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kylostahp:
gayhex:
The Laborers Who Keep Dick Pics and Beheadings Out of Your Facebook Feed
Since we’re talking about moderation this article discusses the very real human cost attatched to moderation
This is what I think of when people say, “It’s not that hard, why don’t they just get rid of the child porn/nazis/hate speech/whatever it is I don’t like that’s a problem?” Human moderation is, on the corporate end, not cheap in money–even when most of it is currently being done for low pay in digital sweatshop conditions, it costs companies enough that Tumblr’s not-very-impressive revenue likely wouldn’t make paying for the amount of it required to clean things up worthwhile. It’s also, as pointed out by this article, not cheap in terms of human suffering on the labor end.
Facebook, Twitter, YouTube… every major social content platform has an underbelly of this kind, one that exploits human beings economically and emotionally so the rest of us can complain about enjoying the experience. There is actually no purely technological solution to this, at this time–we’re seeing Tumblr implement a technological solution, and it sucks. If a foolproof, cost-effective automated filtering system existed, the big platforms would already be using it. The simple fact is that even the most advanced machine learning is not able to make these content decisions without human involvement, and is unlikely to magically get substantially better any time soon.
Content moderation on the scale required for massive social media is one of the biggest and most challenging–if not flat-out the biggest and most challenging–problems of this technological era, and whether or not a solution can be developed will define the entire future of the web. For the moment, the bargain that has been struck (as with Amazon and its warehouse workers, as with most of the things that make our lives free and easy here in late-stage capitalism) is that the global digital communities we enjoy and rely on are built on the back of unseen human suffering.
There’s no “just” getting rid of the bad content. It is, in fact, that hard.
(Your picture was not posted)
kylostahp:
gayhex:
The Laborers Who Keep Dick Pics and Beheadings Out of Your Facebook Feed
Since we’re talking about moderation this article discusses the very real human cost attatched to moderation
This is what I think of when people say, “It’s not that hard, why don’t they just get rid of the child porn/nazis/hate speech/whatever it is I don’t like that’s a problem?” Human moderation is, on the corporate end, not cheap in money–even when most of it is currently being done for low pay in digital sweatshop conditions, it costs companies enough that Tumblr’s not-very-impressive revenue likely wouldn’t make paying for the amount of it required to clean things up worthwhile. It’s also, as pointed out by this article, not cheap in terms of human suffering on the labor end.
Facebook, Twitter, YouTube… every major social content platform has an underbelly of this kind, one that exploits human beings economically and emotionally so the rest of us can complain about enjoying the experience. There is actually no purely technological solution to this, at this time–we’re seeing Tumblr implement a technological solution, and it sucks. If a foolproof, cost-effective automated filtering system existed, the big platforms would already be using it. The simple fact is that even the most advanced machine learning is not able to make these content decisions without human involvement, and is unlikely to magically get substantially better any time soon.
Content moderation on the scale required for massive social media is one of the biggest and most challenging–if not flat-out the biggest and most challenging–problems of this technological era, and whether or not a solution can be developed will define the entire future of the web. For the moment, the bargain that has been struck (as with Amazon and its warehouse workers, as with most of the things that make our lives free and easy here in late-stage capitalism) is that the global digital communities we enjoy and rely on are built on the back of unseen human suffering.
There’s no “just” getting rid of the bad content. It is, in fact, that hard.
(Your picture was not posted)
