4 ms·

I long time ago, I was operating a "social network" which allowed image uploads. (India local, didn't amount to much as was shutdown.). Immediately at launch,

by ghoul2 8mo ago

I long time ago, I was operating a "social network" which allowed image uploads. (India local, didn't amount to much as was shutdown.). Immediately at launch, we started having a huge amount of (image) pron being uploaded into the pages. We put in some rate limits etc, but did not want to put any major restrictions of user signups etc as that would hurt signup figures (important to the ceo!). We already had some content review people thru a temp agency on site, so we checked with them and they were fine doing this manual filtering of these images for us. All young (early 20s) women. While my team built a quick "dashboard" for them to be able to do this image filtering quickly and conveniently, I had a detailed conversation with them as I was very concerned about having them review this kinda stuff for 8 hours a day, 5 days a week. Truly nasty stuff. They were _perfectly_ clear that they had no issues with it, and they told me in so many words to not give it a second thought and to let them get back to work. It was a surprise, but it was a point of realization: there are much worse things they could be doing. And looking a porn has shock value only the first time. I was under-estimating these women and assuming they were some "snowflakes" who could not deal with something this silly and non-threatening. Just my own person anec-data.

ura_yukimitsu 8mo ago
It's good that you warned them in advance, but I don't think "there are much worse things they could be doing" really is a reason to discard those who are hurt by this as "snowflakes" and the content they're exposed to as "silly and non-threatening." From what you're saying, there's also a big difference between what you were dealing with and what this article is talking about: in your case it was only still images, and only "regular" porn (and I assume they probably had to monitor every image posted if it was "a long time ago" so overall they were not exposed only to that content); in this case they're reviewing videos content including not only porn but also violence and sexual abuse, that was pre-flagged by an AI so with way less rule-abiding content mixed in.
- lazide 8mo ago
  The alternative is…. They don’t have a job? What else is going to happen? For many people, the alternatives can literally be death, wading unprotected through human excrement, sold into defacto slavery, etc. etc. AI can do some of it (now), but largely isn’t going to be more accurate and still needs humans to double check its work.
  - ura_yukimitsu 8mo ago
    I really don't think it's fair to minimize someone's struggles just because their situation could be worse. Is only the most miserable person on the planet (by what metric anyway?) allowed to complain about their condition? I also don't think it's fair to exploit people who are in terrible situations by pushing jobs we don't want onto them, pay them a handful of crumbs, and then say they should be happy with what they get because their neighbor who does another job gets half a handful of crumbs.
    - lazide 8mo ago
      The women in this situation aren’t complaining. Very much the opposite. Why the compulsion to paternalistically ‘protect’ everyone even to the point of making them unemployed? I assume they weighed their options and decided this was the best one. It sounds like you want to stop them from doing that? Isn’t that the real minimization?
      - ura_yukimitsu 8mo ago
        You're misrepresenting both what the article says and what I wrote. The article explicitly mentions that the jobs aren't clearly labeled so they couldn't weigh their options beforehand, that concerns raised by the workers are being dismissed by management, and that several workers have developed mental health problems. I'm not arguing that these women should be "protected" by taking their jobs away or that they can't make their own choices; of course they're weighing their options and deciding accordingly (the article even mentions that some of them decided to leave). But it's not unreasonable to critique a system where the only choices they have are all horrible in (often more than) one way or another.
