‘Nine minutes to cry’: Congresswoman asks Zuckerberg if he would want to be a Facebook content moderator

Porter, however, used her time to discuss employment standards at Facebook.

She noted that Facebook is “known as a great place to work” and offers many benefits to its in-house employees but asserted that its contracted employees work in subpar conditions.

The congresswoman claimed Facebook has 15,000 contracted employees who maintain the platform’s content review program to analyze content that has been flagged as graphic, including murders and suicide.

She asked Zuckerberg if his employees make less than $30,000 per year without mental health benefits. Zuckerberg explained that contracted employees make a minimum of $15 per hour, with pay in cities with a high cost of living rising to $20 per hour.

Porter alleged Facebook offers content moderation employees only nine minutes of “supervised wellness time” per day.

“That means nine minutes to cry in the stairwell while somebody watches them,” she said.

Porter then asked Zuckerberg if he “would be willing” to spend one hour per day doing content moderation under the same conditions.

Zuckerberg replied by explaining that it wouldn’t be best for the company for the CEO “spent that much time” doing content moderation.

Porter didn’t accept that answer, instead demanding a yes-or-no response and asking Zuckerberg if he was unqualified to do the job of reviewing content.

“That’s not what I’m saying,” Zuckerberg said.

“Then you’re saying you’re not willing to do it,” Porter said, answering for Zuckerberg.

In a tweet, Porter touted the exchange, writing, “CEO grossly underpays employees doing excruciating work, [but] won’t commit to doing this work himself.”

Although Zuckerberg was there to discuss Libra, the questioning diverted to several other issues, including criticisms of Facebook’s political advertisement policy and its alleged racial discrimination in housing advertisements.