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The trauma of Facebook’s content moderators

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Re: The trauma of Facebook’s content moderators

#201

Post by mirimir »

DavidVoid wrote: post #102

That was good article and I think something really needs to be done to make content moderation more humane. This quote from the article “It gets to a point where you can eat your lunch while watching a video of someone dying. … But at the end of the day, you still have to be human.” reminded me of a similar article published by WIRED six years ago [1]. Eight years after the fact, Jake Swearingen can still recall the…

> ... make content moderation more humane.

Modest proposal: Find people who enjoy horrific content, and have them rate it. Then black-hole whatever they rate as most extreme.

I was is a dark place after 9/11, both from the trauma of that, and some personal issues. So I spent considerable time on Rotten, Something Awful, and worse. Based on that experience, many would likely do content moderation for free.

Re: The trauma of Facebook’s content moderators

#202

Post by droffel »

TonyTrapp wrote: post #164
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…

I have moderated several forums over the course of 15+ years, and I have never come across this kind of content. But then again, all of them were very specialized in their topics. I still am convinced that we would be better off if we went back to small forums for people sharing common interests rather than having a huge platform. People can police their small group of peers much more easily. It works.

Communities grow - I think this kind of strategy only works on a small scale. If it was adopted en masse, it becomes self defeating. Suggesting everyone change groups the moment their current group reaches a certain size ignores the greater point, which is that these large groups are going to exist/emerge regardless.

Re: The trauma of Facebook’s content moderators

#203

Post by throwanem »

remcob wrote: post #115
indigochill wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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…

> wish there was a brain cleaning solution 'Drug-induced amnesia' to reduce long term memory generation is a thing and is sometimes used before traumatic surgical procedures. It needs to be taken in advance and is probably not very healthy. Plus I would have serious ethical concerns with jobs that would encourage that.

I've had procedures where those drugs are used. They're benzodiazepines, and thus powerfully sedating. You are in no sense able to work while doped to the eyeballs with Versed.

Re: The trauma of Facebook’s content moderators

#204

Post by untog »

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…

> do you ever hear about ER docs who become depressed or mentally ill from being exposed to so much horrific human suffering?

Yes you do! But I would imagine it is at least somewhat offset by the fact that they are doing a lot of good: they are saving people from death while also witnessing death. I think a content moderator would struggle to feel such a strong sense of purpose.

Re: The trauma of Facebook’s content moderators

#205

Post by ece »

Thorentis wrote: post #196

Only a human should be able to decide what other humans can and cannot see. A future where computers are responsible for "deciding" what information we consume about the world is not one I want to live in. Computers are already being used as tools of censorship, we don't need it to be expanded further.

If computers can help with spam, they can certainly help with other well-defined and well-audited types of illegal and misinformed content.

It would be worse to not invest in more automation, even malpractice.

Re: The trauma of Facebook’s content moderators

#206

Post by shadowgovt »

uniqueid wrote: post #190
shadowgovt wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What real agency does the system you propose offer? Because one down-moderation from a volunteer moderator is a drop in the bucket. Meanwhile, if your system requires users to view beheading videos regularly, people will just migrate to a site that doesn't require that.

If I had to come up with a system, it would be some sort of reputation hierarchy, with a small number of paid employees at the top. Each level is responsible for auditing the levels under them. > What real agency does the system you propose offer? The ability for millions of users to moderate themselves. So... fast response time, by opinionated, emotionally-invested moderators, as opposed to the status quo: slow resp…

> occasionally

Precisely. How often? Close to never.

Re: The trauma of Facebook’s content moderators

#207

Post by briandear »

agentdrtran wrote: post #132
kevinskii wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It would be great if there were a way to make content moderation more humane, but perhaps this is like saying that it would be great if we could make hospital emergency room work more humane. It is unavoidably traumatic, and ER staff are known to detach and use dark humor as a coping mechanism. Content moderation is a similarly noble and difficult profession.

ER staff are paid a lot more, are sometimes even in a union, and also get the benefit of helping people and seeing the effect of their help.

Having worked as a psych tech and later as an EMT in a major public hospital in Houston, you’d be surprised about how not-well paid many allied health professons are. And the janitors get to clean up the blood and hear the exact same screams or being on the receiving end of drug fueled rage attacks — and they aren’t getting paid much. If you sign up to work in what is effectively a battlefield hospital, you are exposed to the vile underbelly of society on a daily basis. And how does a union matter? It doesn’t shield you from getting attacked or vomited in by violent drunks or attacked by hysterical family members.

Let’s say a content moderator got paid $200k per year, that doesn’t change the images they see. This isn’t about money as much as it’s about the requirements and preparation required for the job.

Re: The trauma of Facebook’s content moderators

#208

Post by falcrist »

intopieces wrote: post #199
falcrist wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

> 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. I’m not sure I follow. A site like Facebook already has mechanisms for detecting multiple accounts, and in any case, multiple accounts don’t mean that there are…

And again, you run into the problem where nobody wants their website to work like that. In fact, limiting the person's audience really only works with facebook's system where people post content specifically to their friends. Other sites like Hacker News, Reddit, youtube, and various other forums aren't even designed with the concept of friends that are the sole consumers of your content. You're specifically posting in a public space that everyone can see. That's not a social media thing. That's just an internet thing where most things are visible to everyone.

And again, people still post horrible content to small groups just like they post it in large ones. You've divided the problem up, but you haven't really solved anything. Someone has to moderate the content.

Re: The trauma of Facebook’s content moderators

#209

Post by mirimir »

zacharycohn wrote: post #186
stickfigure wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This seems like something specific to the individual. Maybe this isn't the job for you, but there's probably enough people "made of different stuff" that could handle it? I feel like there's a subtext in this discussion that "nobody can handle it" or "you have to be a monster to work this job" but that's just not true. Just out of college in the mid-90s, I worked for a few months at a small local software company in…

Have you ever had a job where you have to look at pictures of mutilated children all day long? I don't think many people are immune to PTSD, but I suppose sociopaths need jobs too. But I'm not sure you want to hire a department of sociopaths.

> But I'm not sure you want to hire a department of sociopaths.

Why not, if they do the work well?

And anyway, they'd be working from home, these days.

Re: The trauma of Facebook’s content moderators

#210

Post by artificial »

DavidVoid wrote: post #102

That was good article and I think something really needs to be done to make content moderation more humane. This quote from the article “It gets to a point where you can eat your lunch while watching a video of someone dying. … But at the end of the day, you still have to be human.” reminded me of a similar article published by WIRED six years ago [1]. Eight years after the fact, Jake Swearingen can still recall the…

Sounds like /b/ during the gore era.
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