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The trauma of Facebook’s content moderators

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Re: The trauma of Facebook’s content moderators

#61

Post by aylmao »

gen220 wrote: post #44
rosywoozlechan wrote: post #38

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.

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…

> A lot of people will disagree with you on principle (they view internet access as a "right" rather than a privilege)

Well, sure. But that's why the concept of "criminalizing" is key. Criminal behavior curtails your rights. It's on this premise that the concept of prisons is legal and makes sense.

IMO rather than forbid internet access, an idea to explore is treating the internet as some sort of public area with similar jurisdiction. Thus, if you send an unsolicited dick pic it'd qualify as indecent exposure which is punishable by law.

I think this makes more sense because regulating internet access is hard. You can get public wifi pretty much at any airport or coffee-shop. What doesn't quite make sense is that showing your dick to someone without them wanting to see it can get you a fine or even jail time if you do it in person, but in a photo, video or call online is not punishable.

Re: The trauma of Facebook’s content moderators

#62

Post by rtkwe »

CM30 wrote: post #25

It's probably a bit controversial to say this, but haven't large sites had to deal with these problems for years by the time the likes of Facebook/Twitter/YouTube/Instagram/whatever came around? It's obviously horrible doing this as a job and it's obviously a bit more common on Facebook than say, a large old school internet forum, but... at least in this case people are paid to do this. Reddit mods and old school for…

Very few forums had even a fraction of the number of members as Facebook has users and the amount of content is increased again. Also the type of content they're required to moderate has changed most forums before facebook were largely text and video is a big part of facebook. It's easy to see how video and photo content is more traumatizing than the largely text content of forums.

Re: The trauma of Facebook’s content moderators

#63

Post by jungturk »

ed_balls wrote: post #49
joncp wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That sounds attractive until one starts to delve into the implementation details. How would you implement it?

It's insolvable problem. - mom works as a freelancer and the kid uses her computer to post bad content. Does she lose her job? - someone trolls his mate for lolz.

Mom leaves a hundred dollar bill on the desk and her kid spends it.

Someone leaves a hundred dollar bill on the desk and his mate spends it for lolz.

Are these significantly different (if no less unjust)?

Re: The trauma of Facebook’s content moderators

#64

Post by irrational »

kylecazar wrote: post #13
MattGaiser wrote: post #3

They 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.

I'd wonder if frequents in these subreddits are typically professional and healthy people to have on a team, though (honestly no idea, never been). It's a strange conundrum because ideally you want good people who are comfortable watching things good people rarely want to watch. Don't have much experience with this demographic -- maybe there are more sane, emotionally healthy people watching snuff films for fun than…

I remember talking to an FBI agent who had to watch a lot of terrible stuff. He said that at first it was very distressing and sickening, but after awhile he became desensitized to it and could eat lunch with no issues while continuing to watch it. I wonder if some people have the psychological profile that allows them to become desensitized while other people never can. Though, it probably isn't good that people have to become desensitized.

Re: The trauma of Facebook’s content moderators

#65

Post by WrongThinkerNo5 »

rosywoozlechan wrote: post #47
joncp wrote: post #41

Earlier 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.

"Just do more of this, but broaden the categories to include posting…" and here you are already thrusting yourself down the slippery slope. You went from "gore, rape, and torture", all of which inherently not easy to prove in and of themselves, but in just a matter of minutes you've already "broadened the categories" to "visually horrifying" (based on who's opinion?) and which is "known to cause PTSD" (known and determined by whom? Not even to mention that PTSD is a professional construct), but also including having to know where people do and do not expect to see something that is something based on the above mentioned ambiguous determinations.

It did not take you long at all to just vault yourself down the full on dictator slope. Next up, let me guess, you want to prevent people's access to the internet if they say things you don't agree with because "word are violence" and then "micro-aggressions are violence", simply because you have the control to abuse. Unfortunately that is already the situation right now, but it does not need to be made worse, because it will only thrust us all down a path of overplaying the unrelenting abuse that I can assure you people will not like the inevitable consequences of one bit.

