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Just a warning - I found even a short description of some of the videos they had to watch fairly disturbing. I don't think I could do that job for very long -

Just a warning - I found even a short description of some of the videos they had to watch fairly disturbing. I don't think I could do that job for very long - let alone in a badly run, high pressure environment with low wages.

Pigo 7y ago
I don't see how an average person could be expected to witness some of the things mentioned in the article. I didn't have time to read the entire article, but do they have counselors on staff or something? That one paragraph about organs was enough to ruin my day, and it was just text. I'm surprised such a "rash of videos" wasn't in the news somewhere.
- arethuza 7y ago
  From the article: He sought out the on-site counselor for support, but found him unhelpful. “He just flat-out told me: ‘I don’t really know how to help you guys,’”
  - colpabar 7y ago
    So the counselors were probably an afterthought. I'd even bet the decision was made not as a way to keep the moderators from going insane, but to protect the company's image.
    - enraged_camel 7y ago
      I mean, a counselor can only do so much in this type of situation, since the patient is not in a position to remove the negative stimuli from their lives.
- ceejayoz 7y ago
  > That one paragraph about organs was enough to ruin my day, and it was just text. I'm surprised such a "rash of videos" wasn't in the news somewhere. I'm left wondering if it was a clip from a horror movie or something. Shitty to see, but not necessarily newsworthy like "live children chopped up for organs" would be.
  - antisemiotic 7y ago
    No need to be left wondering. While I'm not sure these are the videos mentioned, it's not hard to find some just by googling for it. Or maybe don't, I wish I didn't.
    - ceejayoz 7y ago
      I don't doubt you can find all sorts of horrifying video. I feel like I'd have seen media reports of widely-shared videos featuring live, conscious kids being vivisected in order to harvest their organs.
      - Pigo 7y ago
        It really seems important to know whether the video is real or a horror movie.
        AlexandrB 7y ago
        Not from a PTSD point of view. If these workers think it’s real, it’ll have the same psychological effect as the real thing.
      - dudul 7y ago
        Isn't the point of moderation/censorship to avoid having these videos widely-shared? These videos exist, they are fairly easy to find on specialized websites. Some are fake, but a lot are genuine. Videos showing executions during wars in Chechnya or in the middle east and such.
    - wingerlang 7y ago
      Looks like the article itself linked the video they mentioned - turns out they were not harvesting any organs in that particular video
- thom 7y ago
  I know a very well qualified woman who has previously worked with pschological trauma in the army amongst other organisations, who has recently been hired to work at Facebook in Ireland as part of what sounds like a sizeable team. So it seems like Facebook aren't entirely ignorant of their responsibility here, although they do seem massively behind the curve.
- stronglikedan 7y ago
  Update June 19th, 10:37AM ET: This article has been updated to reflect the fact that a video that purportedly depicted organ harvesting was determined to be false and misleading.
- invalidOrTaken 7y ago
  >I don't see how an average person could be expected to witness some of the things mentioned in the article. I'm no fan of Facebook, but in their defense, this is sort of the point.
  - Barrin92 7y ago
    Well it still is their responsibility. It's like Dr Frankenstein letting the monster lose on the village and then going "hey guys well I sure don't know how to figure this stuff out". If the government, the military, academia, the police or anyone else would let their inventions lose on the world in the manner the private sector does and leaves it to us to figure out how to clean up the mess we'd call them insane and demand them to be shut down within a week.
dsfyu404ed 7y ago
There's a lot of variance between individuals. Given the choice this sounds like an overall better job than working a busy McDonald's drive through (people are assholes when they're hungry) but I'm not the kind of person that's particularly bothered by graphic violence. My opinion of humanity is dark enough to accommodate it. I'm sure many people would prefer McDonald's though. Some of the people interviewed were complaining primarily about the bad working conditions (and their complaints are valid as far as I care). I would wager these people are not as bothered by the content (though I'm sure they don't like it) as the ones who's primary complaints are about the content. They could probably do the job with less burnout if the rest of the job was made to suck less (i.e. it wasn't a shitty call center style job with all the accompanying baggage). Edit: Why am I getting down-voted? Can people legitimately not fathom that some people would not be seriously bothered by seeing this content? People post violent content to Facebook. Shock and gore sites exist because some people actively seek out(!!) the kind of content that these moderators are being exposed to. It stands to reason that the subset of the population that at least finds that content not mentally damaging is substantially larger than the group that seeks it out.
- SomeOldThrow 7y ago
  Like your dream life—I bet facebook is hiring.
  - dang 7y ago
    Would you please stop posting unsubstantive comments to HN, especially ones that cross into being unkind? You've been doing this a lot lately, and we eventually ban that sort of account. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- bloopernova 7y ago
  I think perhaps people feel that you are minimizing the horror and repulsiveness of the content by saying that these moderators have a better job than working at a fast food restaurant. My wife, who has worked in a busy McDonald's for 5 years, says this sort of moderation is far, far worse than anything she had to deal with. And she's had to deal with human waste, violence, and direct verbal abuse from customers. Your point about making the working environment better is a valid one, but think it is overshadowed by your assertion that the horrific content is acceptable to "many people". Your views do resonate with some people on Reddit though. I remember saying that I didn't like the pained yelps, limping, and whining of Dogmeat in Fallout 4, and I was attacked and ridiculed for that. I know I wouldn't last more than a minute at this Facebook moderation job, it would scar me for life. I don't think that means I'm "wrong", any more than your views are "right".
doctorRetro 7y ago
Thanks for that warning. It's appreciated. I had to take a break in the middle of the article before continuing.
corey_moncure 7y ago
It makes me aware of a curious dichotomy about content moderation on Facebook. On one hand, they have publicly committed to stem the flow of "Fake News", whatever that means, on their platform. Now on the other hand, we have this article about the suffering of contractors who's task is to block content that is too real. I guess this places Facebook's platform into a category with theme parks like Disney Land, where they aim at maintaining a precarious balance somewhere between the fake and the real.
- gerbilly 7y ago
  Very few people want to see real videos of animals being tortured. In fact it's their very realness that makes them especially horrifying.
  - corey_moncure 7y ago
    Of course no one wants to see horrifying things. But current events force us to admit that Facebook is a platform for vast quantities of political speech. And if we're going to entertain political speech, we should be grown-ups and face reality; if we don't allow the horror to inform our discussions, if we turn away, then the horror will only grow.
cynicalreason 7y ago
I found it very disturbing .. I closed the video within a few seconds of the descriptions starting. Got a knot in my stomach and I feel very angry .. I could not do that job for a day

