Facebook moderators have PTSD-like symptoms related to horrifying and violent images, with marginal content

Facebook's moderate content army, which is often subject to poor working conditions, suffers from PTSD-like symptoms as it is exposed on a daily basis to some of the most ugly and marginal content on the social network, according to a report. new investigation report from The Verge.

The technical publication begins by describing how Chloe, content moderator at Cognizant, based in Phoenix, Arizona, where 1,000 people are working to make very fast decisions under intense pressure and determine if the content reported is in violation rules of Facebook – to moderate messages in front of his colleagues, who will soon be moderators, as and when training.

"The video shows a man being murdered, some stabbing him dozens of times, while he screams and prays for him to be killed." Chloe's work is to tell the room if the post is to be deleted She knows that section 13 of the Facebook Standards community prohibits videos describing the killing of one or more people.When Chloe explains this to the class, she hears her voice shake, "reports The Verge, adding that she was leaving the room and crying so hard that she could barely breathe.

YOUTUBE PULLS ADS VIDEOS ANTI-VAX While PINTEREST PROHIBITS ALL RESEARCH "VACCINATION" USING AN EPIDEMIC MEAT

Facebook, which has been criticized from all sides for its content moderation errors and its huge rules book for moderators, had more than 30,000 employees working in the field of security and safety at the end of the year. ;last year. Of these, about half are content moderators, and the technology giant relies on contract work for most of this work. Faced with an endless source of content, moderators should maintain a 95% accuracy rate while reviewing more than 1,000 posts a week to see if they violate the standards of the Facebook community.

Verge's report, based on interviews with a dozen current and former Cognizant employees, describes a morbid and upsetting environment, where workers joke about self-injury, drug themselves at work, develop a Serious anxiety or suffer panic attacks because of the horrible content they are forced to see. Most moderators surveyed resigned after a year.

According to the report, Phoenix moderators earn about $ 28,000 a year, while average full-time Facebook employees earn $ 240,000. Unlike life-filled benefits at Menlo Park's California headquarters, designed by Frank Gehry on Facebook, Phoenix moderators are closely watched by managers and are given very short breaks for use the bathroom or the so-called "wellness" period.

In addition, moderators told the technical information site that some colleagues had even adopted the marginal and conspicuous viewpoints of memes and messages that they were forced to watch daily.

KALASHNIKOV UNVEILS THE NEW DRONE & SUICIDE & # 39; KAMIKAZE

Both Cognizant and Facebook have rejected some aspects of the reports of The Verge.

Bob Duncan, who oversees Cognizant's content moderation operations in North America, told The Verge that recruiters carefully explain the graphical nature of the job to candidates. "The intention of all of this is to make sure people understand it. And if they do not feel that the work is potentially suitable for them depending on their situation, they can make the necessary decisions. "

Pentagon Develops F-35s to Attack and Destroy Nuclear Enemy Nuclei ICBMS

At a later stage of the reporting, Facebook has allowed The Verge's reporter to visit the Phoenix site after telling him that the moderators' experiences did not reflect those of most of the subcontractors, either in Phoenix or in the whole world. New positive message posters were placed and several content moderators who spoke to The Verge expressed satisfaction with their work and the way they are treated, claiming that the content was very terrible and violent. only represents a small fraction of what they see.

When the reporter interviews one of the on-site counselors about the potential of workers to develop PTSD, he tells her about a phenomenon called "post-traumatic growth".

The Verge concludes that the "telephony center model for moderation of content weighs heavily on many of its employees.As first responders on platforms with billions of users, they fulfill an essential function of the Modern civil society while being paid less than half "as much as many others who work on the front lines. They do the job as long as they can – and when they leave, a non-disclosure agreement allows them to withdraw even further into the shadows. "

CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP

A former contract content moderator sued Facebook in September, saying his job for the tech giant had left him with PTSD.