美国国家公共电台 NPR Propaganda, Hate Speech, Violence: The Working Lives Of Facebook's Content Moderators

 

SCOTT SIMON, HOST:

Facebook has pledged to do better at moderating content. The social media company usually employs third-party contractors¹ to do the job. The average moderator makes about $28,000 a year. Meanwhile, the average Facebook employee's salary is around $120,000 a year. And we want to note here that Facebook is a financial supporter of NPR. In a recent article by Casey Newton for The Verge², moderators employed by one of those contractors, Cognizant, talked about the stress of their jobs - not only low pay but high-pressure working conditions and the emotional toll³ of monitoring hour after hour of graphic⁴ content and conspiracy⁵ theories. Casey Newton, Silicon⁶ Valley editor at The Verge, joins us now from New York. Thanks so much for being with us.

CASEY NEWTON: Thanks for having me, Scott.

SIMON: Well, help us understand how a lot of these employees live during the workday.

NEWTON: Well, every piece of content that gets reported on Facebook needs to be evaluated to see if it breaks the rules or not. And if a moderator makes the wrong call more than a handful of times during the week, their job could be at risk. And so the folks that I spoke⁷ with said that they're just under tremendous pressure to try to get it right even though Facebook is changing those guidelines on a near daily basis to account for some nuance⁸. And, of course, a lot of that content they're looking at is extremely graphic or disturbing. And so many of the folks that I spoke with were struggling with mental health issues months after they left the job.

SIMON: Because they have to see so much?

NEWTON: That's right. You know, there are people in the world who spend a lot of time just sort of uploading the worst of humanity onto Facebook. So almost everyone I spoke with could vividly⁹ describe for me at least one thing they saw that continue to haunt them.

SIMON: And it sounds as if during their workday, there's not a lot of time to reflect. There's not even really time to go to the bathroom.

NEWTON: That's right. One of the things that surprised me most about this story was that the moderators' time is managed down to the second. Every time they want to use the bathroom, they have to click a browser¹⁰ extension to let someone know that they're leaving. They also get nine minutes a day of something called wellness time, which they're supposed to use if they see something really traumatizing and need to stand up and walk away. But many of the folks that I spoke with said that wasn't really adequate to kind of emotionally process what they were seeing.

SIMON: What about the effect of seeing so many conspiracy theories?

NEWTON: Well - so this was maybe the thing that surprised me the most from my reporting was the majority of the people that I spoke with said that the longer they looked at the kind of fringe conspiracies¹¹ that get posted on to Facebook, the more they found themselves sympathetic to those ideas. So I spoke to one man who told me that he no longer believes that 9/11 was a terrorist attack. I talked to someone else who said they had begun to question the reality of the Holocaust¹². And in some cases, these folks knew sort of how wrong that sounded. But they just kept telling me these videos are so persuasive¹³, and we see them all the time.

SIMON: Let me share with you some words we got from Facebook, knowing we were going to interview you. We work with our partners to ensure they provide competitive compensation starting at $15 per hour, benefits and a high level of support for their employees. They went on to say that they will regularly audit¹⁴ their partners. They'll try to make working conditions and salaries uniform. And they're going to hold a summit on those issues and talk to employees. How do you react to their statement?

NEWTON: Well, I'm glad to hear that Facebook is taking these issues seriously. I would say if they're looking for suggestions, I'm happy to offer two. One would be to pay these folks more. And I think that would be a great place for Facebook to start when it came to compensating¹⁵ employees, who, in many cases, are being asked to evaluate essential questions of speech and security. They're policing the terms of our public debate. That feels like a $60,000-a-year job to me. And then the second thing they could do is just not make these employees have to raise their hand every time they want to go to the bathroom. Just treat these employees the way they treat any Facebook executive, and let them manage their own time.

SIMON: Casey Newton at The Verge, thanks so much for being with us.

NEWTON: Thank you, Scott.

