Content moderation is what a 21st century hazardous job looks like : technology

[-] kibiz0r@midwest.social 54 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago)

“If something you see is really difficult then you can leave your desk, but at that moment you have to remember to put on your computer that you are on ‘wellbeing’,” explains Eyvazzadeh. “But if the supervisors think you are using wellbeing more than you should, they will intervene. They would say: ‘Your ‘production’ time is a bit lower than expected, you have been on wellbeing a lot.’ So you are pressured to increase your time on ‘production’ by decreasing your ‘wellbeing.’”

It’s bad enough we make overseas workers spend all day pulling the lever of a slot machine that yields mis-flagged puppy videos and gruesome beheadings with equal likelihood, but then we stack NDAs, legal obstacles, surveillance, and KPI admonishment on top of it.

If you wrote this in a sci-fi novel, your editor would say “that’s a little cartoonishly evil, isn’t it?”

Edit: Oh, health privacy violations and union-busting too. Classy stuff!

[-] SARGE@startrek.website 32 points 4 days ago

I tried being a moderator on a forum once, and after alerting admins and the FBI about csam less than a week in, I decided I was done being a moderator.

It was a forum for RC stuff, mostly diy rc planes.

Unfortunately, therapy only helps you cope, it doesn't let you forget.

[-] pebbles@sh.itjust.works 10 points 4 days ago

Jesus Christ. On an RC website?! I just don't even know how to process that. That doesn't make any sense.

So sorry you had to see that.

[-] ramble81@lemm.ee 16 points 4 days ago

The internet was simultaneously the best and worst thing for humanity.

[-] heavydust@sh.itjust.works 8 points 4 days ago

Browsers with a GUI was a mistake. We should have stayed with CLI tools: telnet, ftp, and Lynx if you really want to read a web site.

[-] umbrella@lemmy.ml 4 points 4 days ago

are lemmy mods already seeing this type of stuff regularly or are we too small just yet?

[-] T156@lemmy.world 4 points 3 days ago

No, they are. There was a spam wave some time ago that had people upload gore and other things onto instances.

[-] Viri4thus@feddit.org 8 points 4 days ago

Let me know how many content moderators contract hep-C through the screen.

[-] atrielienz@lemmy.world 33 points 4 days ago

So, are you one of the "mental healthcare isn't real healthcare" people, or are you just butthurt and unable to be objective because some mod banned you one time?

[-] Viri4thus@feddit.org 2 points 4 days ago

Mental healthcare is one of the most neglected forms of care in current modern western society. It IS and always HAS BEEN a serious and damaging form of disease.

What it isn't is comparable to black lung or COPD in content moderation teams. The exaggeration by hacks like Miceli, to justify her grift and the continued funneling of grants towards her dubious work at TUB does more disservice for the cause than helps. It creates a situation of Peter and the Wolf and makes access to care extremely complicated to people who are suffering from mental illness, with severe social and personal consequences.

[-] chobeat@lemmy.ml 8 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago)

funneling of grants towards her dubious work at TUB

Bro, don't just google shit about scholars you have no clue about and make up fake accusations. She's not doing research at TU Berlin, she's just a lecturer there. She's one of the most famous scholars in this field and she's associated more strongly with DAIR, which is a thousand times more relevant in this discourse than TU, and DiPLab in Paris.

You clearly just googled her name, checked where she works, and made up some shit.

[-] Viri4thus@feddit.org 3 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago)

I just mentioned the affiliation of her published work and the several works cited as funded by the federal ministry of education and research... If anything you're actually strengthening my point, this type of exaggeration is a charm operation rather than a call for corrective measures.

Edit: TIL that DAIR, is more relevant than TUB... Ok, I guess, to each their own. Love the exceptionalism of comparing a centennial research university to a 2021 US american initiative.

Grifters gonna grift.

[-] chobeat@lemmy.ml 7 points 4 days ago

you clearly have no clue what you're talking about. The federal funding goes to Weizenbaum Institute, that is another very big institution in techno politics and other fields of research. You keep googling shit up.

[-] Viri4thus@feddit.org 2 points 4 days ago

Funny, it does transpire you're the one googling, otherwise you'd know that the research at Weizenbaum doesn't exist in a vacuum and can't confer degrees, that's why it partnered with universities (much like institutions like the HZI). This charm operation from researchers like the aforementioned one is happening because 2025 is the renovation year for the 5year funding of the Weisenbaum, so it's time to exaggerate the problems since if the trend continues the funding will be even lower this year. (50M in 2017, 36 in 2022) Clearly, you're out of your depth when concerning how public research is conducted and more importantly, funded.

