A VISIT TO FACEBOOK'S RECENTLY OPENED CENTER FOR DELETING CONTENT

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Our tour of one of Germany's new content moderation centers gave us a look at Facebook’s content moderation—and what it means for the people who have to enforce its deletion rules.

For the first time, Facebook granted journalists access to its new center in Essen, Germany for deleting content from its platform. In the five-story building, more than 400 employees are already deleting comments, photos, and videos that break Facebook’s rules.

During this process, employees sometimes have to review disturbing videos and photos. A large portion of the visible content is either hate speech, spam, or content created by fake accounts, a Facebook spokesperson told me. These employees are essentially taking the trash out created by Facebook's 2 billion monthly active users from across the globe. The content that isn’t allowed on Facebook—according to the platform’s own rules—needs to be reviewed and deleted by the content moderators. This important work is complex and exhausting.

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