Sarah T. RobertsAround 3,000+ contractor employees of Twitter were canned last night (totally normal thing to do, btw). How does Twitter have so many contractors? This is where the CONTENT MODERATOR numbers are hidden. From an ex-colleague I’ll not name: “of the 3,000+ contractors let go last night, I believe that it included a SIGNIFICANT portion of the content moderation workforce.”
They are called “agents” at Twitter. There are at least four third-party companies who sourced and managed them. As with most companies in the space, Twitter’s official FTE numbers of around 7500 employees did NOT count the contractors. This is where ALL OF THESE FIRMS stash their moderators. Facebook has easily has 20-25,000 of them at any given time. Twitter had at least 3,000.
ꙮ ⚗️ pnathan ⚗️ ꙮ@ubiquity75 contractors are hired in part to ensure they can be fired fast. It all keeps the headcount off the books formally. Real iffy biz practice.
Nick Bax@pnathan @ubiquity75 agreed. AFAIK it’s to keep the unemployment insurance costs low for their higher paid direct hire workforce. It’s crap.
Howard Cheng@ubiquity75 Shocking to read, but also makes so much sense in light of Musk's drive to make Twitter seemingly a free speech absolutist's paradise.