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> Murmu, 26, is a content moderator for a global technology company, logging on from her village in India’s Jharkhand state > With just four months left on her

> Murmu, 26, is a content moderator for a global technology company, logging on from her village in India’s Jharkhand state > With just four months left on her contract, which pays about £260 a month Earning US$350/mo working remotely in a village in one of the poorest states in India is an extremely competitive given that the alternative would be spending 12 hours sewing fast fashion for Zara earning US$130-150/mo [0], doing bit piece ag labor for around US$100/mo and participating in MGNREGA for US$50/mo, become a housewife, or become a Naxalite/Maoist insurgent to earn a couple thousand dollars when surrendering [1]. Content moderation means interacting with extremely depressing and horrid content, but someone needs to do it, and once models get good enough we would start seeing articles about how "all the good 100% remote first jobs with no barrier to entry" are being automated to oblivion. Yes it sucks, but the alternative is becoming a migrant worker or working in light manufacturing where QoL is worse. Heck, we used to see similar articles about Chinese workers for Apple barely 14 years ago in then equally poor Sichuan [2], but you don't see those kinds of articles anymore. Development takes time and the fact that US$350/mo remote data annotation and content moderation jobs are now penetrating into villages in what used to be the Naxalite/Maoist/Red Corridor where bombings and gun battles were a part of normal life just 10 years ago [3] is a massive step up developmentally - it means that there is robust enough internet, literacy, banking, and public services penetration for the seeds for a services economy to form. Edit: Thanks for the downvotes westerners - my family is from these kinds of villages in India and Vietnam. The alternatives are extremely bleak - especially for a tribal woman like Ms Murmu at the bottom of the social and patriarchal hierarchy. [0] - https://theprint.in/ground-reports/industries-finally-returning-to-bihar-there-is-britannia-zara-van-heusen-and-adani/2756276/ https://theprint.in/ground-reports/industries-finally-return... [1] - https://www.thehansindia.com/news/national/18-yr-old-maoist-surrenders-1045688 https://www.thehansindia.com/news/national/18-yr-old-maoist-... [2] - https://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/26/business/ieconomy-apples-ipad-and-the-human-costs-for-workers-in-china.html https://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/26/business/ieconomy-apples-... [3] - https://www.newindianexpress.com/nation/2016/Nov/23/six-maoist-rebels-gunned-down-by-cops-in-jharkhand-1541785.html https://www.newindianexpress.com/nation/2016/Nov/23/six-maoi...

throwaway290 9mo ago
There is an argument. but maybe you have an idea of how manual labor feels (people always do some of it) but no idea how this type of horror feels and what it does.
- alephnerd 9mo ago
  The alternatives in these kinds of villages in rural Jharkhand's tribal and red corridor are literally 1.) bit-piece agriculture work for the local landlord who will never pay salaries on time because he has the power 2.) migrate to the nearest big city (in this case Ranchi, Dhanbad, or Patna) and work at a factory for 12 hours a week with the exact same risks 3.) get married off 4.) join a Maoist outfit in order to surrender and get government rehabilitation benefits. And all of this is assuming the men (and it's always men) who they are reporting to are not lecherous abusers which is a very real risk in these kinds of jobs for women in Ms Murmu's status. Like out of all the bad options, this is the least bad one - especially in an area that was a warzone barely a decade ago.
  - bdangubic 9mo ago
    > this is the least bad one not that I wish this on anyone but you would change your mind very quickly if you had to do this job for just one hour. it can fuck you up for life
    - alephnerd 9mo ago
      So can working in the unorganized sector in the heart of the Red Corridor. Like this is literally one of the least developed parts of one of the least developed states in India. A tribal woman like Murmu who is clearly living in the Red Corridor districts (based on surname and geographic location) doesn't have any better choice. Yes content moderation introduces you to horrid content, but the alternatives give the very real risk of physical and sexual violence.
    - golem14 9mo ago
      I don't think anyone is disputing that this job is terrible, it clearly is. The counter argument is that many other jobs are also terrible, and it's not clear whether you can really stack rank them and this one is at the bottom of the pole.

throwaway290 9mo ago

There is an argument. but maybe you have an idea of how manual labor feels (people always do some of it) but no idea how this type of horror feels and what it does.

alephnerd 9mo ago
The alternatives in these kinds of villages in rural Jharkhand's tribal and red corridor are literally 1.) bit-piece agriculture work for the local landlord who will never pay salaries on time because he has the power 2.) migrate to the nearest big city (in this case Ranchi, Dhanbad, or Patna) and work at a factory for 12 hours a week with the exact same risks 3.) get married off 4.) join a Maoist outfit in order to surrender and get government rehabilitation benefits. And all of this is assuming the men (and it's always men) who they are reporting to are not lecherous abusers which is a very real risk in these kinds of jobs for women in Ms Murmu's status. Like out of all the bad options, this is the least bad one - especially in an area that was a warzone barely a decade ago.
- bdangubic 9mo ago
  > this is the least bad one not that I wish this on anyone but you would change your mind very quickly if you had to do this job for just one hour. it can fuck you up for life
  - alephnerd 9mo ago
    So can working in the unorganized sector in the heart of the Red Corridor. Like this is literally one of the least developed parts of one of the least developed states in India. A tribal woman like Murmu who is clearly living in the Red Corridor districts (based on surname and geographic location) doesn't have any better choice. Yes content moderation introduces you to horrid content, but the alternatives give the very real risk of physical and sexual violence.
  - golem14 9mo ago
    I don't think anyone is disputing that this job is terrible, it clearly is. The counter argument is that many other jobs are also terrible, and it's not clear whether you can really stack rank them and this one is at the bottom of the pole.