The Human Cost of This Work

If you’re on Facebook then there’s a company you’ve probably never heard of that makes it bearable. Accenture. The little-known consulting firm is one of the biggest companies in the booming market of content moderation. But you’ll probably never hear its name come out of the lips of Mark Zuckerberg or Sheryl Sandberg.

When it comes to the world’s largest social media site, you either love it or you hate it. But chances are you don’t want to see a video of a dog skinned alive while you’re checking in on people from high school. That’s where Accenture comes in. AI gets rid of a lot, but sometimes a human has to make a call. The psychic cost of that work is devastating but it’s worth a lot of money to Facebook.

Here to help us understand the bizarrely secret world of Facebook’s content moderation is Mike Issac of The New York Times. Isaac is a best-selling author who just co-wrote a story about all this titled The Silent Partner Cleaning Up Facebook for $500 Million a Year.

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