“You guys get paid for this?” - Reddit mods probably

But on a serious note, these people see the most fucked up shit you can imagine. I’d think they deserve a bit more than $3/hr

“90% of content moderators are foreigners. What we have experienced during the process is very hard… spending three months without receiving a salary, in a country that isn’t yours. You cannot pay the rent, you cannot buy food,” Nkuzimana explains. Cori Crider – co-director of Foxglove, a British organization that is supporting the workers in this process – adds that this situation “forces [the content moderators] to continue accepting insecure jobs to remain in [Kenya], despite the serious risk to their mental health.” Moderators have resorted to crowdfunding, so that they can support their families as the legal fight unfolds.

Just highlighting the exploitation of migrant workers here, like much of Twitter's remaining workforce, apparently. It also reminded me of this story: The fishermen:

On November 22, Joanne circulated a letter among the migrant crew. “I have been made aware the crew members are contacting an outside representative,” it read, possibly referencing a call Quezon made to Stella Maris seeking help for Susada. “I am also aware that crew members have been leaving their port without permission or making our office aware. Sadly the actions by these crew members are beginning to ruin the trust and faith we have placed in our Filipino crew.” It concluded by noting they would make reports to local police and UK immigration authorities “if necessary”.

These people are fucking sick. The whole system that denies people the legal right to work just so they can be more easily exploited is fucking sick.

I'm going to go and punch some walls. Laters.

Humanity has created a huge underclass of people who are expected to deal with the world's refuse for poverty income. We've outsourced physical textile disposal to places like Ghana, creating canyons of clothing on land and textile tentacles miles long in the water. And similarly we have outsourced our conceptual garbage to overseas sweatshops, creating mental harm to the data waste pickers.

They're out of sight and mind of the rest of a company's workers to "minimise costs", but the reality is that it also serves as a shield. It shields company decision-makers from consequences and engagement with their product's consumers. Consumerism is in part sustained by preventing as many people as possible from thinking about what happens after they dispose something or someone. Putting our call centres and moderators overseas is a huge part of making that happen.

It's a lot easier to make shitty profit-driven decisions when you don't have a bunch of depressed "customer support" and "community moderator" workers hanging around head office. The decision-makers might empathise with them too much and it will reduce morale and productivity, or worse, increase costs of employment. It's much better to just have the outsourced remote workers give one head office employee a sanitised list of the most vile shit they're exposed to, while someone else from head office who thry have never spoken to gives them $3 for the privilege.

You do realized this is one of the first jobs to be replaced by AI right?