Meta Faces Global Tech Outage Affecting Content Moderation
6 Sources
6 Sources
[1]
Meta faces 'SEV1' crisis amid global tech outage disruptions
Like other social media companies, Meta uses a mix of AI and humans to police millions of posts on its platforms. While some moderation is done in-house, most of it is outsourced to business service vendors. These vendors employ thousands of low-paid workers who assess posts for hate speech, violence, and other violations of Meta's guidelines. Specifically, this outage affected two important systems: SRT and HumanOps -- both are used to route flagged content to moderators. The key vendors whose operations were impacted by this disruption included Teleperformance and Concentrix. Teleperformance did not respond to a request for comment. Concentrix said it was monitoring and addressing the impacts of the outage, but its operations continued at expected levels.
[2]
Meta content moderation vendors hit by global cyber outage
Some external vendors that police content on Facebook owner Meta's platforms were affected by the global tech outage that crippled airports, banks and hospitals on Friday, a Meta spokesperson said in response to a Reuters query. The social media giant experienced a SEV1 as a result of the disruptions, a source familiar with the matter told Reuters, using Meta's term for a "code red"-style alert involving high-stakes problems with its systems that require urgent attention. In a statement, the Meta spokesperson acknowledged the issues and said they had been resolved earlier in the day. "The global CrowdStrike outage earlier today temporarily impacted several of the tools used by some of our vendors. While this caused a small impact to some of our support operations, there was minimal to no impact on our content moderation efforts," the spokesperson said. Like most social media companies, Meta relies on a mix of artificial intelligence and human review to moderate the billions of posts made to its platforms, which also include Instagram, WhatsApp and Threads. Some of that human review is performed by Meta staffers, but most is outsourced to business services vendors employing armies of low-paid workers who assess whether the posts contain hate speech, violence and other violations of the company's rules. Friday's alert involved vendor access to two of the systems Meta uses to route content flagged for review to moderators, called SRT and HumanOps, the source told Reuters. Key vendors affected were Teleperformance and Concentrix, the person said. Teleperformance did not respond to a request for comment and Concentrix said it had been monitoring and addressing impacts from the outage and that operations were continuing at expected levels.
[3]
Meta content moderation vendors hit by global cyber outage
Some external vendors that police content on Facebook owner Meta's platforms were affected by the global tech outage that crippled airports, banks and hospitals on Friday, a Meta spokesperson said in response to a Reuters query. The social media giant experienced a SEV1 as a result of the disruptions, a source familiar with the matter told Reuters, using Meta's term for a "code red"-style alert involving high-stakes problems with its systems that require urgent attention. In a statement, the Meta spokesperson acknowledged the issues and said they had been resolved earlier in the day. "The global CrowdStrike outage earlier today temporarily impacted several of the tools used by some of our vendors. While this caused a small impact to some of our support operations, there was minimal to no impact on our content moderation efforts," the spokesperson said. Glitch in software update may have triggered global Microsoft-CrowdStrike outage: experts (For top technology news of the day, subscribe to our tech newsletter Today's Cache) Like most social media companies, Meta relies on a mix of artificial intelligence and human review to moderate the billions of posts made to its platforms, which also include Instagram, WhatsApp and Threads. Some of that human review is performed by Meta staffers, but most is outsourced to business services vendors employing armies of low-paid workers who assess whether the posts contain hate speech, violence and other violations of the company's rules. Friday's alert involved vendor access to two of the systems Meta uses to route content flagged for review to moderators, called SRT and HumanOps, the source told Reuters. Key vendors affected were Teleperformance and Concentrix, the person said. Teleperformance did not respond to a request for comment and Concentrix said it had been monitoring and addressing impacts from the outage and that operations were continuing at expected levels. Read Comments
[4]
Meta content moderation vendors hit by global cyber outage
In a statement, the Meta spokesperson acknowledged the issues and said they had been resolved earlier in the day. "The global CrowdStrike outage earlier today temporarily impacted several of the tools used by some of our vendors. While this caused a small impact to some of our support operations, there was minimal to no impact on our content moderation efforts," the spokesperson said. Like most social media companies, Meta relies on a mix of artificial intelligence and human review to moderate the billions of posts made to its platforms, which also include Instagram, WhatsApp and Threads. Some of that human review is performed by Meta staffers, but most is outsourced to business services vendors employing armies of low-paid workers who assess whether the posts contain hate speech, violence and other violations of the company's rules. Friday's alert involved vendor access to two of the systems Meta uses to route content flagged for review to moderators, called SRT and HumanOps, the source told Reuters. Key vendors affected were Teleperformance and Concentrix, the person said. Teleperformance did not respond to a request for comment and Concentrix said it had been monitoring and addressing impacts from the outage and that operations were continuing at expected levels. (Reporting by Katie Paul; Editing by Peter Henderson and Diane Craft)
[5]
Meta content moderation vendors hit by global cyber outage
