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The trauma of Facebook’s content moderators

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Re: The trauma of Facebook’s content moderators

#11

Post by throwaway0a5e »

dmalvarado wrote: post #10
MattGaiser wrote: post #3

They should recruit people on Reddit for this. A large number of them seem perfectly fine with this type of content. There are dedicated communities to all these things. I do not mean this as a hit against Reddit users. It is just that there are small pockets of people who are psychologically capable of tolerating this or even enjoy it. It seems more ethical to hire people from /r/watchpeopledie.

Perhaps. I would argue that there is some difference between seeing someone fall off a cliff and watching someone being tortured to death.

Then they should run sidebar ads on the gore sites. The point is that there appears to be a subset of the population that is not traumatized by this stuff. We may as well give them an opportunity to put that difference to use.

Edit: and saying things like "well clearly these people are already traumatized if they're seeking this out, it's not good for them, we shouldn't give these jobs to them" seems laughably paternalistic when the alternative is to traumatize more people by making them look at it instead.

Re: The trauma of Facebook’s content moderators

#12

Post by MattGaiser »

dmalvarado wrote: post #10
MattGaiser wrote: post #3

They should recruit people on Reddit for this. A large number of them seem perfectly fine with this type of content. There are dedicated communities to all these things. I do not mean this as a hit against Reddit users. It is just that there are small pockets of people who are psychologically capable of tolerating this or even enjoy it. It seems more ethical to hire people from /r/watchpeopledie.

Perhaps. I would argue that there is some difference between seeing someone fall off a cliff and watching someone being tortured to death.

There were pockets where the video of the Jordanian pilot being burned to death by ISIS was popular. Same with the raw video of the New Zealand shooting.

Obviously not everyone, but they are there.

Re: The trauma of Facebook’s content moderators

#13

Post by kylecazar »

MattGaiser wrote: post #3

They should recruit people on Reddit for this. A large number of them seem perfectly fine with this type of content. There are dedicated communities to all these things. I do not mean this as a hit against Reddit users. It is just that there are small pockets of people who are psychologically capable of tolerating this or even enjoy it. It seems more ethical to hire people from /r/watchpeopledie.

I'd wonder if frequents in these subreddits are typically professional and healthy people to have on a team, though (honestly no idea, never been).

It's a strange conundrum because ideally you want good people who are comfortable watching things good people rarely want to watch.

Don't have much experience with this demographic -- maybe there are more sane, emotionally healthy people watching snuff films for fun than I instinctively expect.

Re: The trauma of Facebook’s content moderators

#14

Post by ceejayoz »

throwaway0a5e wrote: post #11
dmalvarado wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps. I would argue that there is some difference between seeing someone fall off a cliff and watching someone being tortured to death.

Then they should run sidebar ads on the gore sites. The point is that there appears to be a subset of the population that is not traumatized by this stuff. We may as well give them an opportunity to put that difference to use. Edit: and saying things like "well clearly these people are already traumatized if they're seeking this out, it's not good for them, we shouldn't give these jobs to them" seems laughably patern…

How do we know they're not traumatized by it?

That they seek it out doesn't mean they're not messed up.

Re: The trauma of Facebook’s content moderators

#15

Post by ceejayoz »

anonu wrote: post #2

Can we build better AI off of the data these moderators have generated to make their lives easier? Can you crowdsource the moderation task to double check what the ai is flagging?

> Can you crowdsource the moderation task to double check what the ai is flagging?

"Facebook sent me child porn" is probably not a headline Facebook wants out there.

Re: The trauma of Facebook’s content moderators

#16

Post by throwaway0a5e »

kylecazar wrote: post #13
MattGaiser wrote: post #3

They should recruit people on Reddit for this. A large number of them seem perfectly fine with this type of content. There are dedicated communities to all these things. I do not mean this as a hit against Reddit users. It is just that there are small pockets of people who are psychologically capable of tolerating this or even enjoy it. It seems more ethical to hire people from /r/watchpeopledie.

I'd wonder if frequents in these subreddits are typically professional and healthy people to have on a team, though (honestly no idea, never been). It's a strange conundrum because ideally you want good people who are comfortable watching things good people rarely want to watch. Don't have much experience with this demographic -- maybe there are more sane, emotionally healthy people watching snuff films for fun than…

As long as they have a pulse and can sit in the chair long enough to do the job they'll likely be fine. Content moderation farms, call centers and the like tend to optimize their internal processes such that they don't need to restrict their hiring to "professional and healthy people". There are plenty of people who are insane and unhealthy that can hack this sort of work.

Re: The trauma of Facebook’s content moderators

#18

Post by codekansas »

anonu wrote: post #2

Can we build better AI off of the data these moderators have generated to make their lives easier? Can you crowdsource the moderation task to double check what the ai is flagging?

Easier said than done

https://time.com/5739688/facebook-hate-speech-languages/

Re: The trauma of Facebook’s content moderators

#19

Post by pantaloony »

Radical idea: if your service requires subjecting lots and lots of workers to scarring images, the correct solution is for that service not to exist.

Facebook doesn’t have to let people post material to their site with very low barriers to entry. Granted they have to if they want to continue to be what they are and to make tons of money... but maybe they shouldn’t continue to be what they are and make tons of money if this kind of abuse is necessarily coupled to those outcomes.

“Well this sucks but we can’t keep operating if we don’t do it”. Well... sure but the solution is right there in that statement. Don’t keep operating.

Re: The trauma of Facebook’s content moderators

#20

Post by amelius »

MattGaiser wrote: post #3

They should recruit people on Reddit for this. A large number of them seem perfectly fine with this type of content. There are dedicated communities to all these things. I do not mean this as a hit against Reddit users. It is just that there are small pockets of people who are psychologically capable of tolerating this or even enjoy it. It seems more ethical to hire people from /r/watchpeopledie.

Perhaps we could use DL to "dehumanize" the content.

For example, instead of showing one person torturing another person, a DL filter could turn the scene into two teddy bears torturing eachother.

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