The trauma of Facebook’s content moderators

Post by ksdale » Wed, Jul 22, 2020, 10:08 PM UTC

justanotheranon wrote: post #174

untog wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It is just that there are small pockets of people who are psychologically capable of tolerating this or even enjoy it. I wouldn't assume "watches this stuff" and "is psychologically capable of tolerating this stuff" are one and the same. Those people might be actively harming themselves by watching the content. That's one thing when they're volunteering to do so (though that's an interesting conversation in and of…

I think the best counter to becoming desensitized or depressed is having an over arching sense of mission and identifying your work with a cause for good that is greater than yourself. take ER doctors. they daily witness human trauma far worse than viewing horror show videos and images. do you ever hear about ER docs who become depressed or mentally ill from being exposed to so much horrific human suffering? Doctors…

Post by ErikVandeWater » Wed, Jul 22, 2020, 10:17 PM UTC

indigochill wrote: post #78

CM30 wrote: post #25

It's probably a bit controversial to say this, but haven't large sites had to deal with these problems for years by the time the likes of Facebook/Twitter/YouTube/Instagram/whatever came around? It's obviously horrible doing this as a job and it's obviously a bit more common on Facebook than say, a large old school internet forum, but... at least in this case people are paid to do this. Reddit mods and old school for…

>at least in this case people are paid to do this. I've done commercial moderation before and I would sooner go jobless than go back to exposing myself to the kinds of things people have to when doing this professionally. It's the kind of things you wish there was a brain cleaning solution for, but there isn't so it's stuck there basically forever (though I suspect the alcoholism rate is higher among people who have…

Post by jfax » Wed, Jul 22, 2020, 10:36 PM UTC

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.

Post by totetsu » Wed, Jul 22, 2020, 10:41 PM UTC

Post by intopieces » Wed, Jul 22, 2020, 10:46 PM UTC

falcrist wrote: post #189

intopieces wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Size is not the determining factor. It's a single factor that highly influences the value in posting damaging content. It's clear from the rise of influencers on YT, IG, Twitter, etc -- as well as the prolific use of these platforms by terrorists and other malefactors -- that being able to reach many people with a single post is a significant driver of people to post content. My concern is not primarily with the outs…

> My concern is not primarily with the outsourcing of moderation, but with the type of moderation that is required. But the problem doesn't go away when you shrink the size of the social media site. The same people will still try to post disturbing content. In fact, you're giving them more places to post that content, so potentially more people will have to moderate it. > There are ways to limit the kind of content t…