[-] Sibyls@lemmy.ml 7 points 4 days ago

Then how can you say mental health is "one of the most neglected forms of care", then go on to neglect the mental health concerns brought up by the article by minimizing it to a single comparison made in the first paragraph?

We can all agree that content moderation is incredibly harmful, and if we want to support mental health care, that should be the focus of discussion.

[-] RogueBanana@lemmy.zip 4 points 4 days ago

So what's your point? Moderation isn't hazardous or that it is not as dangerous as coal mining? I can understand if it is the later but it would be foolish to claim the first.

[-] Viri4thus@feddit.org 2 points 4 days ago

That it's significantly less hazardous than coal mining and comparing it so doesn't do the discussion the problem needs any favours.

The researcher in question is part of an institution that is negotiating a 5y research tender renovation so they are just going with stupid shit like this.

[-] atrielienz@lemmy.world 4 points 4 days ago

So you don't think having a mental illness or malady can detrimentally affect the physical wellbeing of the person with the malady despite multiple studies that say otherwise. Good to know.

[-] Viri4thus@feddit.org 2 points 4 days ago

The fact you need to misrepresent my argument to have a leg to stand on already tells any reader what they need to know about the value of your premises.

Your arguments from the beginning were ad hominem and red herring, not an actual substantive justification to the comparison of mental illness of moderation teams vs illness of coal miners.

There's some low hanging fruit solutions to this issue. Forbid content moderation work to be subcontracted from BPOs, all moderation work in the GDPR area must be conducted by people with local passports. Include mandatory whistleblower clauses and require medical examinations yearly before people can be hired for this work. Limit the usage of KPIs for moderation work.

Of course, nobody will enact any of this low hanging fruit because it's easier to exploit migrants. But let's keep listening to grifters comparing moderation with coal miners, that's really going to jive well.

[-] SkyeStarfall 4 points 4 days ago

No, its you that are downplaying the effects of mental health

Why is it that mental health issues are treated less severely than physical health issues? You can be deeply affected, and even die, due to them either way

They both can ruin lives

[-] Viri4thus@feddit.org 2 points 4 days ago

Oh ffs, grow up. Nobody is downplaying the effects of mental health, just asking people to be reasonable. That's, however, anno 2025, too much to ask. Everyone exists in hyperbole and asinine takes.

PTSD is eminently treatable and manageable. It doesn't naturally degenerate, it sucks but you can live till you're old. Black lung, COPD are chronic, degenerative diseases that will eventually make you gasp for air till you die while your loved ones look on without being able to do anything.

This is beyond stupid, I don't know when we, as a civilisation, reached a point where people can't understand shades of grey anymore and live in absolutes only.

[-] SkyeStarfall 5 points 4 days ago

Unless you kill yourself, because you know, that happens a lot in untreated mental illness

Or even more "minor" stuff like not taking care of your own health, pushing away everyone you know and love, or even maybe want them to hate you so that they won't get hurt when you do finally do something

You are downplaying mental illness, whether you admit to it or not. Our brain is the core of our being, why do you not take it as seriously as the rest of our body?

[-] Viri4thus@feddit.org 2 points 4 days ago

COPD is the fourth leading cause of death worldwide. That's the entire universe of people in the world.

I guess WHO also downplays mental health because their take is actually quite similar to my take, you know, the only responsible adult in this thread...

I don't know why I'm even bothering to entertain this conversation. Good day.

[+] Lemmist@lemm.ee 6 points 4 days ago* (last edited 17 hours ago)

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[-] donuts@lemmy.world 40 points 4 days ago

We're talking about removing hate speech, porn (including CSAM) and gore.

This has a real impact on mental health and there should be a support network for those who regularly interact with this kind of material.

[-] chobeat@lemmy.ml 24 points 4 days ago

also shaming anybody for the labor they have to do to survive is the most reactionary patronizing bullshit ever.

[-] el_muerte@lemm.ee 14 points 4 days ago

You mad all the CP you share keeps getting taken down?

[-] missandry351@lemmings.world 2 points 3 days ago

Done that for almost 3 years it wasn’t so bad because bots catch the really bad stuff but like 10 years ago or so it was really bad…

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