Google and YouTube moderators speak out
Part of the job description was, "You will be part of a team "that protects free speech online," which makes it seem very heroic. It felt like you were puttingon a cape working at Google. - Over the past year, I'vebeen reporting on the lives of Facebook's contentmoderators in America and they've told me about their low pay, their dire workingconditions and in some cases, the long term mental health consequences of doing the work that they do. A content moderator is kind of like a police officer for the internet. If you ever see something that you think doesn't belong on asite and you report it, that report is gonna bereviewed by a human being. While a lot of what theysee is really benign, like spam, for example, someof it's really disturbing. I'm talking about murder,terrorism and child exploitation. Recently, I startedseeing out people who did this kind of work for Google and YouTube. I wanted to see how theirexperiences compared to the ones I had heard about already. What I did learn surprised me. (dramatic music) - Part of doing our joband how they would make us feel better about it was that, "You guys see this so otherpeople don't have to see this." (dramatic music) - Over the course of my reporting, I talked to both people whoworked at Google full time and people who had been hired on through third-party contractors.
It became clear to me thatno matter who hired you, doing this job over along enough time period can cause significantmental health consequences. But it also became clearto me that there is a big difference in howGoogle employees get treated and how those third-partycontractors get treated. Today, a former full-time Google employee named Daisy Soderberg-Rivkenis going on the record to talk about her experiencesas a content moderator. She had access to all theperks and all the benefits that come with being afull-time Google employee. But at the end of thatday, that didn't save her from the consequences of doing the job. - I was a legal root removals associate, which is a very fancy way of saying I was a content moderator at Google. - Let's talk about whatthe job actually was. You show up, you have your orientation, you sit down at your computer,it's time to do your job. What is your job? - You usually start your workby going through a queue. So you're assigned toa queue based on either an issue area or a geographic area. I focused on the French market, because my first languageswere French and English and I also worked on our childsexual abuse imagery cases and our terrorism cases.
And you were workingprimarily on web search, right? - Yes, we as in-house content moderators, we would usually handle morehigh level, complex issues. Certain things thatwere very high volumes, such as defamation andcopyright were typically sent over to contractors. They would then escalateto us if it was kind of a gray area, but if itwas even a gray area for us, we would then escalate to our council. It was kind of levels ofhow specialized we were. - At what point did youstart to feel like you were seeing more disturbingstuff than you expected? - Very early on. They said we would be analyzingchild sexual abuse imagery but I remember clearly,in parentheses, it said, this kind of contentwould be limited to one to two hours per week, when in reality, we were understaffed,so we would be in there sometimes five, six hours a week, which sounds like nothing,but it's actually... - Oh, it sounds like a lot.- It's a lot. - Yeah, yeah. When do you first noticethat doing this job was starting to affect your mental health? - When I was walking aroundSan Francisco, actually, and I was with one ofmy friends and we saw a group of kids, toddlers, that were hanging on to one of those ropes so that they don't go far. I looked at them and then,I kind of blinked once, and suddenly, I just had a flash of images of some of the images I hadseen, children being tied up, children being raped, at that age. This is three, three years old.
I kind of like stopped andI was kind of blinking a lot and my friend had to make sure I was okay and I had to sit down for a second and I just exploded crying. She was like, "What just happened?" And I couldn't explainit to her and I just, these racing thoughts andthen, an instant panic attack. I was having nightmares,I wasn't sleeping, I had spent multiple daysjust crying in the bathroom. I was having all of these panic attacks. My work productivity just dipped. Finally, my manager was like, "Listen, we really need you "to step up your productivity game." I just snapped and Iturned to him and I said, "Do you understand what we're looking at "and we're not machines, we're humans. "So we have emotions and those emotions "are deeply scarred by looking at children "being raped all thetime and people getting "their heads chopped off." It was like there was no escape and yeah, I finally snapped and they took that as, oh, she needs to take asecond, she needs to breathe. And I was said, "No, I need to leave." The free food, the nappods, all these benefits, this doesn't mean anything if this is, if this is my day-to-day. - Daisy helped me understandhow hard this job is to do even when you work in thegreatest office in the world. But the truth is thatmost people don't work in an office half that nice. One of Google's biggestprojects that it has to moderate, of course, is YouTube. When it comes to YouTube, Google has decided togive most of the work of content moderation tothird-party contractors. Recently, I went to Austin,Texas, to meet with a group of moderators who work forAccenture on the YouTube project. Specifically, they work onwhat is called the VE queue. VE standing for violent extremism. 120 times a day, they review YouTube videosthat have terrorism, graphic violence andother disturbing content. You're about to hear from one of them and we've altered the audioto protect their identity. - [Moderator] So, at the beginning, they told you to watch some videos. You're going to take some actions. You will apply the YouTube polices. But you don't feel how thisis going to impact you.
