[BurningFrog]

> Ah, right, because if you're lucky enough to be making more than your peers, you should shut up and deal with doing so in a horrible environment.

These are the best jobs these people can get. If the "sweatshop" closes down, they're be doing somewhere worse.

Maybe you throw out this shitty provocation as a way to avoid thinking about that fact?

[jjulius]

If "the best jobs these people can get" amount to viewing untold volumes of graphic content of wildly varying extremes, then we should absolutely be having a conversation about how employers should be treating them.

Edit: We can - and should - be working to improve conditions for everyone, but just because "these people" have it better relative to everyone else in their immediate vicinity doesn't mean they need to shut up, be thankful and deal with it.

[BurningFrog]

You keep arguing that these workers shouldn't have to shut up. Which nobody here has said.

So we don't seem to be in the same conversation.

[jjulius]

I feel like you're seizing too literally on that phrase. Let's get on the same page before we continue...

>These are the best jobs these people can get. If the "sweatshop" closes down, they're be doing somewhere worse.

The implication that I read here is that you're saying "these people" should be grateful for having to work under the conditions they're working under because life could always be worse and this is the best they will have it.

Is that an accurate read of your comment?

[BurningFrog]

Not at all. Why would I have opinion about what poor africans "should" feel? Who even thinks like that?

I just meant what I wrote.

The implication, to spell it out, is that if you succeed in closing down these jobs, you'll make life worse for the workers you claim to care about.

BTW, why do you quote "these people"?

[jjulius]

>The implication, to spell it out, is that if you succeed in closing down these jobs, you'll make life worse for the workers you claim to care about.

Please find where I said we should close down these jobs.

[BurningFrog]

OK, you personally didn't, but it's what much of the critique amounts to.

Have we maybe run out of disagreements?

[tclancy]

Whether they are the best jobs or not, the fact the company explains not paying more than US$1-2.50/ hour because it would "distort" the local labor markets makes 0 sense. It's brutal work and underpaying for it by outsourcing the jobs to poorer places is a way of hiding true costs, much like how we ship our trash to other countries so we can feel better about "recycling" when they throw it away.

[el-salvador]

> "distort" the local labor markets makes 0 sense.

I dont want to seem to defend Facebook or the company mentioned in the article. However there are unintended consequences when the labor market is abruptly distorted by foreign companies.

When the first outsourced English speaking call centers opened in my city, they paid more than the average for English speakers. The foreign call centers paid about 50% more than the average salary for English speakers.

So many English teachers left their jobs and joined the call centers, including some of my teachers in high school. So we were left some months without much to do at school or with definitely underqualified temporary teachers who spoke English worse than we did. I think about 40% of our school-year was affected for this.

The next school year, the school had to increase tuition, and hired new teachers with higher salaries.

On one hand teachers salaries increased, but also school became more expensive for my parents to pay while my faimily's income remained the same.

[jsnell]

Unless I'm misreading the article, this office is dealing with moderating content from sub-Saharan Africa, not dealing with "our trash". It is not that jobs are being outsourced to where they are cheapest, these jobs fundamentally have to be located somewhere in the region. You just couldn't hire enough people with the right language skills for this kind of work in the US.

[FabHK]

Required language skills (in several African languages) were mentioned in the article, so that's not implausible.

[BurningFrog]

There is philosophical mismatch here.

To me, if you can get qualified workers for $2/hour, that's all you should pay. End of discussion.

If people accept the job offers, you are, by definition, not underpaying. It clearly helps the local economy, lifts people somewhat out of poverty, and is a classic win-win situation.

[toqy]

Exactly, if you aren't willing to exploit Africans what are you even doing?

[BurningFrog]

Looks like you need to read the HN commenting guidelines:

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

[toqy]

I've read them and found no issues. Thanks for your concern.