Ask HN: Does it help moderators if we report kittens? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Does it help moderators if we report kittens?

4 pointsmaxwellito6 comments

Hi everyone,

Ok, it's Friday and the question will sound very silly but I was wondering what the community would think about it.

You might be aware that big social medias platforms (Facebook, YouTube, Twitter..) are getting their content moderated by farms of people, causing a lot of mental health issues. It's pretty sad to see people being payed with minimum wages with no decent working conditions and no health support, especially from companies promoting the fantastic working conditions. You can find a lot of content online about this topic.

I assume the content reaching their screen is the one that is reported by the community. So, if we all report one or two content a day, something very cute to see, will we make moderator life better by dilluting the quantity of horror they are meant to see?

I think about these 3 scenarios, I feel the number 2 is the most plausible.

1. This will just push them to decrease the time allowed to moderate a content, so making their conditions worse. 2. Platforms can easily use algorithms to prioritise content that really needs to be moderated. Also by checking the success rate of "content reported"/"content violating guidelines" per user can help. 3. Too much content to moderate, the moderators are seeing less horror and more kittens.

My point here is not to start chaos, but find a way to push these big corporation to offer decent working conditions to moderators.

It's a nice thought, but you're trying to improve someone's life who exists in a septic tank by spraying in some air freshener. At best, you're slightly delaying the inevitable. At worst, you're making the cognitive dissonance worse and lowering the signal-to-noise ratio.

If you really want to improve these people's lives, organize a Union, and find a way to get everyone on board. Without that, no employer will take the issue seriously, as every dollar they expend on maintaining worker's will-to-live is another dollar off the bottom line. It's sad, but that's the way it works.

I know there's the overwhelming push to do something at least; I've felt it many times. Unfortunately, you have to work your way into a central point of the causal nexus to alter the overall situation, or else you're tying to plug a leaky dam with your fingers. Believe you me, down that road lies madness, heartache, self-loathing, and pain. The same thing you're trying to alleviate them of.

Save yourself the trouble and start the long journey by aiming for the right goal now. Help them organize in their own interest. It'll go leagues further than what even the rest of us can do for them.

It would probably get reports from any accounts doing this flagged as automatically ignored at best or the account banned for false reports at worst.

It's a nice thought, but I think I'd rather be able to consume nice stuff in my own time without it being added to the wokload of the stuff that I have to look at.

No. It doesn't dilute anything - they still have to wade through and moderate exactly the same amount of garbage - it just creates extra work and wastes their time.

ok this is ridic adorable and sweet. i like you, human.

so, a send a mod a kitten app?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com