Just an Observation,

Current news is indicating that almost every 2 weeks nearly 1000 new job losses are occurring in the SF and Santa Clara County area. This pattern seems to be having a local impact on the real estate market. More homes are being sold and a lot of people are leaving apartments in Mountain View.

My apartment saw 4 units have people leave, and I have seen 3 houses sold on Centre Street and another just got a sign on Calderon. To me it definitely looks like there is a surge in people leaving Mountain View.

The increasing loss of demand in this area is going to hit it very hard, I can see that the kind of future in Mountain view is VERY different than many think it will be. I kind of said to the City Council in Jan 2020 that Covid and AB5 was going to make a major change in the city, it was not going to be just a 30-90 day change. And it looks like my observations have proven correct.

According to Zumper the rents are still at the same rate as it was in 2016 or earlier, clearly not recovered from the current economic reality. Another resource indicates that only 15 sales of homes took place in the city in October a drop of 34%. Some research indicates almost 100 homes are for sale at this time. And i can see that many homes sold after significant price cuts.

The city needs to publicly address the trends and provide the city transparent status reports so the city can be ready for what will happen in the next year.

I am laid off too so I don't want to seem unsympathetic. Working from home is great but the bottom line is that contract workers don't get to tell Facebook how to run the company. Nor are they in a position to complain about lack of perks. The job of content moderator does not require any special skill. There will be fewer jobs at less pay for everyone. I also see crime and poverty rising in Mountain View.

Just an Observation,

Since Twitter has dropped all moderation of the service, Apple has to drop them because without moderators the Section 230 protection from lawsuits is lost.

And if Meta continues what it is doing, they will likely be in the same position.

And Alphabet is likely going to have to drop Twitter and Meta too.

Remember these platforms are PRIVATE, meaning no business has any constitutional protection to be on them.

Content moderators are not unskilled workers too. They have to scour all information and find reputable resources to determine whether comments made are misinformation or worse.

I think that also since AB5 is in effect, if you are a content moderator, you cannot be a contractor. Because you are controlling assets that belong to the company, following rules set by the company, doing work in the services of the type the company provides. I strongly suspect this layoff had nothing to do with contractors rights.

It was a false reasoning stated by Meta to avoid possibly waking up the state from pursuing violations of AB5.

As a person with an HRM degree, I noticed this many years ago. The facts are contractors cannot do this work anymore.

That is why also Twitter just dumped so many workers.

The article makes a wrong assumption that Meta lied about remote work. What could have happened is that employees in Fremont are now working from home, freeing up space for the Mountain View operation to work on site at that location. Bottom line is they are also having complete layoffs, where people don't work for Meta any more at all. But they could still be letting more of those remaining work remotely, even if not the content monitoring group once located at San Antonio Center.

They might also change their contractors, because with more available workers, there could be job shops that can staff up at less cost than an Accenture contract! They might want workers on site because they are about to switch contractors.

Just an Observation,

LongResident, you are not understanding that AB5 makes it illegal for anyone to be an IT contractor for any business unless the contractor themselves owns the computers, the software, the networks,, and the domain names of the company.

To me, the idea that a corporation would publish a false rationale regarding this situation is because if they say the truth, they admit to violating AB5 and the state would be on them in a New York second.

Contractors are DEAD in CA. Unless AB5 is repealed. That is NOT going to happen. Unfortunately, the state allowed the violation of independent contractor/employee legal standards to prevent the eventual costs of compliance. But NOW there is no way around it.

Just like Google/Alphabets promises regarding housing, tech employment is nothing but wishful thinking.

Accenture is a contractor just not an individual contract worker. They are fully legal and the article mentions them as being at least one of the contracting companies moved to work In Fremont. .. just an observation.

Just an Observation,

LongResident, are you seriously expecting a company like Meta to outsource their ENTIRE infrastructure, given that the websites are directly connected with a revenue stream. Stockholders would be dropping them like a bad habit if they were aware of this, right? Oh yes, Meta stock has dropped like a rock actually. it is 50% of what it was Jan 1.

Any failure of Meta to operate for just a few seconds costs millions of dollars. Talking as a CISSP a certified IT Security Professional, that kind of action would be a direct failure to perform due diligence regarding both personal identifying Information, but also the danger of liability due to advertiser law suits.

The only way Accenture could do that work would be that the Accenture owns all assets regarding any IT infrastructure. Even if one computer in that structure is actually owned by META, or any software application is owned by META, or any rules and procedures are controlled by META, renders that a illegal contract.

How do I know, I have a Business Degree in Human resources from San Jose State University. It sounds like I should report Accenture and Meta to the State Dept of Justice, Bonta the Attorney General loves cases like this.

What I said is that according to the article they are indeed using some services from Accenture. Obviously that's not their entire web infrastructure nor their entire application infrastructure. The article talks about Accenture providing the content monitoring services at least part of them. So just read the article carefully.

JUst an Observation,

LongResident, whatever services had better be no related to ANY revenue generating business. That would include an Content Moderations because it is critical to prevent liability regarding Section 230 immunity.

I understand that most people have no education regarding the complexity of the legal regulations. So I am not trying to be confrontational. I am just trying to get the readers here to understand the problem here.

I understand a lot of people have lost 50% of their investment into Meta/Facebook. The facts are most "Social Media, Internet Services, and Gig Economy investors have lost at least 30% of their investments this year, and in some cases as much as 70%.

And there is no indication that will ever recover that is gone and it may take at least 5 years to even break even.

I just am observing that the long delayed bill of illegal cost offset ant lack of compliance with federal and state and local tax regulations is hitting the area hard. So far there is no indication of legislation going to change the IRS standards in Washington.

And in the most part the only way to recover is to completely relocate all of the work done by contractors OUTSIDE the state of CA. But if the courts eventually rule that AB5 standards apply nationwide, it won't make any difference.

What “John” forgot to mention is that the material he sees is so disturbing that he needs counseling right after his shift before he is sent home. Meta content moderator have this added service where they need to be connected to a counselor immediately. This mitigates the risk of having “John” off his zoom session and someone crying in his basement, or hurting himself or his family member. There is immediate intervention for “John” on the job.