Let me also remind you that the US has the supreme law of the land that supersedes all other laws, the First Amendment to the Constitution that states that no law may abridge the freedom of speech, regardless of whether you like it or not.

Re: The trauma of Facebook’s content moderators

#66

Post by irrational »

I'm surprised there hasn't been a revenge movie where one of these moderators use their access to find out where these people live and start hunting them down like some sort of batman-like person. I could see a movie like this being a means of making the more general population aware of the terrible stuff content moderators have to watch.

Re: The trauma of Facebook’s content moderators

#67

Post by jungturk »

joncp wrote: post #41
rosywoozlechan wrote: post #38

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.

That sounds attractive until one starts to delve into the implementation details. How would you implement it?

Maybe the platforms should just progressively revoke access to the more expressive MIME types.

You or someone who used your access posts something flagged as inappropriate? Banished to text-only penalty box.

Posting inappropriate ascii art? Banished to emoji character penalty box.

Repeat offender? Longer/permanent prohibition.

Re: The trauma of Facebook’s content moderators

#68

Post by RestlessMind »

Avamander wrote: post #53
gen220 wrote: post #44

Earlier 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…

> ... digital ID. However, that is seriously actually dystopian and would brutally murder all of the privacy people have

Do you really need exactly the same level of privacy for all the cases though? How about having a corner of the internet which is an ultimate walled garden - with access restricted to someone with validated government IDs and everyone's activity tracked and transparent to everyone else? This will work great for many cases - kids can have access to only this corner, plain vanilla entertainment[1] like Netflix or Disney or Sports, money related stuff[2] like banking / money transfer / shopping, etc etc. We can do those activities with relative peace of mind because everyone accessing this corner would be physically trackable and hence nefarious actors will have the risk of instant exposure. In that sense, it will be very similar to the physical world (or even stricter because of enhanced security).

For a lot of other legit reasons like fighting oppressive governments or hacking things to push boundaries or uncensored forums, we can of course have rest of the internet.

There will be some nuances just like we do in real world, like:

[1] different ratings for entertainment, like R-rated vs PG vs G-rated

[2] protecting sensitive info like bank account details or tax returns

Re: The trauma of Facebook’s content moderators

#69

Post by khazhoux »

econcon wrote: post #8

How can I become a partime fb content moderator? Is it possible to become one online and work remotely? Or must work from the fb camp? I want to test if it can cause me any trauma

I suppose the FB job board is the place to start. Did you check there?

Re: The trauma of Facebook’s content moderators

#70

Post by hinkley »

tmpz22 wrote: post #28
CM30 wrote: post #25

It's probably a bit controversial to say this, but haven't large sites had to deal with these problems for years by the time the likes of Facebook/Twitter/YouTube/Instagram/whatever came around? It's obviously horrible doing this as a job and it's obviously a bit more common on Facebook than say, a large old school internet forum, but... at least in this case people are paid to do this. Reddit mods and old school for…

Right but the difference is the sheer amount of money involved and the politicization that comes with that. If Facebook was worth 100m nobody would care. If facebook only has 10m users nobody would care. It's the scale that completely breaks the legal and political frameworks the our society leans on.

From my time observing volunteer groups, it's also about leverage and force multipliers.

I can go door to door asking people to change something, and dozens of my volunteers will feel useful but overwhelmed by how much work there is to do in a city of a million people. Or I can go to city council meetings, and get more leverage there. Or if I can convince one high profile citizen to participate, others will follow. Or I can get into contact with the mayor, state congressional members, the governor, federal congressional members.

It's possible that if I convince the correct five people that they will take half of this burden off of my hands. You'd be crazy not to reach for a lever like that. They are a juicy target, and not just from a punitive standpoint. Of course when you are rebuffed repeatedly by a potential ally, then it's a very human (if questionable) response to seek out some sort of punishment.

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