Chinese video platform Bilibili has vowed to hire 1,000 new content moderators and monitor employee health more closely after one moderator died from overwork, Reuters reports. The incident came to light from a user of the Weibo microblogging platform. Last week, he revealed that an employee had died as a result of prolonged hard work moderating content during the Chinese New Year celebration.
A 25-year-old man from Wuhan became ill at home on Saturday, according to the Guardian. He was hospitalized and in the evening he died in the hospital. Representatives from Bilibili went to the hospital to provide assistance and notified the family of the man's death. According to Bloomberg, he died as a result of a cerebral hemorrhage.
The situation has received wide publicity on the Web. In response to the allegations, the company pointed out that the employee worked eight hours a day and did not overtime. Bilibili denies that the death was caused by overwork. A special team has been set up to investigate the incident, working alongside law enforcement agencies, but the details of the case and the names of the victims have not been disclosed. They also recall resonant cases with the death of employees of the Chinese company Pinduoduo. In particular, in December 2020, one of the workers fainted on the way home after a hard midnight shift. She died six hours later in the hospital.
However, the platform assured that it was very concerned about the reaction of users and promised to increase control over the health of employees in order to prevent such tragedies from occurring. Expanding the staff of moderators should reduce the burden on current staff. The company will also check the condition of the staff working in the content moderation departments more often.
The situation has once again raised the sore point for China overtime work. Users denounced the companies for the 996 system - work from 9 am to 9 pm six days a week. In September 2021, this system was declared illegal in China. They demand to open a criminal case on the fact of the death of an employee and the ruthless culture of forced overtime towards employees. Users in China are urging people not to recycle, no matter the cost.
Last year, Facebook moderators, hired through the outsourcing company Accenture, also began to complain about working conditions. They even bought a mobile billboard to complain about low wages. It featured a photo of Accenture CEO Julie Sweet and a call to stop exploiting their workers. He began his journey in Bethesda, Maryland, where Sweet lives, and ended in Washington, DC.
The main complaints of employees are related to the unfair ratio of the level of workload and salary. In addition, they constantly asked the company to provide benefits and improve working conditions, but their requests were ignored. Moderators daily process hundreds of messages with negative content (with real murders, sexual violence, inciting hatred and more), which cannot but affect their health and psychological state. Instead of full-fledged psychological assistance, Accenture offers psychological training to moderators.
bbabo.Net