The Worst Job In Technology?

Shaka Tafari saw graphic photos of bestiality or people killing dogs while working as a contractor for messaging app Whisper. Photo: Nick Agro for The Wall Street Journal

Lauren Weber and Deepa Seetharaman, Wall Street Journal: The Worst Job in Technology: Staring at Human Depravity to Keep It Off Facebook

Social-media giants hire legions of contractors to hunt for pornography, racism and violence in a torrent of posts and videos

By her second day on the job, Sarah Katz knew how jarring it can be to work as a content moderator for Facebook Inc. FB 1.10% She says she saw anti-Semitic speech, bestiality photos and video of what seemed to be a girl and boy told by an adult off-screen to have sexual contact with each other.

Ms. Katz, 27 years old, says she reviewed as many as 8,000 posts a day, with little training on how to handle the distress, though she had to sign a waiver warning her about what she would encounter. Coping mechanisms among content moderators included a dark sense of humor and swiveling around in their chairs to commiserate after a particularly disturbing post.

She worked at Facebook’s headquarters campus in Menlo Park, Calif., and ate for free in company cafeterias. But she wasn’t a Facebook employee. Ms. Katz was hired by a staffing company that works for another company that in turn provides thousands of outside workers to the social network.

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WNU Editor: This is definitely the worst job in technology.