Facebook, Inc (NASDAQ:FB) has admitted that it used human contractors played a part in its review of the user recordings. However, it disclosed that it had stopped employing human contractors for the review process.
This has been ongoing for quite some time without the knowledge of the platform users. These human contractors would review and transcribe the various audio clips of Facebook users.
The social media leader’s take on the matter
The social media giant opened up, that it stopped the exercise about a week ago. In its defense, the company outlines that the human contractors had been initially hired for a noble cause. They were to check whether or not anonymized conversations were transcribed correctly on the Messenger app. Facebook said that it was a matter of great importance for it to establish the accuracy levels of the transcription tool.
Some other companies have also been employing human contractors just like Google. These include Amazon, Microsoft and Apple.
It is a controversial matter as users won’t be taking quite easily. To the best knowledge of most of them, their recording would only be listened by artificial intelligence.
The messenger and various company dynamics
Messenger has been a useful tool since 2005. The tool has enabled the transcription of voice clips into text messages. However, it is worth noting that they would be turned off by default. The social media guru says that only users that opted for the feature encountered the recent saga.
The company’s support page has numerous provisions as well. It outlines something regarding a case where one individual in a user’s chat gives consent to Facebook conversion transcription. According to the page’s provision, it doesn’t matter the sender since all audios in the thread get automatically translated.
The social media leader has a lot of disturbing questions to answer regarding the matter. It needs to explain its actions in an elaborate fashion considering the nature of its terms of service. There is no single place where it outlines anything to do with the use of humans in the audio reviewing. The debate continues, and Facebook will be tasked with giving a more satisfactory answer to users.