Róisín Garvey (Green Party) | Oireachtas source

I thank the witnesses for coming in. Well done to Ms Plunkett. She is a brave woman. I am so glad Foxglove is involved as well. I had a meeting with the organisation before. I have been engaged with this issue since January when other employees reached out to me. I had a meeting with Foxglove and then engaged with Facebook. I have a few questions and perhaps the witnesses will bear with me.

On paper, Ms Plunkett is employed by this other company, we might call it a middleman or buffer zone. Is any pressure put on this other company, by Foxglove or anybody else, to look at it being responsible for the employees' welfare? It is easy for Facebook to say it is not responsible because it does not employ them directly. Is there a way of putting pressure on the other company to see what it is doing, taking things at face value? It seems the other company is the one protecting the big giant. It is kind of the buffer zone so the first step would be to look at it and what it is doing to protect its employees.

In my correspondence with Facebook, it made a clear distinction about working from home and not being allowed to work from home as a moderator, which was the initial problem brought to me in January. Facebook said there are certain categories of content review work which should only be carried out by reviewers in the office. According to Facebook, these include some of the most critical and highly sensitive work streams, including child safety and things like that. Facebook, therefore, sees a distinction. This being the case, it must be asked of Facebook what it is doing to give extra protections and training to the moderators who must deal with that, because Facebook sees it as a distinction in the moderators. It is saying it lets some work from home but the ones who work with this content cannot work from home, so it obviously sees a distinction. If Facebook does so, where then is the distinction in the supports these moderators need and get? I have it here in writing from Facebook that it sees a distinction. What then is it doing about that? It is something interesting to look that.

I think that was it. I thank the witnesses and hope we can finally get to this. It has been going on for quite a long time now and I really value Foxglove being involved. Ms Crider mentioned there were cases pending. Were any of them in Ireland?

A final query. When Ms Plunkett took the job, was she given any particular training on how to deal with moderating darker content or is every moderator given the same training? I ask because Facebook obviously distinguishes between them in the answer I got from it.