Pigo 7y ago

I don't see how an average person could be expected to witness some of the things mentioned in the article. I didn't have time to read the entire article, but do they have counselors on staff or something? That one paragraph about organs was enough to ruin my day, and it was just text. I'm surprised such a "rash of videos" wasn't in the news somewhere.

arethuza 7y ago
From the article: He sought out the on-site counselor for support, but found him unhelpful. “He just flat-out told me: ‘I don’t really know how to help you guys,’”
- colpabar 7y ago
  So the counselors were probably an afterthought. I'd even bet the decision was made not as a way to keep the moderators from going insane, but to protect the company's image.
  - enraged_camel 7y ago
    I mean, a counselor can only do so much in this type of situation, since the patient is not in a position to remove the negative stimuli from their lives.
ceejayoz 7y ago
> That one paragraph about organs was enough to ruin my day, and it was just text. I'm surprised such a "rash of videos" wasn't in the news somewhere. I'm left wondering if it was a clip from a horror movie or something. Shitty to see, but not necessarily newsworthy like "live children chopped up for organs" would be.
- antisemiotic 7y ago
  No need to be left wondering. While I'm not sure these are the videos mentioned, it's not hard to find some just by googling for it. Or maybe don't, I wish I didn't.
  - ceejayoz 7y ago
    I don't doubt you can find all sorts of horrifying video. I feel like I'd have seen media reports of widely-shared videos featuring live, conscious kids being vivisected in order to harvest their organs.
    - Pigo 7y ago
      It really seems important to know whether the video is real or a horror movie.
      - AlexandrB 7y ago
        Not from a PTSD point of view. If these workers think it’s real, it’ll have the same psychological effect as the real thing.
    - dudul 7y ago
      Isn't the point of moderation/censorship to avoid having these videos widely-shared? These videos exist, they are fairly easy to find on specialized websites. Some are fake, but a lot are genuine. Videos showing executions during wars in Chechnya or in the middle east and such.
  - wingerlang 7y ago
    Looks like the article itself linked the video they mentioned - turns out they were not harvesting any organs in that particular video
thom 7y ago
I know a very well qualified woman who has previously worked with pschological trauma in the army amongst other organisations, who has recently been hired to work at Facebook in Ireland as part of what sounds like a sizeable team. So it seems like Facebook aren't entirely ignorant of their responsibility here, although they do seem massively behind the curve.
stronglikedan 7y ago
Update June 19th, 10:37AM ET: This article has been updated to reflect the fact that a video that purportedly depicted organ harvesting was determined to be false and misleading.
invalidOrTaken 7y ago
>I don't see how an average person could be expected to witness some of the things mentioned in the article. I'm no fan of Facebook, but in their defense, this is sort of the point.
- Barrin92 7y ago
  Well it still is their responsibility. It's like Dr Frankenstein letting the monster lose on the village and then going "hey guys well I sure don't know how to figure this stuff out". If the government, the military, academia, the police or anyone else would let their inventions lose on the world in the manner the private sector does and leaves it to us to figure out how to clean up the mess we'd call them insane and demand them to be shut down within a week.