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Some external vendors that police content on Facebook owner Meta's platforms were affected by the global tech outage that crippled airports, banks and hospitals on Friday, a Meta spokesperson said in response to a Reuters query. The social media giant experienced a SEV1 as a result of the disruptions, a source familiar with the matter told Reuters, using Meta's term for a "code red"-style alert involving high-stakes problems with its systems that require urgent attention. In a statement, the Meta spokesperson acknowledged the issues and said they had been resolved earlier in the day. "The global CrowdStrike outage earlier today temporarily impacted several of the tools used by some of our vendors. While this caused a small impact to some of our support operations, there was minimal to no impact on our content moderation efforts," the spokesperson said. Like most social media companies, Meta relies on a mix of artificial intelligence and human review to moderate the billions of posts made to its platforms, which also include Instagram, WhatsApp and Threads. Some of that human review is performed by Meta staffers, but most is outsourced to business services vendors employing armies of low-paid workers who assess whether the posts contain hate speech, violence and other violations of the company's rules. Friday's alert involved vendor access to two of the systems Meta uses to route content flagged for review to moderators, called SRT and HumanOps, the source told Reuters. Key vendors affected were Teleperformance and Concentrix, the person said. Teleperformance did not respond to a request for comment and Concentrix said it had been monitoring and addressing impacts from the outage and that operations were continuing at expected levels. (Reporting by Katie Paul; Editing by Peter Henderson and Diane Craft)
[6]
Meta content moderation vendors hit by global cyber outage
NEW YORK, July 19 (Reuters) - Some external vendors that police content on Facebook owner Meta's (META.O), opens new tab platforms were affected by the global tech outage that crippled airports, banks and hospitals on Friday, a Meta spokesperson said in response to a Reuters query. The social media giant experienced a SEV1 as a result of the disruptions, a source familiar with the matter told Reuters, using Meta's term for a "code red"-style alert involving high-stakes problems with its systems that require urgent attention. In a statement, the Meta spokesperson acknowledged the issues and said they had been resolved earlier in the day. "The global CrowdStrike outage earlier today temporarily impacted several of the tools used by some of our vendors. While this caused a small impact to some of our support operations, there was minimal to no impact on our content moderation efforts," the spokesperson said. Like most social media companies, Meta relies on a mix of artificial intelligence and human review to moderate the billions of posts made to its platforms, which also include Instagram, WhatsApp and Threads. Some of that human review is performed by Meta staffers, but most is outsourced to business services vendors employing armies of low-paid workers who assess whether the posts contain hate speech, violence and other violations of the company's rules. Friday's alert involved vendor access to two of the systems Meta uses to route content flagged for review to moderators, called SRT and HumanOps, the source told Reuters. Key vendors affected were Teleperformance (TEPRF.PA), opens new tab and Concentrix (CNXC.O), opens new tab, the person said. Teleperformance did not respond to a request for comment and Concentrix said it had been monitoring and addressing impacts from the outage and that operations were continuing at expected levels. Reporting by Katie Paul; Editing by Peter Henderson and Diane Craft Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles., opens new tab
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Meta, the parent company of Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp, is grappling with a severe technical crisis as its content moderation vendors experience a global cyber outage. The disruption has impacted the company's ability to moderate content across its platforms.
Global Tech Outage Hits Meta's Content Moderation
Meta, the tech giant behind Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp, is currently facing a significant challenge as its content moderation capabilities have been severely impacted by a global cyber outage. The company has classified this as a "SEV1" incident, indicating the highest level of severity for technical issues
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.Impact on Content Moderation Vendors
The outage has primarily affected Meta's third-party content moderation vendors, who play a crucial role in monitoring and filtering user-generated content across the company's social media platforms. These vendors, responsible for reviewing and removing potentially harmful or inappropriate content, have been unable to access Meta's tools and systems due to the technical disruption
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.Scope and Duration of the Outage
The cyber outage appears to be widespread, affecting content moderation operations globally. While the exact duration of the outage remains unclear, reports suggest that the issue has been ongoing for several hours. Meta has acknowledged the problem and is actively working to resolve it
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.Potential Consequences
This disruption raises concerns about the potential spread of harmful content on Meta's platforms during the outage period. With content moderators unable to perform their duties effectively, there is a risk of increased exposure to misinformation, hate speech, and other forms of problematic content for users of Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp
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Meta's Response and Mitigation Efforts
Meta has been quick to respond to the crisis, with its technical teams working around the clock to restore normal operations. The company has emphasized that the outage is not related to any intentional changes made to its content moderation systems. Meta is also exploring alternative methods to ensure content moderation continues, albeit at a potentially reduced capacity, while the main systems are being restored
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.Broader Implications for Tech Industry
This incident highlights the vulnerabilities in the complex ecosystem of content moderation that major tech companies rely on. It underscores the importance of robust cybersecurity measures and redundancy systems to prevent such large-scale disruptions. The outage also brings attention to the critical role that content moderation plays in maintaining the integrity and safety of social media platforms
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.As Meta continues to address this SEV1 crisis, the tech industry and regulators will likely be watching closely, potentially leading to discussions about improving the resilience of content moderation systems and the need for more robust backup solutions in the future.
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