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"We have had a legion of volunteers... who review uploads in exchange for in-site rewards, as well as the health of the community." ...or in exchange to see th

by planb 7y ago

"We have had a legion of volunteers... who review uploads in exchange for in-site rewards, as well as the health of the community." ...or in exchange to see the stuff they can't get to see anywhere else? I wonder for how many of these "volunteers" this is the main motivation - is this a quasi-legal way to see illegal content?

gambiting 7y ago
That's a really weird assumption - if you're looking for dodgy videos it's trivial to find them the dark web. Volunteers who do the same jobs for companies like google or facebook frequently say they are traumatized by content they see - it's not just sexual stuff, there's plenty of really explicit gore and abuse videos that come through. And if you're the kind of person who gets off on that stuff then like I said, it's not exactly difficult to find on the dark web. My point is - doing this like you said "quasi-legally" must be the worst way of doing it, as you're giving the company all your real details to be employed - the very second anyone suspects you're doing it for the thrills(maybe you are the only employee who actually watches every video to the end?) you'd be in deep trouble.
- thaumasiotes 7y ago
  > the very second anyone suspects you're doing it for the thrills (maybe you are the only employee who actually watches every video to the end?) This would be unlikely. Stipulating that ordinary xHamster users are watching the ordinary videos for the thrills... how many of them watch every video to the end?
  - gambiting 7y ago
    I mean - if you see an abuse video, a regular employee would flag it immediately and stop watching. Someone doing it for the thrill would watch it till the end and then flag it. It would be pretty obvious from the data I think.
    - thaumasiotes 7y ago
      > Someone doing it for the thrill would watch it till the end and then flag it. Why do you believe this? It's not at all similar to how the regular user base watches videos. Compare PornHub's in-video display of how popular various timestamps are.
      - Dylan16807 7y ago
        You're getting hung up on the exact wording. Maybe not to the end, but they're not going to get any enjoyment if they close it five seconds after they part they're seeking starts.
    - mk89 7y ago
      Or you download it, flag it, and watch it at home once you are alone. I never thought about the fact that the reviewers can have bad intentions. Interesting....
      - gtsteve 7y ago
        I can only assume you would use data loss prevention software/techniques for tasks this. Locking out USB ports and logging web traffic on the terminal would be the first step but there's probably smarter things you could do.
        mk89 7y ago
        True, indeed. If you want, you can somewhat prevent. Although, to be honest, typically videos are buffered and even cached from the browser, so logging incoming web traffic won't help there. Preventing outgoing traffic might help. Preventing storage would be interesting. I think those machines need to be really just terminals where you can't do literally anything but click yes/no and go to the next in the queue. It'd be interesting to know how they do it.
gwd 7y ago
> I wonder for how many of these "volunteers" this is the main motivation - is this a quasi-legal way to see illegal content? Well the article said that only 1 in 20000 uploaded videos ends up getting taken down, "“Because we’re very aggressive in our patrol of content, the criminals know not to use us”. I'm not sure a .005% chance of seeing illegal content would really be enough "reward" to affect anybody's behavior.
mam2 7y ago
At least they are useful^^ how many psychopath / would be murderers do you think enroll in being snipers ?
Normal_gaussian 7y ago
I did a bit of googling and it doesn't look like there is a different section of 'review' users - it looks like all users gain rewards for reviewing (comments, votes, reports) all content, with some places rewarding unreviewed content more.
mcdramamean 7y ago
This is similar to the argument for promoting people who enjoy violence and murder into the military (people who haven't committed crimes, but get an adrenaline rush around these topics). Don't you want people who are good at it and enjoy it? Won't they get it done most effectively? If you have to do a job that involves "bad" things, do you get more moral points if you don't like it?

by planb 7y ago

gambiting 7y ago

That's a really weird assumption - if you're looking for dodgy videos it's trivial to find them the dark web. Volunteers who do the same jobs for companies like google or facebook frequently say they are traumatized by content they see - it's not just sexual stuff, there's plenty of really explicit gore and abuse videos that come through. And if you're the kind of person who gets off on that stuff then like I said, it's not exactly difficult to find on the dark web. My point is - doing this like you said "quasi-legally" must be the worst way of doing it, as you're giving the company all your real details to be employed - the very second anyone suspects you're doing it for the thrills(maybe you are the only employee who actually watches every video to the end?) you'd be in deep trouble.

thaumasiotes 7y ago
> the very second anyone suspects you're doing it for the thrills (maybe you are the only employee who actually watches every video to the end?) This would be unlikely. Stipulating that ordinary xHamster users are watching the ordinary videos for the thrills... how many of them watch every video to the end?
- gambiting 7y ago
  I mean - if you see an abuse video, a regular employee would flag it immediately and stop watching. Someone doing it for the thrill would watch it till the end and then flag it. It would be pretty obvious from the data I think.
  - thaumasiotes 7y ago
    > Someone doing it for the thrill would watch it till the end and then flag it. Why do you believe this? It's not at all similar to how the regular user base watches videos. Compare PornHub's in-video display of how popular various timestamps are.
    - Dylan16807 7y ago
      You're getting hung up on the exact wording. Maybe not to the end, but they're not going to get any enjoyment if they close it five seconds after they part they're seeking starts.
  - mk89 7y ago
    Or you download it, flag it, and watch it at home once you are alone. I never thought about the fact that the reviewers can have bad intentions. Interesting....
    - gtsteve 7y ago
      I can only assume you would use data loss prevention software/techniques for tasks this. Locking out USB ports and logging web traffic on the terminal would be the first step but there's probably smarter things you could do.
      - mk89 7y ago
        True, indeed. If you want, you can somewhat prevent. Although, to be honest, typically videos are buffered and even cached from the browser, so logging incoming web traffic won't help there. Preventing outgoing traffic might help. Preventing storage would be interesting. I think those machines need to be really just terminals where you can't do literally anything but click yes/no and go to the next in the queue. It'd be interesting to know how they do it.

gwd 7y ago

> I wonder for how many of these "volunteers" this is the main motivation - is this a quasi-legal way to see illegal content? Well the article said that only 1 in 20000 uploaded videos ends up getting taken down, "“Because we’re very aggressive in our patrol of content, the criminals know not to use us”. I'm not sure a .005% chance of seeing illegal content would really be enough "reward" to affect anybody's behavior.

mam2 7y ago

At least they are useful^^ how many psychopath / would be murderers do you think enroll in being snipers ?

Normal_gaussian 7y ago

I did a bit of googling and it doesn't look like there is a different section of 'review' users - it looks like all users gain rewards for reviewing (comments, votes, reports) all content, with some places rewarding unreviewed content more.

mcdramamean 7y ago

This is similar to the argument for promoting people who enjoy violence and murder into the military (people who haven't committed crimes, but get an adrenaline rush around these topics). Don't you want people who are good at it and enjoy it? Won't they get it done most effectively? If you have to do a job that involves "bad" things, do you get more moral points if you don't like it?