A Forbes report reveals the way in which the TikTok content moderation team manages videos and photographs related to child abuse, because according to the magazine, this type of content would be left very accessible.
According to the media, a team of tiktok, hired by teleperformance, revealed that during training and on other occasions they had to review a file that contained videos and images of violence and sexual abuse of minors.
The disturbing thing here is that both people from TikTok and Teleperformance could access the mentioned content, even from outside the offices.
But without a doubt, what has caused the most impact on the internet, since this publication went viral, are the testimonies of the people who worked for the well-known Call Center.
For example, Whitney Turner got an unpleasant surprise when she entered as a new agent for the aforementioned campaign, “after spending just over a year at Teleperformance, I have been struggling to function properly” adds the woman, who also mentions that She frequently runs away, gets angry for no reason, and is haunted by suicidal thoughts.
Although the customer service company is one of the largest on the planet and is even one of the employers for call center agents most famous in Latin America, this event occurred in El Paso (United States), which is where the operations center of the campaign in charge of moderating the content of the social network is located.
It was in that Texas town that Whitney, who worked for a renovation company earning $16, saw the opportunity to increase her income to $18.50 an hour as “police officer for TikTok”, Well, that’s what a recruiter told him.
Regarding the legality of keeping these files with mass access under the premise of being “reference material” for TikTok and Teleperformance employees, Mary Graw Leary, former United States federal prosecutor, says that “all audiovisual material containing child pornography , by law it must be treated as contraband, similar to drug treatment.
She explains by way of example the following “If you come across drugs in the workplace or at school, and you’re an assistant principal, you wouldn’t put them on your desk and bring them out at the next faculty meeting to say, this is what cocaine looks like.”
With this, the retired official points out that This type of content is very sensitive from a legal perspective and that is why under no circumstances can it be stored and/or reproduced. by any person or entity that is not part of the state department in charge of this type of matter.
As for the parties involved, Teleperformance’s global president of trust and security, Akash Pugalia, assures that the company does not use child pornography videos to train its employees and likewise does not store such material in its systems.
On the TikTok side, the spokesperson for the Chinese technology company, Jamie Favazza, affirms that the consultation content for the moderators’ training maintains strict access controls and does not include inappropriate visual material, but that outsourced companies could handle other types of processes.
Other experts in legality and cyber security in the North American country indicated that this type of practice, in addition to re-victimizing the minors involved, is reckless and unnecessary. Specifically, David Vladek, director of the faculty of the Georgetown Center for Privacy and Technology, states that “Using real life examples to train new employees is irresponsible.”
Nasser, a war veteran who entered the company’s campaign for a time with the expectation of earning a little more money, says that what he had to do with Teleperformance has been more traumatic than his time with the army.
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