My Awful Life as the Internet's Janitor
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I guess what would happen if this person becomes permanently burnout or suicides because of this long exposure; my understanding is that the employer is responsible for that unless the contract has some compensation and mitigation for the effects on the worker's health...
Are people there getting paid based on the risk they take instead of how replaceable they are?
>I received an offer of $20 per hour, no benefits, to work 40 hours per week.
Perhaps Google should consider doing the same?
I'm not saying things are done any better in terms of psychological environment, but things run differently now.
> Google still felt like a scrappy company when I started working there in 2007, but it basically already ruled the world.
Increased policing -- people fear repercussions for posting disturbing content. The darkest corners live on.
Increased exposure -- people share the psychological burden of knowing disturbing content exists, and develop meaningful discussions and coping mechanisms.
What helps is to have people work as police officers, and paramedic or firefighter in turn. That way, you get to experience the good side of humanity and don't lose faith. But of course that makes training somewhat more complicated.
Increased tolerance -- people become so thoroughly jaded that the lines between shocking, disturbing and sick will go from uncertain, to blurred, and eventually insignificant.
In fact, we've seen this development already. It began even before the public became aware of the internet, and we're all becoming more benumbed.
Disassociation can't be a healthy coping mechanism.
Pay the least we can, to ensure that this goes away.
From a company perspective, this is a cost of doing business, its not a "Profit Center". It gets treated and measured by the same metrics as credit card fraud. As long as the number is X low, then we need Y number of people to handle it.
X is variant on size of site, so Y is the only thing we can control, so lets keep it as low as possible.
Don't assume tolerance and open-ness on the new Network.
Do note - Increased exposure, without guidance, means that people will become ANGRIER and MORE intolerant. This is the stuff that gets "weaponized" and you see one community yell about it by saying "SEE! This is Happening and no one is talking about it".
These companies have just been hiding behind the free speech folk with their heads buried in the sand about the long term effects of all this content.
If we can figure out ways to get our govts to tell us know how many policemen we need and the process it takes to become one, there is no reason Silicon Valley should be doing this vital policing in secret.
There's just no theory of free speech that would require google to run ads on white supremacist websites. After all it's the advertisers that don't want it, and they don't want it because the backlash would end up hurting them, on balance.
All that means that this sort of content simply doesn't have any value as a vehicle for mainstream advertisement. It's actually quite democratic in a way, because the value originates with the broad public. If everyone starts only buying cars advertised on strangulation porn sites tomorrow, the money would follow.
Until then, I'm quite happy at current arrangement: There's a few Silos "policed" to different levels of sensibility, then there's the almost free-for-all web, and governments largely don't play a role. The big advantage of private companies doing this (even if intransparent), is that there are several of these companies, and that none of them have an army.
P. S/:Please let me know where these shadier parts of Facebook and Youtube are, because I don't think there's much there, beyond some vintage softporn.
The vast majority of people are not going to Youtube, Twitter, or Facebook to watch dog killing videos.
I wonder if the job truly requires these contractors to watch these videos in their entirety. If so - why? Regarding the above, surely you'd only need to watch up until the moment the man broke the dog's back to determine that the video was not "advertiser-friendly".
When I worked with the police, yes. You needed every scrap of horrible information and context. Usually because it's much worse than you think initially. (Background voices tell you someone was forced to watch, etc).
The photos were stunning. Each one looked as if it ought to be a stock Windows wallpaper. And then I saw the photo of a beheading that I wish I could unsee. Now I'm quite happy to follow events using secondary sources, and I don't envy anyone who has the task of reading this shit.
Aside: After reading that article, henceforth every time Google drops a product or weirdly changes focus/direction, I am going to say "Google is shaking the bear again".