        lazide 8mo ago
        I’m responding to the gp comment, which I thought was obvious
  - 4MOAisgoodenuf 8mo ago
- ThrowawayR2 8mo ago
  People butcher livestock for pay on a daily basis, rendering a live animal dead and cutting it to bits, on a massive scale to provide the food that we eat. Rescue and medical personnel deal with the injured, ill, and dying on a daily basis on a massive scale. Merely watching videos, even of disturbing material, doesn't even come close to being as bad as those and some other professions.
  - D-Machine 8mo ago
    [flagged]
    - pavel_lishin 8mo ago
      > Yes, images and videos can be horrific, but that horror absolutely pales in comparison to what the world has to offer. "Eat your dinner, there's kids starving in Africa."
    - rramadass 8mo ago
      https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46921505 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46921505
      - D-Machine 8mo ago
        As I've said, images can be horrific, and some people can be traumatized by them. That must not be dismissed. However, It is also important to carefully and properly quantify these things and not sensationalize. You've linked a 50+ minute documentary, without comment, that seems to prove that one person hired to curate content can become traumatized by that process. I can't be certain that is what it is about, because I will not waste time watching documentaries (the vast majority of which are outright propaganda or incredibly biased, while pretending to be objective), but still, I've no doubt the general claim is true, since I never claimed or believed otherwise. But you've not provided meaningful statistical or scientific evidence properly quantifying such harms in general.
        8mo ago
- rramadass 8mo ago
  https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46921505 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46921505
aaaalone 8mo ago
It's modern slavery. Just because it's beneficial for them doesn't mean they are getting exploited. Looking at porn or something similar or actually really bad , changes people. Even if it means they get a lot more insensitive
- paulryanrogers 8mo ago
  IMO it's only slavery if they truly have no other options. Which, if true, is also worth addressing.
  - aaaalone 8mo ago
    We live in a world we're most people do not do something which directly affects food production. To not be modern slavery it would/should have above avg pay and benefits.
- rramadass 8mo ago
  https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46921505 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46921505
yunohn 8mo ago
While one can blame corporations, the most blame lands on the Indian government(s). Decades and decades of corrupt local, state, and central governance has led to dire poverty and high levels of unemployment. The current and past leaders have had no care to fix it, and it’s only getting worse. Their incompetence is what creates these kinds of jobs as alternatives to abject poverty and death.
rramadass 8mo ago
As an Indian living in India's Silicon Valley, I am calling BS on this. "All young (early 20s) women" doing explicit content manual filtering is not normal. No Indian Family would allow their daughters (and sons) to take up such a job if they knew about it. As the article itself points out, the workers are drawn in by non-explicit/non-pron image annotation and then switched to psychologically harmful work when they cannot leave due to job-needs/contracts-enforcement. This is pure bait-and-switch scam which has severe psychological effects on the women (and men) involved and should not be blithely hand-waved away. For a detailed understanding of the psychological harm of explicit image annotation see this documentary (not specific to India) The "Modern Day Slaves" Of The AI Tech World. Undercover reporter does annotation of explicit images for AI but is so traumatized by what he sees that he quits in two weeks. - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VPSZFUiElls https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VPSZFUiElls
- redeeman 8mo ago
  would the indian families allow their daughters or sons to become part of tech support scams stealing the livelyhood of elderly people?

