6 ms·

Former YouTube content moderator describes horrors of the job in lawsuit

52 points by laurex 6y ago

justwalt 6y ago
I remember reading an article some time ago about thr experiences of a developer who I believe was working on the most recent Mortal Kombat game. They talked about needing to watch lots of gore and similar content for the games cinematics, and about how it started to affect their mood. I don’t think I’d be able to work a job like that for very long.
- astura 6y ago
  Was this the article? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19888220 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19888220
iask 6y ago
Yeah man. You gotta be cutout for this shyt. Just reading the article alone changed my mood. I don’t see how one can process that amount of information and not have psychological issues.
- makapuf 6y ago
  That would be one place where deep learning could sort things and preserve humans, a few errors could be tolerable while sparing ppl lives.
- Barrin92 6y ago
  The Verge also had an article about Facebook moderators[1]. Absolutely atrocious. Not just the content they have to deal with, but the working conditions. Barely any spare time or support despite the fact that people have to deal with crazy shit, employees who turn into conspiracy theorists after being exposed to it, people who do drugs at work to deal with it, simply crazy. That looks like the future of tech. A bifurcated economy where a few developers collect stock options and enjoy fancy food delivery every day and an army of serfs who have to crawl through the garbage. [1]https://www.theverge.com/2019/2/25/18229714/cognizant-facebook-content-moderator-interviews-trauma-working-conditions-arizona https://www.theverge.com/2019/2/25/18229714/cognizant-facebo...
  - torified 6y ago
    Thanks for the link, I read that a while back and have been trying to find the article again ever since then, but hadn't been able to find the right terms to put into google.
- rightbyte 6y ago
  Surely you could extract stills for the reviewer in some way and no sound? Feels like a management issue.
  - JellyBeanThief 6y ago
    It seems apparent to me that many things could be explored to reduce the impact of disturbing content. How about converting the images to black and white? How about slowly fading in the content, so that the moderator can cancel display of the image as soon as they judge it, reducing the intensity of otherwise detailed memories? How about using machine learning to judge whether content is in slow motion and, if so, increase playback speed so details aren't so easy to see? How about--and this one I'm just throwing out there with no confidence--rotating the content 90 or 180 degrees to maybe change how the brain interprets the image?
  - el_oni 6y ago
    I was wondering the same thing. Still images, maybe added blur. As the other commenter suggests, black and white. Maybe combined with some machine learning to interpret what images show, giving a description before showing it to the moderators? There must be a large amount of horrendous pictures online with some form of labelling. I cant imagine being the person who has to sift through all that stuff though
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
meekmind 6y ago
There is a positive psychological correlation between the Orderliness (Conscientiousness) personality trait and Disgust Sensitivity. Agreeableness (Compassion/Politeness) and Neuroticism (generally anxiety) are also positively correlated to Disgust Sensitivity. [0] Lets assume that certain personality traits, such as Orderliness, Compassion, and Politeness, are most conducive with the role of moderator and they are the most susceptible to feeling (perhaps very intensely) disgust when confronted with such content (especially repeatedly over a long period of time). It may be a catch-22. We theoretically want orderly, compassionate, and polite people moderating the public discourse. If we filter out those personalities, leaving only the most Open people who are least likely to have disgust sensitivity, then we have the people who are the least capable of making important distinctions about what is acceptable to the rest of the us. That said, perhaps that's exactly what we need, instead of having moderators making sophisticated distinctions, we just need moderators who are capable of and willing to identify what is (universally) criminal/evil (exposing them to the worst of humanity). Leave the remaining distinctions to the community. [0] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0191886998001962 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S01918...
- murgindrag 6y ago
  It's locked up behind a paywall, but people confuse "correlation" with "equivalence." For this to be a catch-22, you'd need an amazingly strong correlation. Also, most psychology results fail to replicate. A single paper has about a 60-70% chance of being nonsense, probably more.
  - Der_Einzige 6y ago
    Especially because they used PCA of all things to figure out what these personality traits actually are.
  - meekmind 6y ago
    I'm aware of the replication crisis and that correlation does not equal causation. Are you aware of any research that contradicts the original statements?
austhrow743 6y ago
Anyone know of any remote content moderation positions going? Looks like YouTube is in person only. I've watched most of the content listed in the article and it did nothing to me. In need of some casual work and this seems like easy money.
- Stevvo 6y ago
  It's low paid work done in India, Phillipines and Malaysia so I would find remote unlikely.
  - austhrow743 6y ago
    That's what I had previously assumed it was. However article is about a legal case occurring in California and Youtube appears to be hiring content moderators in Michigan. They apparently need english speaking Westerners for some aspect of it.
- kombucha111 6y ago
  https://careers.google.com/jobs/results/118369454816928454-content-moderator-specialist-youtube-fixed-term-contract/?company=YouTube&jlo=en_US&location=&q=Youtube&skills=Content%20moderation https://careers.google.com/jobs/results/118369454816928454-c...
CodeWriter23 6y ago
A bit of a tangent, I’m at extreme range on my WiFi and I got 5 FOUC’s loading this page.

