nowadays. There is not a single image on this planet that could traumatize me at this point; although being submersed in such images for extended periods may require some R&R to keep my state of mind from thinking such things are normal.
"Someone needs to talk to the tree of liberty about its ghoulish drinking problem." by ohnocitizen
In my state they'll actually go to where you live to give you a free photo ID, but I guess asking people to call to have someone come to their home is asking for too much effort.
People have to show an ID to sign up for welfare, but not to vote. What a country!
There are approximately 20 million white people living in poverty in the US. There are approximately 10.5 million blacks living in poverty. About 12.6 latino in poverty.
I don't know how I can find out what percentage of those in poverty by race actually vote, but the idea that it is racist to have a voter ID card as it unfairly burdens those in poverty which supposedly affects minorities more. That is only true by percentage of race against the entire US population.
The US Census declared that in 2014 14.8% of the general population lived in poverty:[48]
10.1% of all white non-Hispanic persons
12.0% of all Asian persons
23.6% of all Hispanic persons (of any race)
26.2% of all African American persons
28.3% of Native Americans / Alaska Natives
Total 318,558,162 100%
One race 308,805,215 96.9%
White 197,362,672 62.0%
Hispanic or Latino 55,199,107 17.3%
Black or African American 40,241,818 12.6%
American Indian and Alaska Native 2,597,817 0.8%
Asian 16,614,625 5.2%
Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander 560,021 0.2%
Other races 15,133,856 4.8%
Two or more races 9,752,947 3.1%
White and Black or African American 2,525,509 0.8%
White and American Indian and Alaska Native 1,884,407 0.6%
White and Asian 1,956,740 0.6%
Black or African American and American Indian and Alaska Native 318,302 0.1%
Yes, by percentages, minorities are more affected by poverty. Guess what? They still have ID. Many poor people have alcohol issues. They have id to buy it, trust and believe. If you have a taxpaying job, you have ID. If you rent an apartment from someone other then your friend, you had a credit check done and they want ID.
If you have a bank account, you'll need ID. College students go drinking. They get both real AND fake IDs. That's going the distance really.
If voting is important to an individual, then they will take the time to fill out a voter registration form and get a government issued ID. It doesn't even have to be a driver's license. In California the DMV issues both driver's license and non-driver ID cards. You can get one for your child if you want.
Politics is the only real answer to why we can't have a national ID. Having ID is not a burden. Poor people have ID. They aren't helpless, they are just poor.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...