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Content Moderators Break Their NDAs To Expose Desperate Working Conditions At Facebook

Content Moderators Break Their NDAs To Expose Desperate Working Conditions At Facebook

content moderators
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The death a year ago of a content moderator in Tampa, Florida at a subcontractor for social media giant Facebook, was the last straw that broke their silence.

Three former content moderators at Cognizant decided, despite the legal jeopardy of breaking their non-disclosure agreements, to expose the shocking working condition they experienced.

Keith Utley, 42, signed in for his usual night shift at professional services vendor Cognizant on March 9, 2018, and never signed out. He had a heart attack at his desk and was pronounced dead soon afterwards at a nearby hospital, according to The Verge.

The Facebook vendor tried to downplay the veracity of the event, fearing it would affect morale or trigger exits — something the poorly ranked company with a score of 92 out of the targeted 98 did not want.

“Our thoughts go out to Keith Utley’s family, friends and everyone who worked with him,” a Facebook spokesperson said in a statement. “We go to great lengths to support the people that do this important work, and take any reports that we might not be doing enough incredibly seriously.”

Pressure on Facebook to monitor abuses on its platform has had it pump up its safety and security workforce across the world to more than 30,000. Half of those are content moderators like Utley, a former U.S. Coast Guardsman.

To keep moderators from divulging some of the gruesome things they watch or read, they must sign a 14-page nondisclosure agreement (NDA) that binds them even after leaving the job.

Three former content moderators at Cognizant said they were exposed to a toxic work environment ranging from a dirt including human waste around their desks to disturbing posts of hate speech, violence and graphic pornography.

These, the investigative report by The Verge journalist Casey Newton said, left many content moderators traumatized at “sweat shops in America” across California, Arizona, Texas and Florida.

Shawn Speagle, former Cognizant content moderator who talked to The Verge on record, said he was not made aware of the extent of graphic content he would be exposed to in the course of his work. The work subjected him to anxiety and depression, he said. Cognizant denied the claim, saying everything was “transparent”.

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“Moderators have described to me seeing, on a regular basis, beheadings, murders, animal abuse, child exploitation. And often, it arrives without warning,” Newton told National Public Radio in an interview.

“There is something traumatizing about viewing these images.”