FreeSpeech and Censorship: Thread

[grarpamp]

Still no paid "social" nets, no behaviour deposits, etc.
And still too many laws that force sites to censor,
instead of letting sites freely compete for users within
entire spectrum from free to fully censored.
Much variety of solutions and competition must prevail.


TikTok Moderators Sue After Being "Traumatized" By Content

https://www.theverge.com/2021/12/24/22852817/tiktok-content-moderation-lawsuit-candie-frazier

Back in July, a band of former Facebook content moderators rebelled
against Zuck & Co., proclaiming that they would seek to invalidate
NDAs that Facebook forces all its content moderators to sign so they
don't squeal to the press about the freakshow of mayhem and debauchery
that they're subjected to every day while reviewing flagged content
that can include depictions of sexual abuse, violence, murder torture
and mayhem (remember the Christchurch video?) and - of course -
politically incorrect content and news stories, often with a
conservative slant.

    "No NDA can lawfully prevent us from speaking out about our
working conditions," the FB workers said at the time.

While TikTok has become most closely associated with teenage wannabe
prostitutes shaking their assets for views, there are other
indications that the Chinese-designed app might be intentionally
working to corrupt the youth of America.

The app has already been slammed for feeding depictions of drug use,
sex, porn, kinks and other topics that might unsettle parents to
children as young as 13. All the while, Beijing has limited use of the
Chinese version of the app to just 40 minutes a week for the youth of
China.

Now, fresh off TikTok being named the most dominant social media
platform of the year, it appears their content moderators have learned
from their comrades at Facebook - comrades, who, lets remember,
technically worked for third-party contractors whom FB hires to handle
the content moderation - that they might be able to make a quick buck
by suing the social media giants for psychic damage accrued while
performing content moderation duties, often while working as
contractors with little job security and few benefits.

To wit, the Verge reported that a TikTok content mod named Candie
Frazier has filed a class-action lawsuit in the California Central
District Court alleging that TikTok-owner ByteDance and its
contractors "failed to meet industry standards intended to mitigate
the harms of content moderation. These include offering moderators
more frequent breaks, psychological support, and technical safeguards
like blurring or reducing the resolution of videos. TikTok and its
contractors closely monitor the time moderators spend moderating
videos, effectively forcing workers to keep their eyes on an
overwhelming orgy of debauchery for long hours with few breaks.

This has led to workers being "traumatized" by the content they're
supposed to be moderating, according to the lawsuit.

    In a proposed class-action lawsuit filed in the California Central
District Court, Candie Frazier says she spent 12 hours a day
moderating videos uploaded to TikTok for a third-party contracting
firm named Telus International. In that time, Frazier says she
witnessed “thousands of acts of extreme and graphic violence,”
including mass shootings, child rape, animal mutilation, cannibalism,
gang murder, and genocide.

    Frazier says that in order to deal with the huge volume of content
uploaded to TikTok daily, she and her fellow moderators had to watch
between three and ten videos simultaneously, with new videos loaded in
at least every 25 seconds. Moderators are only allowed to take one 15
minute break in the first four hours of their shift, and then
additional 15 minute breaks every two hours afterwards. The lawsuit
says ByteDance monitors performance closely and “heavily punishes any
time taken away from watching graphic videos.”

    As a result of her work, Frazier says she has suffered “severe
psychological trauma including depression and symptoms associated with
anxiety and PTSD.” The lawsuit says Frazier has “trouble sleeping and
when she does sleep, she has horrific nightmares. She often lays awake
at night trying to go to sleep, replaying videos that she has seen in
her mind. She has severe and debilitating panic attacks.”

Content moderators are critical to helping some of the world's most
profitable companies continue to stay in business.

Frazier's lawsuit was filed by the Cali-based Joseph Saveri Law Firm,
which previously filed a similar lawsuit back in 2018 against Facebook
on behalf of moderators. That case resulted in a $52M settlement paid
by the social media giant. So, it looks like Frazier has picked well.