Traditionally, social networks have relied on algorithms to monitor what people post. It seems that, more than a couple of times, unwanted videos have slipped through these artificial filters. Facebook has decided to use actual human beings to scan videos sent to the social network. 4,500 people had already been hired for this task, however, the company announced that they will be adding 3,000 more to the lot. This puts the total workforce for filtering videos at 7,500 personnel.
This comes after a live stream of a 74 year old man being killed in cold blood went viral. On another case, a video was posted by a man in Thailand that he had filmed himself killing his 11- month old daughter. Zuckerberg announced that Facebook’s initial team had successfully stopped a suicide after a man had live streamed themselves hinting of killing himself, a representative from the team had called the police and they got the situation under control.
It is great to see the founder of this social giant go out of his way to take measures that put the users first above the financial bottom line. On the other hand, some investors are worried that the move would require the company to use funds to pay these new employees but they were assured that the move wouldn’t affect Facebook’s earnings.
The new employees were said to have the responsibility of scanning videos for violence, hate speech and child exploitation. It is also their job to work with law enforcement to prevent any issues before they blow out of proportion. Lastly, we are reminded that human beings can still do a better job than algorithms in some scenarios such as this one.