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The Internet Moderators Who Have to Look at Horrific Content
Looking at murder and rape videos for hours every day causes PTSD
Have you ever thought about the people whose job it is to remove inappropriate content from the web?
Most of the time, you probably don’t give it any thought. Out of sight, out of mind.
But it’s like the people who have to clean up after a murder. Or hospital staff who clean up blood and vomit. It’s a dirty job but someone’s got to do it.
Welcome to the “Terror Queue”
Looking at videos of beheadings, child rape, and people being shot. Google knows it’s truly unpleasant work. This is why they outsource a lot of it. That way, they don’t have the same obligation to take care of them when they inevitably go insane from PTSD.
It’s a horrific job, but somebody’s got to do it, otherwise, the internet would be unusable for the rest of us.
Content moderators who are lucky enough to be directly employed by Google can earn as much as $90,000 USD per year. And if their health ends up suffering badly enough, they might be able to take paid leave to deal with it.
But for the lower-paid contractors with fewer benefits, some of them will keep going until…
