A new report alleges that Facebook has thousands of foreign contract workers to manually read status updates and other content posted to the social media platform raising concerns over user privacy yet again.
Reuters reports that over the past year, Facebook has employed a team of as many as 260 contract workers in Hyderabad, India, to comb through millions of Facebook posts and photos shared to the platform since 2014. The Indian team is one of many such groups located around the world. The workers categorize content posted to the site by five “dimensions,” Reuters reports. These aim to identify the content posted, what the occasion the content is posted on for inst an everyday activity or a major life event, and what is the authors intention in posting the content.
Facebook stated that this is done in order to determine the type of content that is being posted to the social network and how it’s changing. Facebook stated that this can help the tech firm to gain a better understanding of its audience and develop new features for the platform. The details of the operation were provided to Reuters by multiple employees from the outsourcing firm Wipro Ltd.
The work done by Wipro is reportedly just one of around 200 content labeling projects that Facebook runs at any one time, employing thousands of contractors worldwide. Many of these projects aim to “train” software which determines what content users see in their newsfeeds and helps to generate more data to be analyzed by artificial intelligence that helps to operate many of Facebook’s other features.
Nipun Mathur, the director of product management for AI at Facebook, commented on these practices stating: “It’s a core part of what you need, I don’t see the need going away.”
Reuters published an example of some of the work done by Wipro and the “dimensions” that labelers must address about content. Below is the example published by Reuters:
A selection of possible answers were provided by Facebook and labelers. Where no answer was deemed suitable, it was marked “not applicable”.
The dimensions and some of the answers are:
-What is being shown in the post?
Self, building, landmarks, food, animals, adult, teenager, nature
-What is the occasion of the post?
An everyday place or activity, a positive major life event, a negative major life event
-Is there an expressive element?
Thought, opinion, feelings
-Why did the author make the post?
To plan an activity, update others about one’s life, entertain others with something funny, inspire others, share something spiritual
-What is the setting of the post?
Home, work, school, sporting event, outdoors, transit
Read more at Reuters here.
Lucas Nolan is a reporter for Breitbart News covering issues of free speech and online censorship. Follow him on Twitter @LucasNolan or email him at lnolan@breitbart.com
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