Reference no: EM133241199

Assignment:

Most of these content moderators are not Facebook employees, however. Instead, Facebook outsources this work to third party companies. One of these companies is called Sama, a US-based company that employs hundreds of workers from throughout Africa in a branch office in Kenya. While the average American content moderator for Facebook makes approximately $18 per hour, the average Sama employee makes only $1.50 per hour. Moreover, they work a 45-hour week, and they receive very little in the way of benefits (Perrigo, 2022).

The job of a content moderator is very difficult. For a nine-hour shift, content moderators are exposed to extremely disturbing content, including rape, child abuse, and suicide. One worker described it as a form of torture. Workers have reported symptoms consistent with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). A Sama employee in Kenya who tried to organize the workers to bargain for better pay and more humane working conditions was fired, thus stopping the unionization efforts (Perrigo, 2022).

As we've discussed, equity refers to the fair treatment of everyone, especially those with limited power and resources. In comparison to American content moderators, are Sama's content moderators being treated equitably? If not, what is Facebook's ethical responsibility in this matter?

Given the traumatizing content that all content moderators are forced to view as a condition of their employment, imagine that Facebook could develop software to automatically detect and remove content that violates its standards without the need for human workers to be directly involved. Are content moderators better off having low-paying, traumatizing jobs, or no jobs at all?