Wipro Helps Facebook ‘Label’ User Posts, Raising Privacy Concerns

Up to 260 workers from Wipro have been categorising and labelling posts by Facebook users for over a year now.

Up to 260 Wipro contract workers have been sifting through status updates and other content posted on Facebook since 2014.

(Photo Courtesy: The Quint/Arnica Kale)

Among thousands of content ‘labellers’ employed by Facebook across the world, Wipro Ltd in Hyderabad is one such company that has contract workers categorising and labelling posts by Facebook users for over a year now.

According to a Reuters report, up to 260 contract workers who are a part of Wipro, have been sifting through status updates, pictures and other content posted on the social networking site since 2014. Wipro was reportedly roped in on April 2018 when they received a 4-million-dollar contract from Facebook and hired 260 labellers to analyse posts.

How Does The Labelling Work?

The project also called ‘data annotation’ has workers categorise items according to five ‘dimensions’.

1. Subjects of the post

2. What’s the occasion that warrants the post

3. The thoughts and opinions behind the post

4. The reason why the post was shared

5. Setting of the post

The aim of categorising posts reportedly was to aid Facebook in understanding the changing nature of posts that users are uploading and help the company develop new features to attract more users and generate ad revenue. Facebook told Reuters that the intention was also to train an automated tool that could help advertisers avoid sponsoring videos that are adult or political in nature.

Wipro workers and Facebook told Reuters that the posts are a random sampling of content uploaded on the site and are taken from Instagram and Facebook users across the world. The languages selected include English, Hindi and Arabic. Each item is reportedly checked by two labellers and if they disagree, a third person checks for accuracy. 

Reuters reported that one person in Hyderabad working for outsourcing vendor Cognizant Technology Solutions Corp said he and at least 500 colleagues look for sensitive topics in Facebook videos.

The publication reported that Wipro workers said they see 700 items on an average each day, while Facebook claimed the target was lower. Apart from India, Facebook reportedly stated that labellers were roped in from Romania, Manila and Timisoara from the Philippines are involved in the same project.

Violation Of Privacy?

Users have no say in the labelling of their posts, not just posts that have been made ‘public’ but the ‘private’ ones too. The labellers working with Wipro reportedly have access to posts shared by users even among a closed circles of ‘friends’ on Facebook.

Reuters reports that Facebook acknowledged that some of the posts being sifted through also include names of the users.

“We make it clear in our data policy that we use the information people provide to Facebook to improve their experience and that we might work with service providers to help in this process.”

Facebook Spokesperson to <i>Reuters </i>

Addressing the query on privacy, Facebook told Reuters that its legal and privacy teams must sign off on all labelling efforts, also claiming that it recently introduced an auditing system to ensure privacy expectations are being followed.

However, with the company already facing multiple investigations into privacy breeches, the latest revelation only raises more concerns.