The Worst Job In The World?
Well, the worst job that won’t put you in physical danger:
The uncomfortable reality here is that someone is going to have to look at disturbing images submitted by users to platforms like Facebook. As long as user-generated content platforms exist, some users are going to submit this kind of content, and no mainstream platform is going to want to expose its users to these images.
But there are steps that Facebook can take to make the task less traumatic. The company could warn prospective employees about the nature of the job, reduce the resolution of potentially graphic images, give employees shorter shifts, and allow employees to review less offensive content for a few hours after having to moderate the most extreme, graphic images.
Scola’s lawsuit charges that a Facebook-backed organization called the Technology Coalition published recommendations for best practices to help moderators, including limiting the amount of time employees are exposed to disturbing images, offering counseling, and permitting moderators to switch to other tasks after viewing disturbing imagery. According to Scola, Facebook failed to implement those recommendations.
I can scarcely imagine having to look at that sort of thing all day. And you can’t even use it as a “paying your dues” sort of thing for people to do for a while to prove their work ethic or whatever because the personality required to do that may not track with the personality of people you want for anything else. I guess it’s something you can outsource overseas? In any event, our household is pretty strapped right now and I’m not even sure I could do that job.
I’ve allowed the internet to drain enough of my soul already, thank you very much.Report
I still think it’s this one.Report
The job doesn’t sound that bad to me. In fact, I would much rather have a job looking at uncomfortable images of sex and violence than say, a job that involved monitoring Twitter feeds and Facebook walls. I’ve been seeing sex and violence in some form or another my entire life (and my life isn’t particularly out of the norm). I’ve built up some immunity to that. Social media is brand new, though. I’m not fully vaccinated.
This would be an interesting study. Monitor some people who moderate sites for explicit content and monitor some people who work as social media managers. It’s not clear that the latter will have better mental health outcomes than the former. And that’s really scary when you think about the number of people who have jobs that require active engagement with social media.Report
How does one test for such tolerances?Report
I have very real concerns similar in nature in relation to first responders.
Someone has to go find the little girl’s head after the car wreck, then put the little card next to it to photograph it, walk off the distance with the tape, etc.
On the one hand, we like to pretend this sort of thing never bothers those people, largely because they are “those people.”
On the other, we probably would never want them on the job if they were inhuman enough to never be bothered by it.
But then we impose professional penalties where any one of them would seek counseling of any sort.
Shame on us.Report