
My Awful Life as the Internet's Janitor - lnguyen
http://www.gq.com/story/my-awful-life-as-the-internets-janitor
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nudpiedo
I thought this kind of job should be highly paid because of the evident risks
on mental health... when your physical health is on risk your contract
reflects that with additional money, benefits, therapy and earlier
retirement... (not just in Europe right?)

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...

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ktta
People's payment is never related to the mental or physical effects. A friend
of mine pointed it out that it is about how replaceable a person is.

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nudpiedo
I guess you mean in USA, right? Because my experience in Germany and Spain was
different.

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ktta
Yes. I can only talk about what I know, so can you explain how you think
Germany and Spain are different?

Are people there getting paid based on the risk they take instead of how
replaceable they are?

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tofflos
There is usually a group within the police who has to review this type of
content. I couldn't find a reference to it but I'm fairly certain that the
Swedish police places a hard limit, expressed in months, for how much time a
person is allowed to do this type of work.

Perhaps Google should consider doing the same?

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wodenokoto
It seems a lot of commenters missed that the time at Google described in the
article was 10 years ago.

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.

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bgammon
After reading this, I'm just wondering about two possibilities for the
development of Internet culture:

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.

~~~
miiwq
Talk to an actual law enforcement professional. They see shit too. This isn't
a new problem. Their processes and techniques are open. The number of cops we
need to maintain order is budget item that responsible experienced qualified
people debate about publicly every year. What's new is silicon valleys private
police force of the internet is all secret.

~~~
matt4077
It's actually a pretty big problem–there's pretty clear evidence that
policemen serving in majority-black neighbourhoods tend to drift towards
prejudice from workday to workday, only to somewhat recover on off-days.
That's obviously a problem for the communities, but it's actually noticeable
to the affected person as well, which really isn't enjoyable either.

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.

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novia
Do you have a source for paragraph 1? It definitely jibes with what I've
observed in real life, but it's always nice to have a source.

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nzjrs
It's worth remembering this is why Google's AI will always be better than
yours - annotation annotation annotation. Only they can afford to throw this
much money at a problem

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miiwq
Here's the weird thing about"policing the internet" narrative...youtube,
twitter, facebook, reddit etc nobody in these companies talks about how the
shadier parts of their networks are the main draw. We hear more about the
great firewall of China and transparency needs of our police departments than
how these companies are policing the net. If China needs hundreds of thousands
of people to monitor it's content why should we believe YouTube and Facebook
don't? I mean the content is so diverse the networks are global. How is some
20 year old kid going to know what vid is going to trigger a riot in Nigeria,
or what tweet is promoting cannibalism in Uruguay.

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.

~~~
matt4077
The article isn't actually about any form of censorship. They weren't
(primarily) policing search results, but the ad sense network.

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.

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chrisallenlane
> I watched a video of a man stomping on a dog's back, breaking it, and
> listening to the dog's high-pitched whines as it died. I watched all of it.

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".

~~~
shakna
In Google's case, maybe not.

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).

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PappaPatat
Compartmentalization. Learn it. I've always made sure my team got trained and
mentally supervised to prevent this exact problem (we're in... hmm call it
"CERT for hire". We see shit), it makes no sense to me that Google seems not
to do this. Might be because you're "just a contractor" or because they get
away with burning people by the law in that particular part of the world.

~~~
chrisallenlane
Isn't compartmentalization easier said than done, though? Is "just don't let
it bother you" really useful advice, or even possible?

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jaclaz
Here some professionals talk about the issues (more focused on Child
Pornography but the kind of trauma/wear is similar):

[https://www.forensicfocus.com/Forums/viewtopic/t=2329/](https://www.forensicfocus.com/Forums/viewtopic/t=2329/)

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nbanks
This reminds me of an issue of Dabiq magazine I read (ISIS propaganda). It was
surprising that most of the arguments for their actions are cogent presuming
all the ahadith (ie. oral traditions) that were considered authentic a
millennium ago should still be practiced today. However their arguments for
prophecies were stretched, with claims that the US is the Roman Empire and
such.

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.

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cannonpr
Moderators and professionals in this area, like police officers, are often the
least psychologically prepared to cope with this, they also often receive the
least support in quality and time to do so. Psychiatrists receive a lot more
training to cope, and are monitored by other psychiatrists them selves to
ensure that they get the help they need. Yet there are too few psychiatrists
and psychologists for this job and they are too expensive, so we just burn out
regular individuals.

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stock_toaster
That job sounds horrifying -- surprised it doesn't come with some kind of a
minimum therapy hours requirement.

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".

