Irish MPs raised fears about graphic material with Facebook

The chairman of the Irish parliament’s justice committee raised concerns that Facebook is not addressing content issues, after its moderators suffered mental trauma from viewing graphic material.

James Lawless met Facebook chief executive Mark Zuckerberg three years ago to discuss the company’s use of agency staff to review extreme content.

The company employs 15,000 content moderators across the world through third-party outsourcing agents.

Many are employed in Dublin by the companies CPL and Accenture. Moderators have raised concerns about training and support after some staff suffered trauma.

“There are many problems stemming from decisions on content quality and tone being made in factory-type conditions,” Mr Lawless told The National. “This is neither helpful for the broader platform, including user safety and confidence that the right calls are being made regarding challenging content, and also obviously not positive for the moderators themselves.

“I previously raised these issues with Facebook ... I am still not satisfied that Facebook is addressing the issue with sufficient urgency and the fact that such moderators are typically kept at a legal remove by use of agency staff suggests the longterm intention is not positive for them either.”

In a judgment in the US last May, Facebook agreed to pay $52 million to 11,250 current and former moderators to compensate them for mental-health issues developed on the job.

Former moderators have told The National they had to assess up to 1,000 posts a shift, which included disturbing images, against hundreds of criteria and were expected to be 98 per cent accurate. Eilish O’Gara, extremism researcher at the Henry Jackson Society think tank, said the company was not prioritising the removal of graphic content.

Facebook told The National it continually reviews its working practices.

“We are committed to providing support for those that review content for Facebook as we recognise that reviewing certain types of content can sometimes be difficult,” it said.