1 contractors   

n.（建筑、监造中的）承包人( contractor的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• We got estimates from three different contractors before accepting the lowest. 我们得到3个承包商的报价后，接受了最低的报价。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• Contractors winning construction jobs had to kick back 2 per cent of the contract price to the mafia. 赢得建筑工作的承包商得抽出合同价格的百分之二的回扣给黑手党。 来自《简明英汉词典》

2 verge   

n.边，边缘；v.接近，濒临

参考例句：

• The country's economy is on the verge of collapse.国家的经济已到了崩溃的边缘。
• She was on the verge of bursting into tears.她快要哭出来了。

3 toll   

n.过路(桥)费；损失，伤亡人数；v.敲(钟)

参考例句：

• The hailstone took a heavy toll of the crops in our village last night.昨晚那场冰雹损坏了我们村的庄稼。
• The war took a heavy toll of human life.这次战争夺去了许多人的生命。

4 graphic   

adj.生动的，形象的，绘画的，文字的，图表的

参考例句：

• The book gave a graphic description of the war.这本书生动地描述了战争的情况。
• Distinguish important text items in lists with graphic icons.用图标来区分重要的文本项。

5 conspiracy   

n.阴谋，密谋，共谋

参考例句：

• The men were found guilty of conspiracy to murder.这些人被裁决犯有阴谋杀人罪。
• He claimed that it was all a conspiracy against him.他声称这一切都是一场针对他的阴谋。

6 silicon   

n.硅(旧名矽)

参考例句：

• This company pioneered the use of silicon chip.这家公司开创了使用硅片的方法。
• A chip is a piece of silicon about the size of a postage stamp.芯片就是一枚邮票大小的硅片。

7 spoke   

n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说

参考例句：

• They sourced the spoke nuts from our company.他们的轮辐螺帽是从我们公司获得的。
• The spokes of a wheel are the bars that connect the outer ring to the centre.辐条是轮子上连接外圈与中心的条棒。

8 nuance   

n.(意义、意见、颜色)细微差别

参考例句：

• These users will easily learn each nuance of the applications they use.这些用户会很快了解他们所使用程序的每一细微差别。
• I wish I hadn't become so conscious of every little nuance.我希望我不要变得这样去思索一切琐碎之事。

9 vividly   

adv.清楚地，鲜明地，生动地

参考例句：

• The speaker pictured the suffering of the poor vividly.演讲者很生动地描述了穷人的生活。
• The characters in the book are vividly presented.这本书里的人物写得栩栩如生。

10 browser   

n.浏览者

参考例句：

• View edits in a web browser.在浏览器中看编辑的效果。
• I think my browser has a list of shareware links.我想在浏览器中会有一系列的共享软件链接。

11 conspiracies   

n.阴谋，密谋( conspiracy的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• He was still alive and hatching his conspiracies. 他还活着，策划着阴谋诡计。 来自辞典例句
• It appeared that they had engaged in fresh conspiracies from the very moment of their release. 看上去他们刚给释放，立刻开始新一轮的阴谋活动。 来自英汉文学

12 holocaust   

n.大破坏；大屠杀

参考例句：

• The Auschwitz concentration camp always remind the world of the holocaust.奥辛威茨集中营总是让世人想起大屠杀。
• Ahmadinejad is denying the holocaust because he's as brutal as Hitler was.内贾德否认大屠杀，因为他像希特勒一样残忍。

13 persuasive   

adj.有说服力的，能说得使人相信的

参考例句：

• His arguments in favour of a new school are very persuasive.他赞成办一座新学校的理由很有说服力。
• The evidence was not really persuasive enough.证据并不是太有说服力。

14 audit   

v.审计；查帐；核对；旁听

参考例句：

• Each year they audit our accounts and certify them as being true and fair.他们每年对我们进行账务审核，以确保其真实无误。
• As usual,the yearly audit will take place in December.跟往常一样，年度审计将在十二月份进行。

15 compensating   

补偿，补助，修正

参考例句：

• I am able to set up compensating networks of nerve connections. 我能建立起补偿性的神经联系网。
• It is desirable that compensating cables be run in earthed conduit. 补偿导线最好在地下管道中穿过。