Jasmine Curtis-Smith laments condition of Filipino workers who moderate violence, porn on Facebook

Jasmine Curtis-Smith expressed sadness over the conditions Filipinos face in moderating content on Facebook.

Image: Instagram/@jascurtissmith

A BBC documentary revealed on March 19 that outsourced employees in Manila known as “The Cleaners” moderate content which violate Facebook’s community guidelines.

Staff as young as 18 are subjected to thousands of horrific images every day. With a lack of training and psychological support, many are left traumatized and commit suicide.

A summary of the documentary was posted on Twitter on March 20, which the “Sahaya” actress shared on March 22.

This is so low and sad of @facebook 😥 our fellow Filipinos are outsourced, poorly paid, and given little psychological support for this extremely traumatic and sensitive type of work. My heart breaks.. https://t.co/ObEHlVZLFF

— Jasmine Curtis-Smith (@jascurtissmith) March 22, 2019

“This is so low and sad of @facebook,” she said of the report. “Our fellow Filipinos are outsourced, poorly paid, and given little psychological support for this extremely traumatic and sensitive type of work. My heart breaks…”

According to the documentary, thousands of Filipino employees are tasked to delete content, with a quota of 25,000 images in an 8- to 10-hour shift.

The material they see includes terrorist videos, child porn, self-harm material and political propaganda.

One of the interviewees said they face difficulties in stopping potentially violent live streams as they tread the line between censorship and moderation.

In one case, he saw a person joking about committing suicide, but could not stop it because the act had not been committed yet. Only after the suicide was done could the video be deleted.

Netizens expressed frustration at the employees’ conditions. Jodi Owen (@jodiowen66) said, “Wow. I thought FB was low but it goes lower.”

Angel Woods (@angelgloww) wrote, “This really broke my heart, I am struggling with this knowledge knowing there are people suffering from this. I just figured there was software doing this and not real people.” JB

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