galvanized an immediate response from the companies involved – at least when it concerned their U.S.-based workers. No breaks for employees, no support systems, low pay and poor working conditions simply make business sense. This mentally and psychologically exhausting work is managed by vendors whose only incentive is to deliver curated content as quickly as possible to their customer. What the story missed, however, was the way in which their situation replicates a much older pattern. Either way, they’re sent a steady stream of posts to approve or flag, and sometimes have only seconds to make a decision about what stays up for public viewing.Ī recent Washington Post report on moderators in the Philippines was shocking in its description of the psychological anguish that workers face after viewing this type of graphic content each day.
Workers might be physically located in centers or they might work from their homes. However just as jobs in apparel, auto manufacturing, and customer service have been offshored, so too are the jobs of this digital economy. Newton’s expose focused on the conditions faced by workers in Arizona and Florida. These are the new digital sweatshops – filled with the people who do the piece work that keeps the social media economy alive. On-demand workers serve contractors who are at arm’s length from Facebook, You Tube or Twitter, though these are the companies that ultimately profit off their labor. Casey Newton’s brilliant expose on the lives of Facebook moderators explained how these jobs are not “crowdsourced” – they’re outsourced. They are considered to be ‘unskilled’ but platforms couldn’t function without them.Īnd while they are essential to social networks, these workers are treated as disposable by their employers.
They absorb a steady diet of offensive content, from graphic violence to child pornography and everything in between, so that others don’t have to see this on their timelines. The people who labor behind the walls of our social media feeds often make minimum wage or even less. A new job description has entered our lexicon: content moderator.
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