3 former Facebook content moderators agreed to put themselves in legal jeopardy to show the appalling working conditions they experienced whereas employed by a vendor for the tech giant, in step with a new report by The Verge.
Workers reported a dirty workplace environment where they often find hair and
bodily waste around their desks. Conditions at the Tampa site are so strenuous that employees regularly put their
health at risk, several individuals told The Verge. One employee kept a trash can by her desk to throw up whereas she was sick since she had already used all her allotted bathroom breaks. Cognizant isn’t required to offer sick leave in Florida. One man had a heart attack at his table and died shortly after, The Verge reported, and the site has
not yet gotten a defibrillator.
Following an earlier report that uncovered surprising working conditions
at the vendor’s Phoenix facility, The Verge spoke with 12 current and former Cognizant content moderators
in Tampa, Florida. 3 of those former staff agreed to break their nondisclosure agreements signed as a condition
of employment, in step with The
Verge. The Tampa site is Cognizant’s
lowest-performing site under the
Facebook contract in North
America, according to the
Verge, with an accuracy
score of 92 compared
with Facebook’s stated target
of 98.
Shawn Speagle, one of the previous moderators who went on the record, said he wasn’t made aware of the
extent of graphic content he would be exposed to whereas working for Cognizant. Cognizant told The Verge it’s “transparent” about the sort of labor new
hires will be expected to complete. Speagle told The Verge
he has a history of anxiety and depression and has
been diagnosed with posttraumatic
stress disorder since leaving the
role at Cognizant.
On the job, Speagle recalled his 1st assignment involved observation a video of 2 teenagers smashing an iguana on the ground “until the thing was a bloody pulp.”
The video was allowed to remain up under Facebook’s policies, in step with The Verge.
“We work with our content review
partners to provide a level of support and
compensation that leads the business,”
a Facebook spokesperson said in a statement. “There will inevitably be employee challenges or dissatisfaction that
call our commitment to this work
and our partners’ employees into
question. When the
circumstances warrant action on the part of management, we make sure it
happens.”
In a separate statement, a Facebook representative addressed the death of the
moderator who had
a heart attack at
the Tampa site and later died.
“Our thoughts go out to Keith Utley’s family, friends and everybody who worked with him,”
the spokesperson said. “We go to great lengths to support the people that do this necessary work, and take any
reports that we might not
be doing enough incredibly seriously.”
In a statement, Cognizant said it
“strives to make a safe and empowering workplace for its over 40,000 staff in the U.S.A. and their
colleagues around the world. Like any giant employer, Cognizant routinely and professionally responds to and addresses
general workplace and
personnel problems in
its facilities. Our Tampa facility is no different. Cognizant works exhausting to make sure a safe, clean, and supportive work atmosphere for all of our
associates.”