In some ways, the contentmoderators who do this work for Google and YouTube are treated better than the ones who work for Facebook. Most prominently, they get twohours of break time each day. Basically, two hours ofpaid leave in which they can recover from thechallenges of doing this work. But, most of them aren't able to take a full two hours a day. - [Moderator] They're forcingyou, micromanaging you to have to be sitting on thedesk five hours and a half. And if you don't, there isgoing to be a punishments. The schedules will be changed. You will be on night shift. And this is going toaffect my wellness time. I will never take my three hours. (dramatic music) - [Casey] What kind of things do they do that make life hard? - [Moderator] They always havecomplaints about everyone. You know, like, I have something on you. If you make any problems, you know what? This is the reason that I can fire you. - [Casey] Right, right. - [Moderator] One of thethings that they always saying is if we miss one agenttomorrow, we get another 10. - [Casey] So they'reconstantly reminding you how easily you can be replaced? - [Moderator] Yes. The problem that's theyfeel stuck somewhere. They can't leave the work because they have responsibilities. He have bills right now he have to pay. - [Casey] So it sounds likepeople feel kind of trapped. - [Moderator] They are. Yeah, that's a good word. - When I brought all this to Google, the company told methat it takes the health of its workers veryseriously and pointed out that it offers onsite counseling to both its full-time employeesand to its contractors. I think it's worth pointing out, though, that even though Daisy hadaccess to that onsite counseling, the counselor she had ultimately told her to go seek outside helpand get a therapist. Daisy also eventually took medical leave and ultimately got an emotionalsupport animal to help her. It's a dog named Stella. - Hi five.
Found a psychiatristand I found a therapist. The psychiatrist putme on antidepressants. I was diagnosed withchronic anxiety and PTSD. And then, I started seeinga therapist just to talk through these things and she said, "Is legal removalsassociate anything close "to a content moderator?" And I said, "It is a content moderator." And she said, "Trust mewhen I say you are not "the first person that I've seen "with this particular issue." - It seems like recoveringfrom doing this job has itself been a full time job. - Oh, yeah. Whenever someone talks tome about content moderation, I say, "I'm a recoveringcontent moderator." They're like, "Oh, youtalk about it like it's, "it's like alcoholism." And I said, "Well, younever fully recover." - One of the things thatis so interesting to me about your story is that youare one of the very few people I've talked to who didcontent moderation as a full time employee of acompany, rather than a contractor. You had access to six monthsof paid medical leave. A contractor who's moderatingfor YouTube in Austin doesn't have that same access. - I had those months tothink about my choices and to think about ways out without having to deal with unemploymentor having to deal with how am I gonna pay rent. I know those contractorsdon't have that opportunity. - The contractors I'vetalked with in Austin ,are making $18.50 anhour, about $37,000 a year. Does that seem like a highenough wage given some of the risks involved? - Absolutely not. There's never gonna be enoughmoney to make this okay. I'm gonna be clear about that. But, I think that you need topay contractors proportional to what they're going through,the impact of their work, because this is so vital to the business. - Let's put a fine point on it. If Google can't exist withoutthe work that you did, right, like you were respondingto official legal requests from governments--- Yup.
