skinned alive or simply mark it as disturbing content moderators job is an impossible one he saidimagecreditlauren withrow for the new york timesin 2018 accenture introduced wecare policies that mental health counselors said limited their ability to treat workers their titles were changed to wellness coaches and they were instructed not to give psychological assessments or diagnoses but to provide shortterm support like taking walks or listening to calming music the goal according to a 2018 accenture guidebook was to teach moderators how to respond to difficult situations and contentaccentures ms jones said the company was committed to helping our people who do this important work succeed both professionally and personally workers can see outside psychologistsby 2019 scrutiny of the industry was growing that year cognizant said it was exiting content moderation after the tech site the verge described the low pay and mental health effects of workers at an arizona office cognizant said the decision would cost it at least 240 million in revenue and lead to 6000 job cutsinternal debatemore than one accenture chief executive debated doing business with facebookin 2017 pierre nanterme accentures chief at the time questioned the ethics of the work and whether it fit the firms longterm strategy of providing services with high profit margins and technical expertise three executives involved in the discussions saidno actions were taken mr nanterme died from cancer in january 2019five months later ms sweet a longtime accenture lawyer and executive was named chief executive she soon ordered the review of the moderation business three former colleagues saidexecutives prepared reports and debated how the work compared with jobs like an ambulance driver consultants were sent to observe moderators and their managersthe office in austin which had opened in 2017 was selected for an audit as part of ms sweets review the city was also home to a facebook office and had large populations of spanish and arabic speakers to read nonenglish posts at its peak accentures austin office had about 300 moderators parsing through facebook postsbut some workers there became unhappy about the pay and viewing so much toxic content organizing through text messages and internal message boards they called for better wages and benefits some shared their stories with the mediaimagecreditlauren withrow for the new york timeslast year a worker in austin was one of two from accenture who joined a classaction suit against facebook filed by us moderators facebook argued that it was not liable because the workers were employed by firms like accenture according to court records the social network reached a 52 million settlement with the workers in may 2020for ms sweet the debate over the facebook contracts stretched out over several meetings former executives said she subsequently made several changesin december 2019 accenture created a twopage legal disclosure to inform moderators about the risks of the job the work had the potential to negatively impact your emotional or mental health the document saidlast october accenture went further it listed content moderation for the first