Facebook to Pay Massive $52 Million Settlement to Traumatized Content Moderators

[Judi Lynn]

By Jessica MasonMay 13th, 2020, 2:44 pm

The internet is very often a terrible place. Sure there are cat videos, and goat videos, weird videos, and more cat videos, but there are many horrible people saying and doing horrible things. If you know your way around the net, you can avoid much of this grossness. But for some people, that’s not an option, and it’s their job to moderate the very worst of the net. And now, some of them are getting compensated for the very real trauma and PTSD that job brought one.

In a massive victory for moderators, Facebook has settled a class-action lawsuit brought on behalf of current and former moderators who were tasked with removing the most graphic and disturbing posts on the platform for their job. Facebook has agreed to pay $52 million to the moderators in compensation for mental health issues developed on the job.

The settlement covers over 11,250 moderators, who were contracted from a variety of outside firms after the 2016 election. (The fact that these were subcontractors and not even Facebook employees is a whole OTHER issue). In the face of criticism for how Facebook handled their content, these moderators were brought in from across the country and given the unenviable job of removing offensive content from the site.

According to The Verge, which ran a big story that brought many of the Facebook contractor moderation issues to light, moderators for one of the firms, Cognizant, were paid as little as $28,800 annually to view images of rape, murder, suicide, and more. This was, to say the least, a terrible job and a dangerous environment for moderators who were expected to view this content daily with no regard for their mental health, and were subject to difficult working conditions.

More:
https://www.themarysue.com/facebook-content-moderators-settlement/