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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

#271

Post by EdgeSlash »

ternnoburn wrote: post #252
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.

Absolutely. The platforms could reasonably easy stop allowing anonymous accounts. They don’t because more users means more money.

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

#272

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

#273

Post by kenjackson »

Eisenstein wrote: post #258
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.

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…

You’re just going down the list of things that sound disgusting. The second sounds worse than the first but both sound horrible.

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

#274

Post by throwie21873 »

abdullahkhalids wrote: post #14
DiggyJohnson wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How else would you stop the perpetrators?

Large scale and super sick perpetrators exist (as compared to small scale ones who do mildly sick stuff) because Facebook is a global network and there is a benefit to operating on such a large platform. The sicker you are, while getting away with it, the more reward you get. Switch to a federated social systems like Mastodon, with only a few thousand or ten thousand users per instance, and perpetrators will never be…

> Switch to a federated social systems like Mastodon, with only a few thousand or ten thousand users per instance, and perpetrators will never be able to grow too large.

The #2 and #3 most popular Mastodon instances allow CSAM.

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

#275

Post by gruez »

lm28469 wrote: post #263
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…

Also a doctor is paid $$$$$ and it mostly is a vocational job Content moderator is a min wage job with bad working hours, no psychological support, and you spend your day looking at rape, child porn, torture and executions.

>Also a doctor is paid $$$$$

>Content moderator is a min wage job

So it's purely a monetary dispute?

>bad working hours, no psychological support, and you spend your day looking at rape, child porn, torture and executions.

Many other jobs have the same issues, though admittedly with less frequency, but where do you draw the line?

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

#276

Post by Eisenstein »

slothtrop wrote: post #211
Eisenstein wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because edge cases exist, and it isn't worth it for a company to hire enough staff to deal with them when one user with a problem, even if that problem is highly impactful to their life, just doesn't matter when the user is effectively the product and not the customer. Once the AI works well enough, the staff is gone and the cases where someone's business or reputation gets destroyed because there are no ways to appe…

> because there are no ways to appeal I already addressed this and you're talking over it. Why are you making the assumption that AI == no appeal and zero staff? That makes zero sense, one has nothing to do with the other. The human element comes in for appeal process.

> I already addressed this and you're talking over it.

You didn't address it, you handwaved it.

> Why are you making the assumption that AI == no appeal and zero staff?

I explicitly stated the reason -- it is cheaper and it will work for the majority of instances while the edge cases won't result in losing a large enough user base that it would matter to them.

I am not making assumptions. Google notoriously operates in this fashion -- for instance unless you are a very popular creator, youtube functions like that.

> That makes zero sense, one has nothing to do with the other.

Cheaper and mostly works and losses from people leaving are not more than the money saved by removing support staff makes perfect sense and the two things are related to each other like identical twins are related to each other.

> The human element comes in for appeal process.

What does a company have to gain by supplying the staff needed to listen to the appeals when the AI does a decent enough job 98% of the time? Corporations don't exist to do the right thing or to make people happy, they are extracting value and giving it to their shareholders. The shareholders don't care about anything else, and the way I described returns more money to them than yours.

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

#277

Post by throwie21873 »

mcntsh wrote: post #228
guerrilla wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why would pay in different countries be equivalent? Because it's exploitative otherwise. It's just exploiting the fact that they're imprisoned within borders.

Interesting perspective. I wonder if you yourself take part in the exploitation by purchasing things made/grown in poor countries due to cost.

There's no ethical consumption under capitalism.

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

#278

Post by apitman »

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…

> surely banning social media or not moderating content aren't options

Why not? What good has social media done that can't be accomplished in some other way, when weighed against the clear downsides?

That's an honest question, I'm probably missing lots.

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

#279

Post by meiraleal »

ternnoburn wrote: post #245
meiraleal wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Than throwing a face punch or a rock? You should check public schools.

Than killing with bare hands or a rock, which I believe is still pretty uncommon in schools.

GP didn't talk about killing

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

#280

Post by diggan »

gruez wrote: post #275
lm28469 wrote: post #263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also a doctor is paid $$$$$ and it mostly is a vocational job Content moderator is a min wage job with bad working hours, no psychological support, and you spend your day looking at rape, child porn, torture and executions.

>Also a doctor is paid $$$$$ >Content moderator is a min wage job So it's purely a monetary dispute? >bad working hours, no psychological support, and you spend your day looking at rape, child porn, torture and executions. Many other jobs have the same issues, though admittedly with less frequency, but where do you draw the line?

> but where do you draw the line?

How about grouping the jobs into two categories: A) Causes PTSD and B) Doesn't cause PTSD

If a job as a constantly high percentage of people ending up with PTSD, then they aren't equipped well enough to handle it, by the company who employs them.

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