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The trauma of Facebook’s content moderators
51–60 of 268 posts
Re: The trauma of Facebook’s content moderators
#52Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think it's fair to say the sheer quantity has changed since Facebook first came around (FB predates smartphones for one!) I also think part of the objection here is around off-shoring. It's similar to other complaints about off-shored jobs: we're farming out unpleasant work to people that get paid less and have much less support (e.g. mental health).
> I also think part of the objection here is around off-shoring. It's similar to other complaints about off-shored jobs: we're farming out unpleasant work to people that get paid less and have much less support (e.g. mental health). That's an interesting point, and has me wondering something. If a site like Facebook opened up a volunteer moderator scheme where people could sign up to filter out stuff that broke their…
Facebook already hires moderators inside the US via agencies, and they have their own problems:
https://www.theverge.com/2019/2/25/18229714/cognizant-facebo...
As for the volunteer side, it's a really interesting debate. Others in this thread have pointed out Reddit as an example of this in practise. I think the sheer amount of money that Facebook has means that relying on volunteers to (potentially) inflict emotional damage upon themselves wouldn't be a great look.
Re: The trauma of Facebook’s content moderators
#53Post gore, rape and torture in places where people don't want to see that and you should lose the right to have internet access. Criminalize this behavior.
A lot of people will disagree with you on principle (they view internet access as a "right" rather than a privilege), but I think it's an interesting idea that's worth discussing, if only because we've had similar ideas in the past, with other technologies, and arrived upon similar conclusions. We as a society have decided that negligent actors can do enough harm to themselves or others in operating an automobile on…
> The tricky thing is that it's relatively hard to precisely track identity and intentional authorship on the internet. It's also easy to imagine somebody losing their internet privileges, because some botnet hijacked their printer and used it to spread X-rated content. In the analogy, it's hard to disambiguate between drivers and vehicles.
This basically makes the entire plan unfeasible. Given the current general insecurity it would be entirely too trivial to somehow fuck up and have a botnet get you banned permanently from the "roads".
However, this could work if internet is only available using your digital ID. However, that is seriously actually dystopian and would brutally murder all of the privacy people have and in certain cases also the people.
Re: The trauma of Facebook’s content moderators
#54They should recruit people on Reddit for this. A large number of them seem perfectly fine with this type of content. There are dedicated communities to all these things. I do not mean this as a hit against Reddit users. It is just that there are small pockets of people who are psychologically capable of tolerating this or even enjoy it. It seems more ethical to hire people from /r/watchpeopledie.
Perhaps. I would argue that there is some difference between seeing someone fall off a cliff and watching someone being tortured to death.
Most importantly, there's a big difference between seeing someone being tortured to death and frequently seeing people being tortured to death every weekday.
Re: The trauma of Facebook’s content moderators
#55Post gore, rape and torture in places where people don't want to see that and you should lose the right to have internet access. Criminalize this behavior.
Edge cases are hard. If you record law enforcement acting inappropriately, can you post that? Will you be less likely to do so if you feel you may be banned for doing so?
Re: The trauma of Facebook’s content moderators
#56Earlier quoted context omitted.
That sounds attractive until one starts to delve into the implementation details. How would you implement it?
The US has laws with punishments that make it illegal for people to use computers or to use certain online services already. Just do more of this, but broaden the categories to include posting visually horrifying content that's known to cause PTSD to places where people don't expect to see that.
Sorry, no.
Re: The trauma of Facebook’s content moderators
#57Radical idea: if your service requires subjecting lots and lots of workers to scarring images, the correct solution is for that service not to exist. Facebook doesn’t have to let people post material to their site with very low barriers to entry. Granted they have to if they want to continue to be what they are and to make tons of money... but maybe they shouldn’t continue to be what they are and make tons of money i…
Any place anyone can add any user content has this problem. Anything with an input box and a file upload would qualify as your not existing solution.
1) that seems basically fine, but also 2) non-commercial efforts run by hobbyists and gated from the general public ought to be Ok. If you want to run a PHPBB site and subject yourself to harmful garbage by letting randos write to your server, well, go nuts.
[edit] thought experiment: how many of the people making tons of money off Facebook—c-suite, major shareholders—would find some other way to make money if continuing to make Facebook mega bucks meant they had to do this 5 days a week? What would we think of any of them who chose “bring on the trauma, I want those sweet greenbacks” and kept it up for years?
Re: The trauma of Facebook’s content moderators
#58Post gore, rape and torture in places where people don't want to see that and you should lose the right to have internet access. Criminalize this behavior.
> Post gore, rape and torture in places where people don't want to see that and you should lose the right to have internet access. Criminalize this behavior.
May I ask you how old are you? I don't mean to insult you or anything like that but lately I am witnessing more and more people who demand the ultimate punishment for every misbehaviour and I wonder of it is a generation thing.
Re: The trauma of Facebook’s content moderators
#59Earlier quoted context omitted.
A lot of people will disagree with you on principle (they view internet access as a "right" rather than a privilege), but I think it's an interesting idea that's worth discussing, if only because we've had similar ideas in the past, with other technologies, and arrived upon similar conclusions. We as a society have decided that negligent actors can do enough harm to themselves or others in operating an automobile on…
> The tricky thing is that it's relatively hard to precisely track identity and intentional authorship on the internet. It's also easy to imagine somebody losing their internet privileges, because some botnet hijacked their printer and used it to spread X-rated content. In the analogy, it's hard to disambiguate between drivers and vehicles. This basically makes the entire plan unfeasible. Given the current general in…
Yep, that's why I suggested the biometric ID. But I agree, it's dystopian.
I think such a system would encourage the development of two parallel webs: the above-ground, requires-ID-for-every-http-request web (Facebook, Amazon), and a somewhat shadier, sometimes-or-never-requires-ID-except-in-exceptional-circumstances internet.
Kind of like how bars and grocery stores are supposed to verify your age, but many don't. Or kind of like how there's large swathes of the country where people drive around without driver's licenses or insurance, and it isn't an issue unless they end up in an accident.
Re: The trauma of Facebook’s content moderators
#60They should recruit people on Reddit for this. A large number of them seem perfectly fine with this type of content. There are dedicated communities to all these things. I do not mean this as a hit against Reddit users. It is just that there are small pockets of people who are psychologically capable of tolerating this or even enjoy it. It seems more ethical to hire people from /r/watchpeopledie.
Perhaps. I would argue that there is some difference between seeing someone fall off a cliff and watching someone being tortured to death.
Are moderators really meant to watch the whole video in cases like that? It seems to me like they could stop once the content of the video became apparent. Even just a fraction of a second of that sort of content could be scaring, but I think probably less scaring than watching several minutes of it...
My basis for thinking this is I've seen videos like that before and clicked away quickly. It's disturbing, but I think I'm okay.