dsfyu404ed 7y ago

There's a lot of variance between individuals. Given the choice this sounds like an overall better job than working a busy McDonald's drive through (people are assholes when they're hungry) but I'm not the kind of person that's particularly bothered by graphic violence. My opinion of humanity is dark enough to accommodate it. I'm sure many people would prefer McDonald's though. Some of the people interviewed were complaining primarily about the bad working conditions (and their complaints are valid as far as I care). I would wager these people are not as bothered by the content (though I'm sure they don't like it) as the ones who's primary complaints are about the content. They could probably do the job with less burnout if the rest of the job was made to suck less (i.e. it wasn't a shitty call center style job with all the accompanying baggage). Edit: Why am I getting down-voted? Can people legitimately not fathom that some people would not be seriously bothered by seeing this content? People post violent content to Facebook. Shock and gore sites exist because some people actively seek out(!!) the kind of content that these moderators are being exposed to. It stands to reason that the subset of the population that at least finds that content not mentally damaging is substantially larger than the group that seeks it out.

SomeOldThrow 7y ago
Like your dream life—I bet facebook is hiring.
- dang 7y ago
  Would you please stop posting unsubstantive comments to HN, especially ones that cross into being unkind? You've been doing this a lot lately, and we eventually ban that sort of account. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
bloopernova 7y ago
I think perhaps people feel that you are minimizing the horror and repulsiveness of the content by saying that these moderators have a better job than working at a fast food restaurant. My wife, who has worked in a busy McDonald's for 5 years, says this sort of moderation is far, far worse than anything she had to deal with. And she's had to deal with human waste, violence, and direct verbal abuse from customers. Your point about making the working environment better is a valid one, but think it is overshadowed by your assertion that the horrific content is acceptable to "many people". Your views do resonate with some people on Reddit though. I remember saying that I didn't like the pained yelps, limping, and whining of Dogmeat in Fallout 4, and I was attacked and ridiculed for that. I know I wouldn't last more than a minute at this Facebook moderation job, it would scar me for life. I don't think that means I'm "wrong", any more than your views are "right".

doctorRetro 7y ago

Thanks for that warning. It's appreciated. I had to take a break in the middle of the article before continuing.

corey_moncure 7y ago

It makes me aware of a curious dichotomy about content moderation on Facebook. On one hand, they have publicly committed to stem the flow of "Fake News", whatever that means, on their platform. Now on the other hand, we have this article about the suffering of contractors who's task is to block content that is too real. I guess this places Facebook's platform into a category with theme parks like Disney Land, where they aim at maintaining a precarious balance somewhere between the fake and the real.

gerbilly 7y ago
Very few people want to see real videos of animals being tortured. In fact it's their very realness that makes them especially horrifying.
- corey_moncure 7y ago
  Of course no one wants to see horrifying things. But current events force us to admit that Facebook is a platform for vast quantities of political speech. And if we're going to entertain political speech, we should be grown-ups and face reality; if we don't allow the horror to inform our discussions, if we turn away, then the horror will only grow.

cynicalreason 7y ago

I found it very disturbing .. I closed the video within a few seconds of the descriptions starting. Got a knot in my stomach and I feel very angry .. I could not do that job for a day