Meta siege in Menlo Park in California, October 28, 2021 (Getty Images North America / Justin Sullivan)
They filled hate messages and violent videos on Facebook and Instagram: more than 2,000 content moderators working for a subcontractor of the META group will be dismissed in Spain, due to the reduction of the regulation methods decided by the Californian giant.
The Canadian Telus International group, which used these employees on its Barcelona site, “formally presented a social plan” during a meeting with employee organizations, the Syndicat Ouvrières (CCOO) announced in a statement.
During this meeting, the management of the company indicated that “2,059 people” would be affected by this social plan, that is to say the “all of the employees” who carried out moderation tasks for Meta, Facebook and Instagram parent company, on the Barcelona site, said the union.
According to CCOO, who says he has signed an agreement in principle providing for “the highest legal compensation” possible for employees, this social plan was decided after the cancellation of the contract binding Telus International, which operated in Barcelona under the name of CCC Barcelona Digital Services, to the American group.
“By virtue of this pre -agreement, departures will occur in a timely manner during the months of May, June, July and September 2025” and “the persons concerned will receive compensation of 33 days per year worked,” said the UGT union, which also signed this compromise.
Despite the green light given to the latter, “we believe that the moderation sector requires the professionalization that these workers brought”, adds the union organization, which requires in its press release “a clear commitment to the creation of stable workstations”.
The cancellation of the contract between Meta and Telus International had been announced in early April by several Spanish unions, which had mentioned a possible impact for 2,000 employees, specifying that the exact number of affected persons should be the subject of negotiations.
Questioned by AFP, a spokesperson for Telus had then refused to confirm this figure, assuring that the discussions were underway and that Telus continued to work “for other locations” with this “customer”, of which he had not given the identity.
– “Too much censored content” –
Solicited on Monday, this spokesperson again refused to give the exact number of job cuts. “The priority remains to support the members of the affected team” by offering them “complete assistance, including relocation opportunities for as many as possible,” he said.
Contacted by AFP, Meta had not followed up on Monday afternoon. In early April, the Californian group assured that the end of its contract with Telus for its Barcelona site did not mean a reduction in its “content review efforts”.
“We still have around 40,000 people working on security, including 15,000 content moderators,” said the group chaired by Mark Zuckerberg, specifying continuing to “work with Telus through their global network”.
According to the unions, the Barcelona site has been working for Meta since 2018. Its moderators, installed in an emblematic building of the city, the Glorie tower, worked there on content in Spanish, Catalan, in French, Dutch, Hebrew and Portuguese.
The Meta group, which has invested billions of dollars in recent years to control sensitive content, announced in January the end of the Fact-Checking in the United States and the updating of its practices on content moderation, in order to rule out less messages likely to sprain its standards.
“Too much content was censored when they should not have been,” said the group, also owner of WhatsApp and Threads. This decision had been widely seen as a way to satisfy President Donald Trump, very critical of Meta’s moderation policy in recent years.
