this post was submitted on 20 Oct 2023
535 points (98.2% liked)

Technology

58137 readers
5226 users here now

This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.


Our Rules


  1. Follow the lemmy.world rules.
  2. Only tech related content.
  3. Be excellent to each another!
  4. Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
  5. Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
  6. Politics threads may be removed.
  7. No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
  8. Only approved bots from the list below, to ask if your bot can be added please contact us.
  9. Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed

Approved Bots


founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
 

‘It scars you for life’: Workers sue Meta claiming viewing brutal videos caused psychological trauma::More than 20% of the staff Meta hired to check the violent content of Facebook and Instagram are on sick leave due to psychological trauma.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] [email protected] 121 points 11 months ago (2 children)

Couldn't they hire from watchpeopledie or nothingtoxic or ebaum. Those users probably would do overtime for free.

[–] [email protected] 87 points 11 months ago (2 children)

People that are completely desensitized to that kind of stuff would probably not be very good at moderating it really.

Also this is a terrible job and I'd be very worried if a company was paying and enabling people who find that fun. It's horrible, but trauma is the normal outcome.

[–] [email protected] 44 points 11 months ago (4 children)

Sounds like the perfect job for AI

[–] [email protected] 40 points 11 months ago (1 children)

I feel sorry for whichever researchers are in charge of training and fine tuning those models.... ouch

[–] [email protected] 18 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Maybe they still have the content that got removed because of that, you might be able to train an AI just on that. That way they don't need to manually check it, it's already been done after all.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (1 children)

Exactly, and even if the content uploaded disagrees and request human oversight that is just one image that needs to be checked rather then all. Ai may even be able to blur parts of footage that are most brutal and extreme and create written transcripts of audio You dont need 4k resolution and hearable screaming to understand that someone is getting murderered or Raped.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 11 months ago

True, didn't think about that. Blurring and transcripts are also way more reliable, so it will work correctly almost always.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 11 months ago

They used AI to flag the images but a human still had to search through them

[–] [email protected] 10 points 11 months ago

I am of the kind that is very wary with what should or should not be an AI's job, and you know what, in this very particular case, I think I agree.

At least as a first filter, anyway.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 11 months ago

Huge industries emerging in this field right now for everything from this type of social media moderation to helping fight CSAM more effectively so humans aren't having to be a frontline for that type of material. This is one area I can really, really get behind AI on and see a very valid use case that isn't just marketing hype like so many others. I know there's some great stuff happening just based on my own field of employment and being close to a few things in the works this year.

[–] [email protected] 20 points 11 months ago (4 children)

Honestly I don't see an issue with it. If they can tell the difference between an image that should be moderated and one that shouldn't they can do the job and I seriously doubt the vast majority of people desensitized to that kind of content can't tell the difference. That's like the arguments that we shouldn't make graphic games or movies because people won't be able to tell the difference between them and reality. Not everyone can do every job and these people would be the perfect fit for it and we would spare others from getting hurt

[–] [email protected] 15 points 11 months ago

Desensitized doesn't necessarily mean somebody doesn't have reactions to something. It just means they can compartmentalize those reactions and move forward and deal with the ramifications later.

EMTs, ER Doctors, and Nurses are largely desensitized to graphic trauma and can press through and get the job done. But that doesn't mean that they don't process those scenes later in both healthy and unhealthy ways (there's a few study out there that show ER staff have higher rates of alcoholism and substance abuse rates than the general public).

Tramua is trauma, whether you're desensitized or not.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

It would be a highly unethical but interesting research to see if those people experience long-term consequences nevertheless. Or if being desensitizes really does give someone immunity.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 11 months ago

Except, you know, we're talking people who are progressively desensitized to reality. So no, that's not comparable at all.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 11 months ago

Exactly. If they couldn't tell the difference, then how could they know which content to seek out for their own enjoyment. It might not affect them much, if at all anymore, but they know what 'it' looks like.

Can you imagine them watching a cute cat video over and over and wondering why they aren't getting the rush they must feel when watching gore.

I remember in the early days of the internet, i clicked a link on a forum and ended up watching a video of some guy being decapitated. I have never forgotten that image, 20+ years later, and i know i would be checking into a mental hospital if i had the job these facebook staff have had to do. But there are people who like this sort of stuff, and its not because they have forgotten what decapitation looks like.

[–] [email protected] 18 points 11 months ago (1 children)

You're not thinking awful enough

[–] [email protected] 2 points 11 months ago

I've seen users laugh at horrific gore videos on some forums. I'm not sick, but was curious at one point and googled.