{"id":9368,"date":"2020-08-26T17:34:17","date_gmt":"2020-08-26T16:34:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cassandravoices.com\/?p=9368"},"modified":"2020-08-26T17:34:17","modified_gmt":"2020-08-26T16:34:17","slug":"warning-the-open-secret-lives-of-content-moderators","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/casswp.eutonom.eu\/index.php\/2020\/08\/26\/warning-the-open-secret-lives-of-content-moderators\/","title":{"rendered":"WARNING: The (Open) Secret lives of Content Moderators"},"content":{"rendered":"

Tick Yes or No: \u2018I understand the content I will be reviewing may be disturbing. It is possible that reviewing such content may impact my mental health, and it could even lead to post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD<\/a><\/span>).\u2019[i]<\/a><\/p>\n

Last year, a sixteen-year-old Malay girl posted a poll on Instagram asking her followers whether she should live or die<\/a><\/span>.[ii]<\/a> 69% voted for death and she took her own life. The followers who voted that she should die neither took action to protect their \u2018friend\u2019 nor shared empathy or concern.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople are awful<\/a><\/span>.[iii]<\/a> This is what my job has taught me\u201d, says a former Facebook content-moderator who recently sued the social media giant<\/a><\/span> after experiencing psychological trauma as a direct consequence of his work. The Wall Street Journal recently described content moderator as \u2018the worst job in the US<\/a><\/span>\u2019[iv]<\/a> , and the same applies to other countries, which this article elaborates on.<\/p>\n

Very little is known about the role, mental health toll or other work experiences of content moderators. They may work for YouTube, Facebook, Google and other such platforms that we are all pretty much \u2018addicted\u2019 to.<\/p>\n

A few studies are now looking into the working conditions for people<\/a><\/span>[v]<\/a> who determine what \u2018material\u2019 or \u2018content\u2019 can be posted to Facebook or Twitter or YouTube. Their job is to decide on whether content adheres to the \u2018community guidelines\u2019 of online platforms. They work day and night so that we the users are saved from exposure to videos of graphic violence or child abuse as well as hate speech, among the constant stream of user generated material uploaded on to social media feeds.<\/p>\n

There are thousands of content moderators, who are paid to view objectionable posts and decide which need to be removed from digital platforms. Many are severely traumatized by the images of hate, abuse and violence they see on a daily basis so that we, our families and children get to see \u2018WARNING: The following post or content may be disturbing to some viewers.\u2019<\/p>\n

The heavy mental health toll on content moderators who are hired on a \u2018freelance\u2019 or \u2018gig<\/a><\/span>\u2019 basis cannot be underestimated.<\/p>\n

Never-ending Uploads and Ever-Expanding Platforms <\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

A staggering three hundred hours of video content is uploaded on to YouTube every minute, while over ninety-five million photos<\/a><\/span>[vi]<\/a> are uploaded to Instagram each day, along with over five hundred million tweets sent out on Twitter (or 6,000 tweets per second). Therefore, it is virtually impossible for human moderators to vet every piece before a content is uploaded and goes live (with some potentially going \u2018viral\u2019). Popular platforms such as these serve user-generated content uploaded by a global community of contributors.<\/p>\n

The uploaded content is just as diverse as the user base, meaning inevitably that a significant amount is offensive to most users and, by extension, the platforms. Users routinely upload (or attempt to upload) content such as: child abuse, animal torture, and disturbing, hate-filled messages.<\/p>\n

Facebook outsources the hiring of content moderators and provides office space. Its sites are largely outside the United States \u2013 mainly in south, south-east and east Asia, but the operations have expanded to the US, more specifically in California, Arizona, Texas and Florida<\/a><\/span>.[vii]<\/a> Content moderators work at a computer workstation where they review content \u2013 \u00a0a steady stream of text posts, images and videos. These can range from random personal musings to information with ramifications for international politics. Some of it may seem rather benign \u2013 just words on a screen that someone didn’t like. While the worst may be incredibly disturbing. On a regular basis moderators have to witness beheadings, murders, animal abuse, and child exploitation. Therefore, one might wonder, what toll on mental health does this take?<\/p>\n

One previously unreported aspect of a moderator\u2019w job is the numerical quotas that these subcontractors<\/span><\/a>[viii]<\/a> are forced to meet: each moderator is required to screen thousands of images or videos per day in order to maintain their employment.<\/p>\n

Facebook alone has an army of about 15,000 people in 20 locations<\/span><\/a>[ix]<\/a> around the world, who decide what content should be allowed to stay on Facebook, and what should be marked as \u2018disturbing\u2019, whether execution videos from terrorist groups, murders, beatings, child exploitation or the torture of animals. In addition to the stress of exposure to disturbing images and videos, there is also the pressure to make the right call about what how to mark the content. A wrong decision taken under stress will have penalties, financially for the worker, and also may have mental health effects on other human lives.<\/p>\n

Platforms, as we know them, reserve the right to police user-generated content through a clause in their Terms of Service (which none of us read, or do we? Should we?), usually by incorporating their Community Guidelines as a reference. For example, YouTube\u2019s Community Guidelines<\/a><\/span> prohibit\u00a0 \u2018nudity or sexual content\u2019, \u2018harmful or dangerous content\u2019, \u2018hateful content\u2019, \u2018violent or graphic content\u2019, \u2018harassment and cyberbullying\u2019, \u2018spam, misleading metadata\u2019, \u2018scams\u2019, \u2018threats\u2019 videos that would violate someone else\u2019s copyright, \u2018impersonation\u2019 and \u2018child endangerment.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u2018Now you see me\u2019<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

The Cleaners<\/em>, a recent documentary, features interviews with several former moderators who were previously outsourced by a subcontractor in the Philippines. The interviewees exposed their experiences of filtering the very worst images and video the internet has to offer. In the Philippines, workers operate out of jam-packed malls, where they spend over nine hours a day moderating content for as little as $480 a month<\/a><\/span>.[x]<\/a> With few workday breaks and no access to counselling, many of these individuals end up suffering from insomnia, depression and post-traumatic stress disorder.<\/p>\n