Terminated Meta content moderators worry about fake news flourishing in their absence | News

Nearly 200 Meta content moderators who used to work at the tech company’s Mountain View office and now work in Fremont had their contracts terminated this month, workers included

in the cut told this news organization.After Meta broke its lease at the San Antonio Center in Mountain View late last year, the company cited its goal to build “a best-in-class

remote work experience” as a reason for vacating the space, which was occupied by Accenture-employed content moderators who are contracted by Meta.But soon after, those content

moderators revealed that rather than having the option to work remotely – a privilege granted to most of Meta’s full-time employees – they were still required to work in

person, most recently at Meta’s Fremont office.Employees were working from this office on Jan. 11 when they were told to stop their tasks and join a town hall, where they were

informed that Meta was terminating its contract with Accenture content moderators in the Fremont office. About 150 to 175 employees were impacted by this decision, according to

workers interviewed by this organization.Content moderator John, whose name has been changed on request of anonymity, said he found the announcement surprising, though not

shocking.“It wasn’t a shock to me because they’ve done this to the full-time employees a few months ago, they did this to another contractor that used to share the building

with us,” John said.But reactions varied, John said, describing the mood of the office as “textbook grieving.”“For several other coworkers, I’m not going to lie, they had

breakdowns after that call,” John said. “... There were angry people, there were sad people, there were very numb people.”John added that the next day after the announcement

was made, full-time Meta employees at the Fremont office were invited to a happy hour featuring wine and dinner, a weekly event that the contracted employees were not invited to.

John estimated that there’s about 700 full-time employees who work at the Fremont campus.“It was highly upsetting,” John said of the happy hour.When asked to confirm the

contract termination, as well as the reasoning for it, Meta did not address questions in an email statement. Instead, a Meta spokesperson said, “We regularly review our content

enforcement policies, systems and vendors to ensure that we are operating as efficiently and effectively as possible for the billions of people who use our apps every day.”John

said his and his colleagues' last day is Jan. 27, and the soon-to-be former employees have major concerns about who will pick up their workloads once they’re gone.These Accenture