The police normally rotate staff on and off the analyst post every few months.
I was speaking to a detective, saying I was interested in going into digital forensics, and he just plainly said "no, you don't want to do that". He said he knew he'd spent too long on the job when he was walking through a park, saw a father playing with his daughter, and instead of thinking "aww" thought "you sick fucker".
I have, in the course of my career, come across child abuse content. Personally it didn't really bother me - I just didn't think about it and got on with the job of notifying the police, but I can easily see how being exposed to that sort of thing day in day out would really mess with someone's head.
That interview was haunting. I can't imagine how hard it must be, or what kind of toll it takes on you, even if you're able to rotate through to something less stressful after a short period of time.
Seems like the bulk of these roles are contract. "$24/hour" was mentioned in the article. Probably no health benefits. Probably no counseling.
251 working days * 8 hours * $24 = $48,192. Less taxes. Less sick days. Safe to assume these workers aren't all going to work out of the main office in SF.
Seems like Facebook would have to set up some sort of work from home system, like people who transcribe medical records, or some sort of off-shore system, to make this work for workers. But... spreading out the people who do this work is likely to increase security risks that sensitive data will be shared, and reduce workers ability to find comfort with peers.
No way to look at this where automation isn't going to be better.
Unionization would likely be difficult though due to the low barrier of entry for the job - artificial barriers would have to be created by the union and those break down pretty easily due to human factors (see Walmart).
I'm all for regulation in this case. Require that folks who review content for illegal posts be limited in the amount of content they review in a weekday, must have certain benefits like mental health counseling, and get some vacation / sabbatical from the work.
Risks might be reduced innovation in the field, but the big boys like Facebook and Google have already found excellent ways to snuff out their competition within the existing market.
If you'd like to experience this, you can make an experiment yourself. If you're a Twitter/Facebook user, look for a group/account you know will have unacceptable content (it's easy, search for white genocide or similar - there's always something available). Then try to find some things that are actually reportable without the need to explain the reason in more than a few words.
After you find 10, you'll likely find it's mentally exhausting to deal with it / look at that content anymore. On the up side, you'll likely report and remove some amounts.
Why? Posts on the internet are pure data. I'm okay with no posts ever being removed.
IRL analogy: the dog shit that my neighbor throws onto the sidewalk is pure matter. Just atoms and molecules and such. Should it not be removed?
EDIT: Not that I agree with the 100 sacrificial removals for each good one. I don't. But the "pure data" argument doesn't work for me.
Would you remove child porn off the internet? How about a rape victim’s photos and videos? If you could delete something that would cause people to commit suicide, would you?
The platforms are in a tricky position, but I agree this job should pay more with perhaps some regulatory oversight.
If you don't like Internet then just get off it!
You probably never noticed, but some people have this thing called self-actualization. By removing good posts you step on it with your greasy foot. By removing controversial posts you also step on it. That's a lot of damage that you did to innocent people right here.
We've got to get off HTTP just that people like you never have the chance to step into other people's homes, decide what they can and can't post and view.
We're not talking about "controversial posts" here. It's perfectly legal to be a Nazi, even if Facebook might prefer you not be a Nazi on their platform.
This is about child abuse material. In no way is that being illegal "controversial".
I can tell you back in the day when I worked for Rackshack I never envied the abuse department. They always looked stressed out.
8k post in a day is just too many for one person. Its not about how much work they are doing, its about the content they are subjected to look at and review. To do that you have to actually think about it and make a decision -- and that takes a toll on people -- you don't get to forget.
I am not one for regulation but if there is on place in tech that should be considered for regulation, then I think this is a good place to start.
These workers need paid more, access to therapy and much more time off. I also think there are technical solutions to help ease the work needed, but that cost, and nobody seems to want to pay with human workers left holding the bag. This would also include stricter rules to make filtering easier.
Good job, you guys can put a dancing hotdog on the screen why not use that talent to work and make back-end systems to automate this sort of horrid work away. I know it will be hard, but if NN and deep learning is all cracked up to what keeps being preached then it should be within the realm of possible.
Also, while with the when it comes to the law, I am for the notion that it is okay if 10 bad people get away if it means not falsely convicting 1 good person. However on the internet with regards to what normally amounts to pointless shit that people post on the internet. I am okay with 100 good post being automatically removed it if means 1 bad post is also removed.