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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

#251

Post by sd9 »

itake wrote: post #249
sd9 wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t have any experience with this, so take this with a pinch of salt. What seems novel about moderation is the frequency that you confront disturbing things. I imagine companies like Meta have such good automated moderation that what remains to be viewed by a human is practically a firehose of almost certainly disturbing shit. And as soon as you’re done with one post, the next is right there. I doubt moderators s…

I’d think the higher density/frequency of disturbing content would cause people to be desensitized. I never seen blood or gore in my life and find seeing it shocking. But I’d imagine gore is a weekly situation for surgeons.

I agree. But that might be comorbid with PTSD. It’s probably not good for you to be _that_ desensitised to this sort of thing.

I also feel like there’s something intangible regarding intent that makes moderation different from being a doctor. It’s hard for me to put into words, but doctors see gore because they can hopefully do something to help the individual involved. Moderators see gore but are powerless to help the individual, they can only prevent others from seeing the gore.

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

#252

Post by ternnoburn »

wkat4242 wrote: post #168

I have several friends who do this work for various platforms. The problem is, someone has to do it. These platforms are mandated by law to moderate it or else they're responsible for the content the users post. And the companies can not shield their employees from it because the work simply needs doing. I don't think we can really blame the platforms (though I think the remuneration could be higher for this tough wo…

Someone has to do it is a strong claim. We could not have the services that require it instead.

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

#253

Post by _qua »

fcmgr wrote: post #229
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…

A friend's friend is a paramedic and as far as I remember they can take the rest of a day off after witnessing death on duty and there's an obligatory consulation with a mental healthcare specialist. From reading the article, it seems like those moderators are seeing horrific things almost constantly throughout the day.

I've never heard of a policy like that for physicians and doubt it's common for paramedics. I work in an ICU and a typical day involves a death or resuscitation. We would run out of staff with that policy.

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

#254

Post by ternnoburn »

loriverkutya wrote: post #111
medvezhenok wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

I’m not sure what is behind your assumption, if it’s the Autistic people does not have empathy myth, please read up on the topic.

Autistic people often have stronger empathy that neurotypical people, sometimes much much stronger. Especially towards animals.

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

#255

Post by siliconc0w »

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…

ER docs definitely get PTSD. Cops too.

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

#256

Post by ocschwar »

spacechild1 wrote: post #202
HPsquared wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm no longer interested in getting a motorcycle, for similar reasons.

I spent my civil service as a paramedic assistent at the countryside, close to a mountainroad that was very popular with bikers. I was never interested in motorbikes in the first place, but the gruesome accidents I've witnessed turned me off for good.

The Venn diagram for EMTs, paramedics, and motorbikes is disjoint.

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

#257

Post by mdanger007 »

gosub100 wrote: post #240
andrepd wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 wh…

Street fight videos, where the guy recording is Hooting and egging people on are disgusting

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

#258

Post by Eisenstein »

ImPostingOnHN wrote: post #207
Eisenstein wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wouldn't want to eat a cockroach regardless of whether I saw it being prepared or not. The point I am making is that 'feeling sick' and not wanting to eat something isn't about being disconnected from the food. Few people would care if you cut off a piece of steak from a hanging slab and grilled it in front of them, but would find it gross to pick up all the little pieces of gristle and organ meat that fell onto th…

> 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.

A cow walks into the kitchen, it gets a captive bolt shoved into its brain with a person holding a compressed air tank. Its hide is ripped off and it is cut into two pieces with all of its guts on the ground and the flesh and bones now hang as slabs.

I am asserting that you could do all of that in front of a random assortment of modern Americans, and then cut steaks off of it and grill them and serve them to half of the crowd, and most of those people would not have an problem eating those steaks.

Then if you were to scoop up all the leftover, non-steak bits from the ground with shovels, throw it all into a giant meat grinder and then take the intestines from a pig, remove the feces from them and fill them with the output of the grinder, cook that and serve it to the other half of the crowd, then a statistically larger proportion of that crowd would not want to eat that compared to the ones who ate the steak.

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

#259

Post by ocschwar »

FireBeyond wrote: post #119
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…

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…

I'd be asking "how bad is the fentanyl situation in your are?"

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

#260

Post by t-3 »

caymanjim wrote: post #246
insane_dreamer wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

What does compensation have to do with it? Is someone who stares at thousands of traumatizing, violent images every day going to be less traumatized if they're getting paid more?

Yes, they will be much more able to deal with the consequences of that trauma than someone who gets a pittance to do the same thing. A low-wage peon won't even be able to afford therapy if they need it.
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