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More than 140 Kenya Facebook moderators sue after diagnoses of PTSD

theguardian.com

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Re: More than 140 Kenya Facebook moderators sue after diagnoses of PTSD

#231

Post by coliveira »

Modified3019 wrote: post #178
FireBeyond wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Speaking as a paramedic, two things come to mind: 1) I don't have squeamishness about trauma. In the end, we are all blood and tissue. The calls that get to me are the emotionally traumatic, the child abuse, domestic violence, elder abuse (which of course often have a physical component too, but it's the emotional for me), the tragic, often preventable accidents. 2) There are many people, and I get the curiosity, tha…

That’s an excellent way to put it, resonates with my (non medical) experience. It’s the emotional stuff that will try to follow me around and be intrusive. I won’t watch most movies or TV because they are just some sort of tragedy porn.

> movies or TV because they are just some sort of tragedy porn

100% agree. Most TV series nowadays are basically violence porn, now that real porn is not allowed for all kinds of reasons.

Re: More than 140 Kenya Facebook moderators sue after diagnoses of PTSD

#232

Post by meiraleal »

azinman2 wrote: post #175

> The moderators from Kenya and other African countries were tasked from 2019 to 2023 with checking posts emanating from Africa and in their own languages but were paid eight times less than their counterparts in the US, according to the claim documents Why would pay in different countries be equivalent? Pretty sure FB doesn’t even pay the same to their engineers depending on where in the US they are, let alone which…

> Why would pay in different countries be equivalent?

Why 8 times less?

Re: More than 140 Kenya Facebook moderators sue after diagnoses of PTSD

#233

Post by insane_dreamer »

yodsanklai wrote: post #215

I'm wondering if there are precedents in other domains. There are other jobs where you do see disturbing things as part of your duty. E.g. doctors, cops, first responders, prison guards and so on... What makes moderation different? and how should it be handled so that it reduces harm and risks? surely banning social media or not moderating content aren't options. AI helps to some extent but doesn't solve the issue en…

at least in the US, those jobs - doctors, cops, firefighters, first responders - are well compensated (not sure about prison guards), certainly compared to content moderators who are at the bottom of the totem pole in an org like FB

Re: More than 140 Kenya Facebook moderators sue after diagnoses of PTSD

#234

Post by ImPostingOnHN »

abduhl wrote: post #219
ImPostingOnHN wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Few people would care if you cut off a piece of steak from a hanging slab The analogy here would be watching a live cow get slaughtered and then butchered from scratch in front of you, which I think most Western audiences (more than a few) might not like.

Most audiences wouldn’t like freshly butchered cow - freshly butchered meat is tough and not very flavorful, it needs to be aged to allow it to tenderize and develop.

The point is that most Western audiences would likely find it unpleasant to be there for the slaughtering and butchering from scratch.

Re: More than 140 Kenya Facebook moderators sue after diagnoses of PTSD

#235

Post by croes »

yodsanklai wrote: post #215

I'm wondering if there are precedents in other domains. There are other jobs where you do see disturbing things as part of your duty. E.g. doctors, cops, first responders, prison guards and so on... What makes moderation different? and how should it be handled so that it reduces harm and risks? surely banning social media or not moderating content aren't options. AI helps to some extent but doesn't solve the issue en…

Doctors, cops, first responders, prison guards see different horrible things.

Content moderators see all of that.

Re: More than 140 Kenya Facebook moderators sue after diagnoses of PTSD

#236

Post by Dalewyn »

ImPostingOnHN wrote: post #234
abduhl wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most audiences wouldn’t like freshly butchered cow - freshly butchered meat is tough and not very flavorful, it needs to be aged to allow it to tenderize and develop.

The point is that most Western audiences would likely find it unpleasant to be there for the slaughtering and butchering from scratch.

That the point is being repeated to no effect ironically illustrates how most modern people (westerners?) are detached from reality with regards to food.

