Roberts's book explores the world of content moderation, with some in-depth and revealing interviews with the people who actually view hours and hours of horrific content in order to keep it from populating the web. These moderators play a huge role in how we interact with the Internet -- literally determining what we are allowed to see -- yet are largely anonymous and treated as disposable by the corporations who employ them. The people she interviews are reflective: One muses that he was proud of flagging a potential suicide video, which helped save the potential victim, but did the social media site create the circumstances for such videos to happen in the first place? An engaging exploration of a difficult topic, and one that social media companies themselves would assuredly rather not have us think about.
Review of 'Behind the Screen: Content Moderation in the Shadows of Social Media' on 'Goodreads'
3 stars
This book is informative and mostly interesting. Three out of five because I wanted more of the interview material with the moderators. And, maybe I wanted more detail of the horrors they face in their work. I’m not sure I actually want that though.
The portions of the book focused on the business structures around moderation are slow to read. I do appreciate being able to compare those that worked directly on “Megatech’s” campus as contractors to those in remote locations like call centers. Despite both sets of workers being undervalued contractors and their work being similar, they have different perspectives. I can’t imagine those moderating U.S. posts from another culture can be as effective as those who live in the U.S. That said, moderating centers have flourished in the Philippines because they are steeped in U.S. pop culture.
The interviews with the workers, taking risks because of NDAs, are …
This book is informative and mostly interesting. Three out of five because I wanted more of the interview material with the moderators. And, maybe I wanted more detail of the horrors they face in their work. I’m not sure I actually want that though.
The portions of the book focused on the business structures around moderation are slow to read. I do appreciate being able to compare those that worked directly on “Megatech’s” campus as contractors to those in remote locations like call centers. Despite both sets of workers being undervalued contractors and their work being similar, they have different perspectives. I can’t imagine those moderating U.S. posts from another culture can be as effective as those who live in the U.S. That said, moderating centers have flourished in the Philippines because they are steeped in U.S. pop culture.
The interviews with the workers, taking risks because of NDAs, are the most interesting parts of the book, including Roberts’s analysis of their discussions. The work seems horrible, and I think “sin eater” is an outstanding description. I imagine PTSD is a pretty common result of this work, which says a lot about humanity. I was surprised to learn that the moderators often feel helpless. They follow their protocols and report to law enforcement as necessary, but they usually don’t learn the result of their reporting, and if they don’t hear anything, it’s easy to assume nothing happened.
The fact that “Megatech” limited their contractors to one year stints with a mandatory break in between makes it clear that the horror of the work is acknowledged, and yet mental health is a secondary thought. I agree with the moderator who suggested required sessions with a therapist for all moderators.
Finally, the book’s conclusion is outstanding. Content moderation is finally acknowledged as a reality of the web, and as one moderator said, without the work, the internet would be a cesspool. Now that moderation is acknowledged, we need to appreciate their necessary, dangerous, and invisible work by providing them the physical health care, mental health care, pay, and recognition they deserve. Companies are making billions from the work of free content creators; the least we can do is move some of that money to those making it as safe as possible.