That would haveotherwise shut Google down in their country--- Yup. - If you didn't respond. - Exactly. - So this is very high stakes work. And yet, for some reason, these companies have justchosen not to value it. - Yeah, I think thatcontractors are so essential, especially consideringhow much volume we have. We need as many people aswe can doing this work. We also need to change the overall system and the overall structure ofhow this work is being done, how we support these people,how we give them tools and resources to deal with these things. Or else, these problemsare only gonna get worse. (dramatic music) - Hey, thanks for watchingand don't leaven any comments. It will only create more workfor the content moderators. But, if you want to knowmore about what's going on with our wayward tech platforms,I write a daily newletter called, The Interface,about the collision between big social networks and democracy. You can find it and subscribe for free at theverge.com/interface. (dramatic music)
It became clear to me thatno matter who hired you, doing this job over along enough time period can cause significantmental health consequences. But it also became clearto me that there is a big difference in howGoogle employees get treated and how those third-partycontractors get treated. Today, a former full-time Google employee named Daisy Soderberg-Rivkenis going on the record to talk about her experiencesas a content moderator. She had access to all theperks and all the benefits that come with being afull-time Google employee. But at the end of thatday, that didn't save her from the consequences of doing the job. - I was a legal root removals associate, which is a very fancy way of saying I was a content moderator at Google. - Let's talk about whatthe job actually was. You show up, you have your orientation, you sit down at your computer,it's time to do your job. What is your job? - You usually start your workby going through a queue. So you're assigned toa queue based on either an issue area or a geographic area. I focused on the French market, because my first languageswere French and English and I also worked on our childsexual abuse imagery cases and our terrorism cases.
And you were workingprimarily on web search, right? - Yes, we as in-house content moderators, we would usually handle morehigh level, complex issues. Certain things thatwere very high volumes, such as defamation andcopyright were typically sent over to contractors. They would then escalateto us if it was kind of a gray area, but if itwas even a gray area for us, we would then escalate to our council. It was kind of levels ofhow specialized we were. - At what point did youstart to feel like you were seeing more disturbingstuff than you expected? - Very early on. They said we would be analyzingchild sexual abuse imagery but I remember clearly,in parentheses, it said, this kind of contentwould be limited to one to two hours per week, when in reality, we were understaffed,so we would be in there sometimes five, six hours a week, which sounds like nothing,but it's actually... - Oh, it sounds like a lot.- It's a lot. - Yeah, yeah. When do you first noticethat doing this job was starting to affect your mental health? - When I was walking aroundSan Francisco, actually, and I was with one ofmy friends and we saw a group of kids, toddlers, that were hanging on to one of those ropes so that they don't go far. I looked at them and then,I kind of blinked once, and suddenly, I just had a flash of images of some of the images I hadseen, children being tied up, children being raped, at that age. This is three, three years old.
I kind of like stopped andI was kind of blinking a lot and my friend had to make sure I was okay and I had to sit down for a second and I just exploded crying. She was like, "What just happened?" And I couldn't explainit to her and I just, these racing thoughts andthen, an instant panic attack. I was having nightmares,I wasn't sleeping, I had spent multiple daysjust crying in the bathroom. I was having all of these panic attacks. My work productivity just dipped. Finally, my manager was like, "Listen, we really need you "to step up your productivity game." I just snapped and Iturned to him and I said, "Do you understand what we're looking at "and we're not machines, we're humans. "So we have emotions and those emotions "are deeply scarred by looking at children "being raped all thetime and people getting "their heads chopped off." It was like there was no escape and yeah, I finally snapped and they took that as, oh, she needs to take asecond, she needs to breathe. And I was said, "No, I need to leave." The free food, the nappods, all these benefits, this doesn't mean anything if this is, if this is my day-to-day. - Daisy helped me understandhow hard this job is to do even when you work in thegreatest office in the world. But the truth is thatmost people don't work in an office half that nice. One of Google's biggestprojects that it has to moderate, of course, is YouTube. When it comes to YouTube, Google has decided togive most of the work of content moderation tothird-party contractors. Recently, I went to Austin,Texas, to meet with a group of moderators who work forAccenture on the YouTube project. Specifically, they work onwhat is called the VE queue. VE standing for violent extremism. 120 times a day, they review YouTube videosthat have terrorism, graphic violence andother disturbing content. You're about to hear from one of them and we've altered the audioto protect their identity. - [Moderator] So, at the beginning, they told you to watch some videos. You're going to take some actions. You will apply the YouTube polices. But you don't feel how thisis going to impact you.