52 points by laurex 6y ago

I remember reading an article some time ago about thr experiences of a developer who I believe was working on the most recent Mortal Kombat game. They talked about needing to watch lots of gore and similar content for the games cinematics, and about how it started to affect their mood. I don’t think I’d be able to work a job like that for very long.

astura 6y ago
Was this the article? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19888220 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19888220

iask 6y ago

Yeah man. You gotta be cutout for this shyt. Just reading the article alone changed my mood. I don’t see how one can process that amount of information and not have psychological issues.

makapuf 6y ago
That would be one place where deep learning could sort things and preserve humans, a few errors could be tolerable while sparing ppl lives.
Barrin92 6y ago
The Verge also had an article about Facebook moderators[1]. Absolutely atrocious. Not just the content they have to deal with, but the working conditions. Barely any spare time or support despite the fact that people have to deal with crazy shit, employees who turn into conspiracy theorists after being exposed to it, people who do drugs at work to deal with it, simply crazy. That looks like the future of tech. A bifurcated economy where a few developers collect stock options and enjoy fancy food delivery every day and an army of serfs who have to crawl through the garbage. [1]https://www.theverge.com/2019/2/25/18229714/cognizant-facebook-content-moderator-interviews-trauma-working-conditions-arizona https://www.theverge.com/2019/2/25/18229714/cognizant-facebo...
- torified 6y ago
  Thanks for the link, I read that a while back and have been trying to find the article again ever since then, but hadn't been able to find the right terms to put into google.
rightbyte 6y ago
Surely you could extract stills for the reviewer in some way and no sound? Feels like a management issue.
- JellyBeanThief 6y ago
  It seems apparent to me that many things could be explored to reduce the impact of disturbing content. How about converting the images to black and white? How about slowly fading in the content, so that the moderator can cancel display of the image as soon as they judge it, reducing the intensity of otherwise detailed memories? How about using machine learning to judge whether content is in slow motion and, if so, increase playback speed so details aren't so easy to see? How about--and this one I'm just throwing out there with no confidence--rotating the content 90 or 180 degrees to maybe change how the brain interprets the image?
- el_oni 6y ago
  I was wondering the same thing. Still images, maybe added blur. As the other commenter suggests, black and white. Maybe combined with some machine learning to interpret what images show, giving a description before showing it to the moderators? There must be a large amount of horrendous pictures online with some form of labelling. I cant imagine being the person who has to sift through all that stuff though
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

meekmind 6y ago

There is a positive psychological correlation between the Orderliness (Conscientiousness) personality trait and Disgust Sensitivity. Agreeableness (Compassion/Politeness) and Neuroticism (generally anxiety) are also positively correlated to Disgust Sensitivity. [0] Lets assume that certain personality traits, such as Orderliness, Compassion, and Politeness, are most conducive with the role of moderator and they are the most susceptible to feeling (perhaps very intensely) disgust when confronted with such content (especially repeatedly over a long period of time). It may be a catch-22. We theoretically want orderly, compassionate, and polite people moderating the public discourse. If we filter out those personalities, leaving only the most Open people who are least likely to have disgust sensitivity, then we have the people who are the least capable of making important distinctions about what is acceptable to the rest of the us. That said, perhaps that's exactly what we need, instead of having moderators making sophisticated distinctions, we just need moderators who are capable of and willing to identify what is (universally) criminal/evil (exposing them to the worst of humanity). Leave the remaining distinctions to the community. [0] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0191886998001962 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S01918...

murgindrag 6y ago
It's locked up behind a paywall, but people confuse "correlation" with "equivalence." For this to be a catch-22, you'd need an amazingly strong correlation. Also, most psychology results fail to replicate. A single paper has about a 60-70% chance of being nonsense, probably more.
- Der_Einzige 6y ago
  Especially because they used PCA of all things to figure out what these personality traits actually are.
- meekmind 6y ago
  I'm aware of the replication crisis and that correlation does not equal causation. Are you aware of any research that contradicts the original statements?

austhrow743 6y ago

Anyone know of any remote content moderation positions going? Looks like YouTube is in person only. I've watched most of the content listed in the article and it did nothing to me. In need of some casual work and this seems like easy money.

Stevvo 6y ago
It's low paid work done in India, Phillipines and Malaysia so I would find remote unlikely.
- austhrow743 6y ago
  That's what I had previously assumed it was. However article is about a legal case occurring in California and Youtube appears to be hiring content moderators in Michigan. They apparently need english speaking Westerners for some aspect of it.
kombucha111 6y ago
https://careers.google.com/jobs/results/118369454816928454-content-moderator-specialist-youtube-fixed-term-contract/?company=YouTube&jlo=en_US&location=&q=Youtube&skills=Content%20moderation https://careers.google.com/jobs/results/118369454816928454-c...

CodeWriter23 6y ago

A bit of a tangent, I’m at extreme range on my WiFi and I got 5 FOUC’s loading this page.