by ghoul2 8mo ago

ura_yukimitsu 8mo ago

It's good that you warned them in advance, but I don't think "there are much worse things they could be doing" really is a reason to discard those who are hurt by this as "snowflakes" and the content they're exposed to as "silly and non-threatening." From what you're saying, there's also a big difference between what you were dealing with and what this article is talking about: in your case it was only still images, and only "regular" porn (and I assume they probably had to monitor every image posted if it was "a long time ago" so overall they were not exposed only to that content); in this case they're reviewing videos content including not only porn but also violence and sexual abuse, that was pre-flagged by an AI so with way less rule-abiding content mixed in.

lazide 8mo ago
The alternative is…. They don’t have a job? What else is going to happen? For many people, the alternatives can literally be death, wading unprotected through human excrement, sold into defacto slavery, etc. etc. AI can do some of it (now), but largely isn’t going to be more accurate and still needs humans to double check its work.
- ura_yukimitsu 8mo ago
  I really don't think it's fair to minimize someone's struggles just because their situation could be worse. Is only the most miserable person on the planet (by what metric anyway?) allowed to complain about their condition? I also don't think it's fair to exploit people who are in terrible situations by pushing jobs we don't want onto them, pay them a handful of crumbs, and then say they should be happy with what they get because their neighbor who does another job gets half a handful of crumbs.
  - lazide 8mo ago
    The women in this situation aren’t complaining. Very much the opposite. Why the compulsion to paternalistically ‘protect’ everyone even to the point of making them unemployed? I assume they weighed their options and decided this was the best one. It sounds like you want to stop them from doing that? Isn’t that the real minimization?
    - ura_yukimitsu 8mo ago
      You're misrepresenting both what the article says and what I wrote. The article explicitly mentions that the jobs aren't clearly labeled so they couldn't weigh their options beforehand, that concerns raised by the workers are being dismissed by management, and that several workers have developed mental health problems. I'm not arguing that these women should be "protected" by taking their jobs away or that they can't make their own choices; of course they're weighing their options and deciding accordingly (the article even mentions that some of them decided to leave). But it's not unreasonable to critique a system where the only choices they have are all horrible in (often more than) one way or another.
      - lazide 8mo ago
        I’m responding to the gp comment, which I thought was obvious
- 4MOAisgoodenuf 8mo ago
ThrowawayR2 8mo ago
People butcher livestock for pay on a daily basis, rendering a live animal dead and cutting it to bits, on a massive scale to provide the food that we eat. Rescue and medical personnel deal with the injured, ill, and dying on a daily basis on a massive scale. Merely watching videos, even of disturbing material, doesn't even come close to being as bad as those and some other professions.
- D-Machine 8mo ago
  [flagged]
  - pavel_lishin 8mo ago
    > Yes, images and videos can be horrific, but that horror absolutely pales in comparison to what the world has to offer. "Eat your dinner, there's kids starving in Africa."
  - rramadass 8mo ago
    https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46921505 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46921505
    - D-Machine 8mo ago
      As I've said, images can be horrific, and some people can be traumatized by them. That must not be dismissed. However, It is also important to carefully and properly quantify these things and not sensationalize. You've linked a 50+ minute documentary, without comment, that seems to prove that one person hired to curate content can become traumatized by that process. I can't be certain that is what it is about, because I will not waste time watching documentaries (the vast majority of which are outright propaganda or incredibly biased, while pretending to be objective), but still, I've no doubt the general claim is true, since I never claimed or believed otherwise. But you've not provided meaningful statistical or scientific evidence properly quantifying such harms in general.
      - 8mo ago
rramadass 8mo ago
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46921505 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46921505

aaaalone 8mo ago

It's modern slavery. Just because it's beneficial for them doesn't mean they are getting exploited. Looking at porn or something similar or actually really bad , changes people. Even if it means they get a lot more insensitive

paulryanrogers 8mo ago
IMO it's only slavery if they truly have no other options. Which, if true, is also worth addressing.
- aaaalone 8mo ago
  We live in a world we're most people do not do something which directly affects food production. To not be modern slavery it would/should have above avg pay and benefits.
rramadass 8mo ago
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46921505 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46921505

yunohn 8mo ago

While one can blame corporations, the most blame lands on the Indian government(s). Decades and decades of corrupt local, state, and central governance has led to dire poverty and high levels of unemployment. The current and past leaders have had no care to fix it, and it’s only getting worse. Their incompetence is what creates these kinds of jobs as alternatives to abject poverty and death.

rramadass 8mo ago

As an Indian living in India's Silicon Valley, I am calling BS on this. "All young (early 20s) women" doing explicit content manual filtering is not normal. No Indian Family would allow their daughters (and sons) to take up such a job if they knew about it. As the article itself points out, the workers are drawn in by non-explicit/non-pron image annotation and then switched to psychologically harmful work when they cannot leave due to job-needs/contracts-enforcement. This is pure bait-and-switch scam which has severe psychological effects on the women (and men) involved and should not be blithely hand-waved away. For a detailed understanding of the psychological harm of explicit image annotation see this documentary (not specific to India) The "Modern Day Slaves" Of The AI Tech World. Undercover reporter does annotation of explicit images for AI but is so traumatized by what he sees that he quits in two weeks. - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VPSZFUiElls https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VPSZFUiElls

redeeman 8mo ago
would the indian families allow their daughters or sons to become part of tech support scams stealing the livelyhood of elderly people?