Details of Facebook content moderators' non-disclosure agreements revealed

Facebook moderators are required to sign a non-disclosure agreement to keep information confidential even after they have left role.

A non-disclosure agreement given to Facebook content moderators requires them to keep information confidential from friends and family members even after they have left their role.

The agreement (NDA) presented to moderators working for Covalen - a division of the CPL group and one of two companies, along with Accenture, providing outsourced moderators to Facebook - “reminds” them that their “confidentiality obligations will survive termination of employment”.

A copy of such an NDA, seen by the Irish Examiner, states that moderators must “keep all information concerning the company, its customers, third parties, and any other connected organisation(s) absolutely confidential, which includes avoiding divulging confidential information to any members of the public or family members”.

“Any deliberate breach of confidentiality may result in disciplinary action up to and including dismissal,” the agreement states, adding that the use of mobile phones during training “is strictly prohibited”.

“By signing this agreement you expressly acknowledge and agree that you have carefully read it and fully understands (sic) what it means,” it concludes.

The use of non disclosure agreements with content moderators has come in for criticism in recent weeks due to the alleged “chilling effect”, in the words of Fionnuala Ni Bhrogain of the Communications Workers Union, they have on employees asserting their labour rights.

A spokesperson for the company said:

 “As with every other commercial organisation, Covalen requires sensitive business information to remain confidential.”

They added that all prospective Covalen employees are expected to sign an NDA and return it by email before commencing their role.

“Therefore, the impression that employees do not receive a copy of such agreements is completely inaccurate and untrue,” they said regarding allegations that employees have not been able to see the NDAs they have signed.

Content moderators are used by all social media companies to sift through potentially unacceptable content and flag same as inappropriate for publication. Such content can include the depiction of bullying, hate speech, graphic violence, death, and child exploitation. Video sharing app TikTok recently became the first social media outlet to offer moderators full contracts of employment.

Outsourced moderators in Facebook’s case are typically paid a deal less than direct employees of the tech giant. Facebook employs some 15,000 such moderators around the world.

One such worker, Irish woman Isabella Plunkett, recently told an Oireachtas committee of the “horrible lucid dreams” she had experienced as a result of her work. She said she has been “taking anti-depressants for months… because of the content”.

Foxglove, a legal non-profit representing moderators in their quest for better working conditions, this week wrote to Tánaiste Leo Varadkar stating that the assertion that those workers have full access to their own NDAs “appears to us to be misleading”.

“Multiple moderators have reported signing documents that they were not sent copies of,” that letter states. “If this practice has changed in response to queries from the news media, we welcome this modest reform,” it says, adding that outsourcing companies should be “asked to confirm on the record that content moderators have the right to speak publicly about workplace conditions without fear of reprisal”.

Mr Varadkar, the Minister for Enterprise, told the same Oireachtas committee that the Health and Safety Authority “has its role” when it comes to the working conditions of content moderators.

“It is a job which humans have to do, and a human brain has human emotions,” he said, adding that while he hasn’t met with Facebook in recent months it is something he would “take an interest in going forward”.