Stressful work and psychological impact but meager benefits make many employees depressed TikTok.
Imani, 25, is a TikTok content moderator in Morocco. She is allowed to work from home and is paid about 2 USD / hour (~ 46 thousand VND) to watch TikTok videos and report to her superiors if she finds that the video contains harmful elements.
With a bachelor’s degree in English like Imani, salary may sound small, but she took the job in 2020 – a time when the pandemic made job search very difficult. Her husband is an engineer but also struggled to find work during this time. As a result, Imani is satisfied with her salary, partly because this job allows her to stay at home to take care of her daughter. She works for TikTok’s Middle East and North Africa division through Majorel, an outsourcing company in Luxembourg.
During the 2 years of work, Imani faced haunting videos every day. She best remembers a video being thrown into the air and skewered by a sword:
“I love cats. I never imagined I would see such a scene in real life. It’s not a movie. That’s not a joke. It’s true. I try to create a wall between life and work. After the shift, I don’t think about work anymore, I have to take care of a child.”
Imani didn’t anticipate working for TikTok would be so psychologically damaging, and she’s not alone. Business Insider noted that nine content moderators for TikTok in Morocco also experienced similar problems.
Wisam, who used to be a content moderator and now trains new people for TikTok, said: “The worst part about this job is that you don’t slowly get worse – you don’t even realize it. . You think it’s not a big deal, but (malicious video) really affects you.”
Before TikTok, Wisam was a veteran Facebook content moderator. He said that while Facebook’s content moderators are exposed to more videos and graphic posts because of their large user base, as TikTok becomes more popular, the amount of malicious content will soon increase as well.
To prepare for this risk, ByteDance, the parent company of TikTok, has increased recruitment of workers in developing countries. A former Majorel advisor estimates that there are 1,400 content moderators for TikTok across Morocco. Wisam says it has trained more than 700 new moderators since 2020.
While TikTok does apply artificial intelligence to review content, the technology is not so effective in non-English speaking countries. So they have to still hire large numbers of staff to moderate. But many employees expressed dissatisfaction with the way the company operated.
Samira, 23, joined Majorel in July 2020 and participated in the TikTok Lives moderation pilot program.
At first, she was tasked with watching 200 videos per hour while maintaining an accuracy score of 95%. But three months into the job, her manager increased those stats to the point where she only had 10 seconds to review each video.
“The management doesn’t see us as humans but as robots,” Samira said.
Various other TikTok content moderators also told Business Insider that such a goal is unattainable. When they fail to complete their assigned tasks, they will be reprimanded and deprived of their 50 USD (~ 1.1 million VND) cash bonus.
In response to the above allegations, a Majorel spokesperson responded that KPIs are only guidelines, not mandatory targets to be achieved.
Even so, reports show that TikTok moderators in Majorel are also discriminated against compared to their US counterparts. In the US, moderators get three breaks, plus a 1-hour lunch break. In the opposite direction, Moroccan employees only receive a total break of about 40-45 minutes, excluding the 1-hour lunch break.
Several employees also accused Majorel of inconsistencies in his work schedule.
“Sometimes I start at noon, and I can’t stop working until midnight. I had to work 12 hours straight,” said Imani.
Not stopping there, Imani’s manager often adds or shifts shifts in her schedule without prior notice. Imani did not have much time to take care of her children and accepted to leave the job.
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