It is the job of Facebook content moderators to try and make the platform safe. This means reviewing every post that is either reported by a user or flagged by Facebook’s automated tools from its 3 billion users. For context, around 130,000 images are uploaded to Facebook every minute. The work can be harrowing, with content moderators having to look at some of the worst material on the internet. This includes murder, gruesome violence, hate speech and the sexual exploitation of children. Outsourced content moderators don’t receive proper mental health support and many develop PTSD as a result of their experience. This year, TIME magazine (https://time.com/6147458/facebook-africa-content-moderation-employee-treatment/) revealed chilling abuse at Facebook's content moderation centre in Nairobi, Kenya. Workers reported exploitation and unlawful union-busting at the Nairobi office, run by Sama — the US company who Facebook use as its main provider of outsourced content moderation in Africa. For this harrowing and dangerous work, TIME revealed workers are paid as little as $2.20 per hour. Sign this petition today in solidarity with them and all Facebook content moderators around the world.

-

At Right Networks, a large part of our company culture revolves around in-person gatherings (the company outing, the Christmas party, and so on). While we're in a mixed-vaccination state, some employees haven't felt that it's safe enough to attend in-person events or return to the office even temporarily. Putting these rules in place would allow for future gatherings to be less likely to result in an outbreak, helping us to feel safer attending.

As workers, the tasks we complete for Microsoft are many. We are the ones helping to improve Cortana's speech recognition, and improving Zo.AI by judging the quality of its responses in human interaction. We help users of Bing map services travel quicker and more efficient routes by analyzing map results. We help deliver users more accurate results by providing feedback on Bing search engine results. We help safe search filters filter out adult content, in the process of which we expose our personal computers to viruses and occasional illegal content. In doing these tasks we take pride in the work we are doing because we believe it to be truly valuable and useful. We ask Microsoft to match our commitment to the platform by not treating us as disposable. We understand that as contract workers there are many rights enjoyed by others in the workforce which we do not, such as a guaranteed minimum wage, employment benefits, job security or a guaranteed right to work. While we are truly grateful for the opportunity to perform work for a successful company through the UHRS platform, which offers competitive pay and the opportunity to work from home, there are certain changes we would like to ask Microsoft to consider in the interest of fairness and productivity. Many of us rely on this platform as our sole source of income. While this is our choice, we do believe there should be a strict set of guidelines and some sort of system in place to ensure that we all know what is expected from us and that we as workers are able to deliver high-quality results. In short, we are asking that Microsoft stop treating its workers as disposable and address some longstanding inefficiencies with the UHRS platform. Happier workers means higher quality work delivered and faster output, which as a result will benefit Microsoft and the exchange between workers and hitapp owners as a whole. We believe that these changes will not only help to ensure that those working for Microsoft are treated fairly, but will also enable workers to perform the highest quality of work for Microsoft. Improving work conditions will potentially place Microsoft on the vanguard in terms of recognizing the value of contributions made by crowdworkers, and ensure continued improvements to UHRS in the years to come.