The iron grip of Facebook’s tentacles

Facebook’s power is portrayed in this one graph. Vladan Joler, leading the research, reveals the common denominator that drives the company’s momentum — the user:

All of us, when we are uploading something, when we are tagging people, when we are commenting, we are basically working for Facebook.

Facebook’s guide to content moderation was leaked by The Guardian. Just demonstrates that Facebook is, well, a media platform not a common carrier. And that they are making some pretty strong judgments which have previously governed not by fiat of a single firm (which is essentially controlled by a single individual) but by law or social consensus.

Facebook is increasing its number of content moderators to 7,500 (from 4,500), suggesting it still isn’t taking this task very seriously. Facebook pays it’s moderators about $600 for a 40 hours week (according to this excellent reportage by Olivia Solon). The total moderation bill will run to about $250m per annum or about 1% of Facebook’s profit.

A firm as important as Facebook, which enjoys increasing gross margins in excess of 85%, has enough latitude to invest more heavily in addressing this issue. The investment should be accompanied with greater data transparency and a more open, collegial approach to evaluating and dealing with the problems.

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