In some ways, the contentmoderators who do this work for Google and YouTube are treated better than the ones who work for Facebook. Most prominently, they get twohours of break time each day. Basically, two hours ofpaid leave in which they can recover from thechallenges of doing this work. But, most of them aren't able to take a full two hours a day. - [Moderator] They're forcingyou, micromanaging you to have to be sitting on thedesk five hours and a half. And if you don't, there isgoing to be a punishments. The schedules will be changed. You will be on night shift. And this is going toaffect my wellness time. I will never take my three hours. (dramatic music) - [Casey] What kind of things do they do that make life hard? - [Moderator] They always havecomplaints about everyone. You know, like, I have something on you. If you make any problems, you know what? This is the reason that I can fire you. - [Casey] Right, right. - [Moderator] One of thethings that they always saying is if we miss one agenttomorrow, we get another 10. - [Casey] So they'reconstantly reminding you how easily you can be replaced? - [Moderator] Yes. The problem that's theyfeel stuck somewhere. They can't leave the work because they have responsibilities. He have bills right now he have to pay. - [Casey] So it sounds likepeople feel kind of trapped. - [Moderator] They are. Yeah, that's a good word. - When I brought all this to Google, the company told methat it takes the health of its workers veryseriously and pointed out that it offers onsite counseling to both its full-time employeesand to its contractors. I think it's worth pointing out, though, that even though Daisy hadaccess to that onsite counseling, the counselor she had ultimately told her to go seek outside helpand get a therapist. Daisy also eventually took medical leave and ultimately got an emotionalsupport animal to help her. It's a dog named Stella. - Hi five.
Found a psychiatristand I found a therapist. The psychiatrist putme on antidepressants. I was diagnosed withchronic anxiety and PTSD. And then, I started seeinga therapist just to talk through these things and she said, "Is legal removalsassociate anything close "to a content moderator?" And I said, "It is a content moderator." And she said, "Trust mewhen I say you are not "the first person that I've seen "with this particular issue." - It seems like recoveringfrom doing this job has itself been a full time job. - Oh, yeah. Whenever someone talks tome about content moderation, I say, "I'm a recoveringcontent moderator." They're like, "Oh, youtalk about it like it's, "it's like alcoholism." And I said, "Well, younever fully recover." - One of the things thatis so interesting to me about your story is that youare one of the very few people I've talked to who didcontent moderation as a full time employee of acompany, rather than a contractor. You had access to six monthsof paid medical leave. A contractor who's moderatingfor YouTube in Austin doesn't have that same access. - I had those months tothink about my choices and to think about ways out without having to deal with unemploymentor having to deal with how am I gonna pay rent. I know those contractorsdon't have that opportunity. - The contractors I'vetalked with in Austin ,are making $18.50 anhour, about $37,000 a year. Does that seem like a highenough wage given some of the risks involved? - Absolutely not. There's never gonna be enoughmoney to make this okay. I'm gonna be clear about that. But, I think that you need topay contractors proportional to what they're going through,the impact of their work, because this is so vital to the business. - Let's put a fine point on it. If Google can't exist withoutthe work that you did, right, like you were respondingto official legal requests from governments--- Yup.
That would haveotherwise shut Google down in their country--- Yup. - If you didn't respond. - Exactly. - So this is very high stakes work. And yet, for some reason, these companies have justchosen not to value it. - Yeah, I think thatcontractors are so essential, especially consideringhow much volume we have. We need as many people aswe can doing this work. We also need to change the overall system and the overall structure ofhow this work is being done, how we support these people,how we give them tools and resources to deal with these things. Or else, these problemsare only gonna get worse. (dramatic music) - Hey, thanks for watchingand don't leaven any comments. It will only create more workfor the content moderators. But, if you want to knowmore about what's going on with our wayward tech platforms,I write a daily newletter called, The Interface,about the collision between big social networks and democracy. You can find it and subscribe for free at theverge.com/interface. (dramatic music)
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