Facebook’s Civil Rights Audit 2. Content Moderator Settlement It is important to note that civil rights organizations have expressed concern about the psychological well-being of content reviewers, many of whom are contractors, who may be exposed to disturbing and offensive content. Facebook recently agreed to create a $52 million fund, accessible to a class of thousands of US workers who have asserted that they suffered psychological harm from reviewing graphic and objectionable content. The fund was created as part of the settlement of a class action lawsuit brought by US-based moderators in California, Arizona, Texas and Florida who worked for third party firms that provide services to Facebook. In the settlement, Facebook also agreed to roll out changes to its content moderation tools designed to reduce the impact of viewing harmful images and videos. Specifically, Facebook will offer moderators customizable preferences such as muting audio by default and changing videos to black and white when evaluating content against Community Standards relating to graphic violence, murder, sexual abuse and exploitation, child sexual exploitation, and physical abuse. Moderators who view graphic and objectionable content on a regular basis will also get access to weekly, one-onone coaching sessions with a licensed mental health professional. Workers who request an expedited session will get access to a licensed mental health professional within the next working day, and vendor partners will also make monthly group coaching sessions available to moderators. Other changes Facebook will require of those operating content review sites include: • Screening applicants for resiliency as part of the recruiting and hiring process; • Posting information about psychological support resources at each moderator’s workstation; and • Informing moderators of Facebook’s whistleblower hotline, which may be used to report violations of workplace standards by their employers. 3. Changes to Community Standards In the last report, the Auditors recommended a handful of specific changes to the Community Standards in an effort to improve Facebook’s enforcement consistency and ensure that the Community Standards prohibited key forms of hateful content. The Auditors recommended that Facebook remove humor as an exception to its prohibition on hate speech because humor was not well-defined and was largely left to the eye of the beholder — increasing the risk that the exception was applied both inconsistently and far too frequently. Facebook followed through on that commitment. It has eliminated humor as an exception to its prohibition on hate speech, instead allowing only a narrower exception for content meeting the detailed definition of satire. Facebook defines satire as content that “includes the use of irony, exaggeration, mockery and/or absurdity with the intent to expose or critique people, behaviors, or opinions, particularly in the context of political, religious, or social issues. Its purpose is to draw attention to and voice criticism about wider societal issues or trends.” 44