In the aftermath of the Molly Russell inquiry, an Instagram moderator claimed that the social media behemoth was “saving expenses” when it came to putting safety first.
Speaking anonymously, she said that the multi-billion dollar firm should do “far more” to safeguard kids using the network.
The moderator, who started working there a year after Molly, 14, died, noted that it seemed like mostly adolescent females were uploading self-harm-related material.
She acknowledged that she was “not equipped” to deal with mental health concerns and mentioned how her coworkers had expressed “worry” about the quantity of damaging material that was let to stay on the website.
“I believe they still could do much, much better,” the moderator said. Sometimes I think they’re trying to reduce expenses.
On Friday, Molly became the first kid in history whose death was legally determined to have been caused by social media. After the event, her family published a number of images of little Molly.
The 14-year-old participated in hundreds of self-harm postings before her death, according to the inquest.
Liz Lagone, the head of health and wellbeing at Instagram owner Meta, testified that the platform was “safe” for children and defended Meta’s decision to leave such content up even if it was “admissive.”
The senior executive claimed, after seeing the content Molly had interacted with, that it didn’t ‘promote’ self-harm and instead helped users by allowing them to “express themselves.”
As a result of expert advice that it might ‘unintentionally’ incite users to commit such acts, the social media behemoth changed its policy in 2019 to outright prohibit all such material.
The Instagram moderator, who only just changed positions inside Meta, estimated that they would need to review 200 accounts every day, spending one to two minutes on each.
The size of what we were undertaking, she said, “may sometimes seem overpowering.”
If there is any indication the user was posting anything like a goodbye or a photo of something that would be a means for suicide, and it was within 24 hours, we would be elevating it to police, the woman said, adding that she had no expertise or training in dealing with mental health concerns. But the decision was ultimately up to us.
Foxglove, which works with content moderators to advocate for better terms and remuneration, got The Daily Mail in contact with the moderator.
On order to keep its platform secure, Meta claimed to spend “billions each year” in its moderation teams and technology. It also said that their content moderators undergo a “in-depth, multi-week training program.”
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