More than 200 moderators who work for Facebook Inc. in various countries have signed an online letter published today asking that the company allow them to work from home during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The letter, which was sent to Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg and Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg, was also addressed to the CEOs of Facebook’s moderating partners Accenture plc and Dublin-based CPL Resources.

“We, the undersigned Facebook content moderators and Facebook employees, write to express our dismay at your decision to risk our lives — and the lives of our colleagues and loved ones — to maintain Facebook’s profits during the pandemic,” the letter opened. “After months of allowing content moderators to work from home, faced with intense pressure to keep Facebook free of hate and disinformation, you have forced us back to the office.”

Although Facebook has allowed many of its employees to work from home during the pandemic, it seems most moderators have now been sent back to the office. In the letter, the writers talk about the massive rise in the number of Facebook’s users during the pandemic and how Zuckerberg’s wealth has mirrored that increase, although they say those that do “Facebook’s most brutal job” have not been allowed to work from home or received any hazard pay.

Indeed, for a long time now moderators have been talking how just how brutal the job is, saying it’s not only long hours in terrible conditions, but it takes its toll on mental health. Facebook has acknowledged that paying out $52 million this year to contractors that suffered from PTSD and other mental health problems deemed work-related.

The letter goes further, stating that Facebook’s algorithm is not “up to the job,” adding that humans are needed to sift through content. “This raises a stark question,” said the letter. “If our work is so core to Facebook’s business that you will ask us to risk our lives in the name of Facebook’s community — and profit — are we not, in fact, the heart of your company?”

The contractors laid out their demands. They asked that any employee at risk or living with someone at risk for Covid should be able to work from home. They also asked that all work that can possibly be done from home should be done from home, accepting that some moderation cannot.

Those that do come into the office, they said, should be given hazard pay. And they asked to end outsourcing and offer “real healthcare and psychiatric care.”

“The current crisis highlights that at the core of Facebook’s business lies a deep hypocrisy,” the signees concluded. “By outsourcing our jobs, Facebook implies that the 35,000 of us who work in moderation are somehow peripheral to social media. Yet we are so integral to Facebook’s viability that we must risk our lives to come into work.”

Facebook responded to the letter, saying the majority of the “15,000 global content reviewers have been working from home and will continue to do so for the duration of the pandemic.” Facebook also said that all moderators have access to healthcare and Facebook “has exceeded health guidance on keeping facilities safe for any in-office work.”

Accenture and CPL have so far not responded to the letter.

Photo: Bhupinder Nayyar/Flickr