Additionally, she claimed that content moderators had to pay for their own medical treatment when they needed to seek professional or medical help.
Furthermore, the plaintiff alleged they were “chronically understaffed,” since many of the content moderators quit their stressful job in less than a year. The understaffing forces personnel to work overtime, exceeding YouTube’s guidelines of a four-hour daily viewing limit.
YouTube’s expectations are high. Each moderator is required to review 100 to 300 pieces of video content each day and they are only allowed an “error rate of 2% to 5%,” according to the complaint.
YouTube and its contract companies control and monitor how each video is displayed to content moderators. Content may appear in full-screen versus thumbnails or blurred. They also monitor how quickly the moderators watch in-sequence. The content moderators do not control this process.
“YouTube also demands that Google vendors sign sweeping Non-Disclosure Agreements (NDAs),” and no one is allowed to speak about the content they have seen or the workplace conditions. The NDA became a requirement 4 days after a critical article appeared in “The Verge” claiming that content moderators were “at-risk” for PTSD, depression, and other trauma-related health issues,” the lawsuit further alleged.
