FACEBOOK RAISES WAGES FOR CONTENT MODERATORS

Facebook on Monday announced that it will increase wages and offer more counseling to its thousands of content moderators in the U.S., most of whom are contract workers who have complained of unfair working conditions.

The embattled tech giant in a blog post said it is rolling out the reforms after hearing from content moderators and heeding advice from psychologists on its “global resiliency team.”

Facebook said it will pay at least $22 per hour to content moderators in the San Francisco area, New York City and Washington, D.C.; $20 per hour to content moderators in Seattle; and $18 per hour for those in all other U.S. metro areas.

It is also adding “preferences” that allow content moderators to customize how they see certain content — for example, they will now be allowed to blur out graphic images by default before reviewing them.

“We made these changes after hearing feedback that reviewers want more control over how they see content that can be challenging,” Janelle Gale, Facebook’s vice president of scaled operations, said in the post.

The company will also require Facebook’s content moderators to have access to counselors on-site at all hours, rather than during certain parts of their shifts.