Facebook to pay millions to content moderators over mental illness
Facebook has agreed to pay out 52 million dollars to content moderators who developed mental health problems on the job.
The affected employees will get up to 50,000 dollars for treatment costs if they are diagnosed with a condition such as post-traumatic stress disorder, the plaintiffs’ lawyers said Tuesday.
Content checkers for the online network must regularly view images showing violence and abuse as part of their role.
They are often employed through contractors rather than being directly hired by Facebook.
In Autumn 2018, a former content moderator sued Facebook, alleging she had post-traumatic stress disorder after nine months of checking content.
The agreement, which is still subject to approval by a judge, applies to more than 10,000 people from California, Texas, Arizona and Florida who have worked for Facebook since 2015.
The minimum payment per moderator is 1,000 dollars.
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Facebook announced in the agreement that it would also take further steps to protect the mental health of its content moderators.
The sound will be turned off by default on videos, and they will be played in black and white.
Applicants for the moderation jobs will undergo special screening to check their mental health resilience. (dpa)
