How does moderated content work on Facebook? – How Does Facebook Moderate Content?

Published on: March 11, 2019 / Update from: March 11, 2019 - Author: Konrad Wolfenstein

A key issue that Facebook has addressed has been the question of moderating content that violates its terms of service. A thorny question that is linked to questions of freedom of expression and how Facebook functions as a public forum. Facebook bans violent, sexually explicit and generally offensive material. This content is manually flagged by users and reviewed by staff, who determine whether a post has violated certain provisions of company policy. Twitter and YouTube also use a similar system to monitor content on their social networks.

Most of this work is outsourced to third parties. Content moderators on Facebook are paid far less than regular Facebook employees. Annual compensation for content moderators ranges from just $1,404 per year for the moderators working in other countries such as India and Bangladesh to as much as $28,800 per year for the third-party workers working at Facebook in the US .

Facebook has struggled to address its content moderation problem. In 2009, when the network had just 120 million monthly active users, it employed just 12 people to moderate the content of each user's flagged post. With a global reach of approximately 2.3 billion users, the company employs approximately 15,000 people to view and remove violent, sexually explicit and offensive content online.

A core issue Facebook has grappled with has been the question of moderating content that violates its terms and conditions, a thorny question that is intertwined with questions of free speech and how Facebook functions as a public forum. Facebook bans violent, sexually explicit, and generally offensive material. This content gets manually flagged by users and reviewed by employees, who determine whether a post has violated specific terms in company policy. Twitter and YouTube also employ a similar system to monitor content put on their social networks.

Most of that labor is outsourced to third parties. Content moderators on Facebook are paid abysmally less than regular salaried Facebook employees. Annual pay for content moderators ranges anywhere from just $1,404 per year, for the moderators who work in other countries like India and Bangladesh, to $28,800 per year for those third-party workers who work in the US Facebook employees on average make $240,000 per year.

Facebook has struggled to address its content moderation problem. In 2009, when the network only had 120 million monthly active users, it employed only 12 people to moderate the content of every flagged post by a user. Now with a worldwide reach of about 2.3 billion users, the company employs around 15,000 workers to view and get rid of violent, sexually explicit, and offensive content on the internet.

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