Problem
From Facebook's perspective, the outsourcing of content moderation is both practical and cost-saving. The workers in Kenya are fluent in numerous languages, allowing them to review content posted from throughout Africa. In addition, since these workers are not Facebook employees, the company is not legally responsible for their low pay and scant benefits.
But since our class is concerned not just with legal responsibility, but ethical responsibility, and since Facebook is a technology company, and our focus is on ethical issues in technology, we can further consider the question of Facebook's responsibility to contract workers who help protect users from encountering disturbing content. In your initial response, consider the following questions:
i. 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?
ii. 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?