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More than 140 Kenya Facebook moderators sue after diagnoses of PTSD

theguardian.com

471–480 of 500 posts

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

#471

The Kenyan moderators' PTSD reveals the fundamental paradox of content moderation: we've created an enterprise-grade trauma processing system that requires concentrated psychological harm to function, then act surprised when it causes trauma. The knee-jerk reaction of suggesting AI as the solution is, IMO, just wishful thinking - it's trying to technologically optimize away the inherent contradiction of bureaucratize…

Any idea what our next steps are? It seems like we stop the experiment of mass communication, try to figure out a less damaging knowledge-based filtering mechanism (presently executed by human), or throw open the flood gates to all manner of trauma inducing content and let the viewer beware.

RealID.

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

#472

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If that's the case then there can also be no ethical employment, either, both for employer and for employee. So that would seem to average out to neutrality.

This is precisely the sort of situation where taking the average is an awful way to ignore injustice - the poor get much poorer and the rich get much richer but everything is ‘neutral’ on average. “There is no ethical X under capitalism” is not license to stick our heads in the sand and continue to consume without a second thought for those who are being exploited. It’s a reminder that things need to change , not onl…

Exactly. It means that we must continue to act ethically within the system that is the way it is now, which we must accept, while at the same time doing our best to change that system for the better. It's a "why not both" situation.

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

#473
post #146
post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a huge gap between "we will scan our servers for illegal content" and "your device will scan your photos for illegal content" no matter the context. The latter makes the user's device disloyal to its owner.

Apple is already categorizing content on your device. Maybe they don't report what categories you have. But I know if I search for "cat" it will show me pictures of cats on my phone.

Yeah it’s on by default and I’m not even sure how to turn off the visual lookup feature :/

Yet another reason why my next phone will be an android.

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

#474

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If that's the case then there can also be no ethical employment, either, both for employer and for employee. So that would seem to average out to neutrality.

This is precisely the sort of situation where taking the average is an awful way to ignore injustice - the poor get much poorer and the rich get much richer but everything is ‘neutral’ on average. “There is no ethical X under capitalism” is not license to stick our heads in the sand and continue to consume without a second thought for those who are being exploited. It’s a reminder that things need to change , not onl…

>This is precisely the sort of situation where taking the average is an awful way to ignore injustice - the poor get much poorer and the rich get much richer but everything is ‘neutral’ on average.

That has nothing to do with the ethics of capitalism, though. The poor becoming poorer and the rich becoming richer is not a foregone conclusion of a capitalist society, nor is it guaranteed not to happen in a non-capitalist society.

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

#475

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nobody has a right to be published.

Then what is freedom of speech if every plattform deletes your content? Does it even exist? Facebook and co. are so ubiquitous, we shouldn't just apply normal laws to them. They are bigger than governments.

This has always been the case. If the monks didn't want to copy your work, it didn't get copied by the monks. If the owners of a printing press didn't want to print your work, you didn't get to use the printing press. If Random House didn't want to publish your manifesto, you do not get to compel them to publish your manifesto.

The first amendment is multiple freedoms. Your freedom of speech is that the government shouldn't stop you from using your own property to do something. You are free to print out leaflets and distribute them from your porch. If nobody wants to read your pamphlets that's too damn bad, welcome to the free market of ideas buddy.

The first amendment also protects Meta's right of free association. Forcing private companies to platform any content submitted to them would outright trample their right. Meta has a right to not publish your work so that they can say "we do not agree with this work and will not use our resources to expand it's reach".

We have, in certain cases, developed system that treats certain infrastructure as a regulated pipe that is compelled to carry everything, like with classic telephone infrastructure. The reason for that, is it doesn't make much sense to require every company to put up their own physical wires, it's dumb and wasteful. Social networks have zero natural monopoly and should not be treated as common carriers.

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

#476
post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm shocked at the amount of people I've seen on my local news getting arrested lately for it and it all comes from the same starting tip: "$service_provider sent a tip to NCMEC" or "uploaded a known-to-NCMEC hash", ranging from GMail, Google Drive, iCloud, and a few others. https://www.missingkids.org/cybertiplinedata "In 2023, ESPs submitted 54.8 million images to the CyberTipline of which 22.4 million (41%) were u…

And, indeed, this is why we should not expect the process to stop. Nobody is rallying behind the rights of child abusers and those who traffic in child abuse material. Arguably, nor should they. The slippery slope argument only applies if the slope is slippery. This is analogous to the police's use of genealogy and DNA data to narrow searches for murderers, who they then collected evidence on by other means. There's…

>The US has no such cultural narrative.

The cultural narrative is actually extremely popular in a 10% subset of the population that is essentially fundamentalist christian who are terrified of the government branding them with "the mark of the beast".

The problem is that their existence actually poisons the discussion because these people are absurd loons who also blame the gays for hurricanes and think the democrats eat babies.

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

#477

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seeing too much does cause PTSD. All I'm arguing is that some people love in a fantasy world where bad things don't happen so they end up voting for ridiculous things.

Isn't this a reason for Meta to outsource to countries where people somewhat immune to the first world problems? Aside of corruption and work force neglect?

Meta outsources because it's cheaper.

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

#478

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't this a reason for Meta to outsource to countries where people somewhat immune to the first world problems? Aside of corruption and work force neglect?

Meta outsources because it's cheaper.

Exactly. Everything I mentioned is decreasing the price.

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

#479
post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, the point of on-device scanning is to enable authoritarian government overreach via a backdoor while still being able to add “end to end encryption” to a list of product features for marketing purposes. If Apple isn’t free to publish e2ee software for mass privacy without the government demanding they backdoor it for cops on threat of retaliation, then we don’t have first amendment rights in the USA.

I don't think the first amendment obligates companies to let you share kiddie porn via their services.

You misunderstand me. The issue is that Apple is theoretically being retaliated against, by the state, if they were to publish non-backdoored e2ee software.

Apple does indeed in theory have a right to release whatever iOS features they like. In practice, they do not.

Everyone kind of tacitly acknowledged this, when it was generally agreed upon that Apple was doing the on-device scanning thing "so they can deploy e2ee". The quiet part is that if they didn't do the on-device scanning and released e2ee software without this backdoor (which would then thwart wiretaps), the FBI et al would make problems for them.

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

#480
post #95
post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not that we're particularly fragile, given the kind of physical trauma human beings can survive and recover from. It's that we have technologically engineered things that are destructive enough to get even past that threshold. Modern warfare in particular is insanely energetic in the most literal, physical way - when you measure the energy output of weapons in joules. Partly because we're just that good at makin…

Watch how a group of wild dogs kill their prey, then realise that for milenia human like apes were part of their diet. Even the modern battlefield is more humane than the African savannah.

Yeah, I tracked a lost dog and found the place it was caught by wolves and eventually eaten. Terrible way to go. I get now why the owner was so desperate to find it, even without any hope of the dog surviving - I'd want to end it quicker for my dogs too if this happened to them.
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