Re: More than 140 Kenya Facebook moderators sue after diagnoses of PTSD

#237

Post by numpad0 »

dyauspitr wrote: post #92
crystal_revenge wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From the first paragraph of the article: > post-traumatic stress disorder caused by exposure to graphic social media content including murders, suicides, child sexual abuse and terrorism. If you want a taste of the legal portion of theses just got to 4chan.org/gif/catalog and look for a "rekt", "war", "gore", or "women hate" thread. Watch every video there for 8-10 hours a day. Now remember this is the legal portion…

As someone that grew up with 4chan I got pretty desensitized to all of the above very quickly. Only thing I couldn’t watch was animal abuse videos. That was all yers ago though, now I’m fully sensitized to all of it again.

These accounts like yours and this report of PTSD don't line up. Both of them are credible. What's driving them crazy but not Old Internet vets?

Could it be:

  - the fact that moderators are hired and paid  
  - that kids are young and a lot more tolerant  
  - that moderators aren't intended audiences  
  - backgrounds, sensitivity in media at all  
  - the amount, of disturbing images  
  - the amount, in total, not just bad ones  
  - anything else?
Personally, I'm suspecting that difference in exposure to _any kind of media_ might be a factor; I've come across stories online that imply visiting and staying at places like Tokyo can almost drive people crazy, from the amount of stimuli alone.

Doesn't it sound a bit too shallow and biased to determine it was specifically CSAM or whatever specific type of data that did it?

Re: More than 140 Kenya Facebook moderators sue after diagnoses of PTSD

#238

Post by amelius »

yodsanklai wrote: post #215

I'm wondering if there are precedents in other domains. There are other jobs where you do see disturbing things as part of your duty. E.g. doctors, cops, first responders, prison guards and so on... What makes moderation different? and how should it be handled so that it reduces harm and risks? surely banning social media or not moderating content aren't options. AI helps to some extent but doesn't solve the issue en…

Don't forget judges, especially the ones in this case ...

And it used to be priests who had to deal with all the nasty confessions.

Re: More than 140 Kenya Facebook moderators sue after diagnoses of PTSD

#239

Post by [deleted] »

insane_dreamer wrote: post #233
yodsanklai wrote: post #215

I'm wondering if there are precedents in other domains. There are other jobs where you do see disturbing things as part of your duty. E.g. doctors, cops, first responders, prison guards and so on... What makes moderation different? and how should it be handled so that it reduces harm and risks? surely banning social media or not moderating content aren't options. AI helps to some extent but doesn't solve the issue en…

at least in the US, those jobs - doctors, cops, firefighters, first responders - are well compensated (not sure about prison guards), certainly compared to content moderators who are at the bottom of the totem pole in an org like FB

[deleted]

Re: More than 140 Kenya Facebook moderators sue after diagnoses of PTSD

#240

Post by gosub100 »

andrepd wrote: post #210
narrator wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, these jobs are horrible. However, I do know from accidently encountering bad stuff on the internet that you want to be as far away from a modern battlefield as possible. It's just kind of ridiculous how people think war is like Call of Duty. One minute you're sitting in a trench, the next you're a pile of undifferentiated blood and guts. Same goes for car accidents and stuff. People really underestimate how frag…

I'm pretty sure watching videos on /r/watchpeopledie or rekt threads on 4chan has been a net positive for me. I'm keenly aware of how dangerous cars are, that wars (including narcowars) are hell, that I should never stay close to a bus or truck as a pedestrian or bycicle, that I should never get into a bar fight... And that I'm very very lucky that I was not born in the 3rd world.

I get more upset watching people lightly smack and yell at each other on public freakout than I do watching people die. It's not that I don't care about the dead either, I watched wpd and similar sites for years. I didn't enjoy watching it, but I liked knowing the reality of what was going on in the world, and how each one of us has the capacity to commit these atrocities. I'm still doing a lousy job at describing why I like to watch it. But I do.
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