<story><title>A Facebook content moderator’s resignation note</title><url>https://twitter.com/rmac18/status/1382366931307565057</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>stickfigure</author><text>You know who else has to deal with these images - and &lt;i&gt;much&lt;/i&gt; worse, real-world living cases? Law enforcement. Lawyers. Juries.&lt;p&gt;Do we just sit back and say &amp;quot;let&amp;#x27;s stop subjecting those poor officers from having to see evil things&amp;quot;? Of course not. We hire people with strong stomachs and a strong sense of duty. Not everyone who sees this stuff is scarred for life.&lt;p&gt;See also: Soldiers. Firefighters. Emergency medical workers.&lt;p&gt;Personally, I&amp;#x27;d rather moderate gross things than, say, work in a coal mine. But that&amp;#x27;s me. I don&amp;#x27;t appreciate the insinuation that this makes me some sort of monster.</text></item><item><author>diamondhandle</author><text>People who comment on these moderator issues always overlook the huge huge mental red flag that these moderators always discuss: images of children being molested and tortured.&lt;p&gt;Endless images of young children. Being sexually assaulted, penetrated, made to do degrading things.&lt;p&gt;Think about how that statement makes you feel, and then imagine you’ve been tricked into looking at this stuff for money as a “content moderator.” It’s a form of cruel economic punishment.&lt;p&gt;Facebook wouldn’t have these problems if they weren’t obsessed with acquiring as many users as possible. They are the ones who should be forced to pay for the long term mental health of these workers.&lt;p&gt;California ballot initiative, anyone?</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>q3k</author><text>&amp;gt; We hire people with strong stomachs and a strong sense of duty.&lt;p&gt;It&amp;#x27;s difficult to have a strong sense of duty for the megacorp that doesn&amp;#x27;t even bother to employ you directly, but pays another megacorp which then pays you peanuts. When you don&amp;#x27;t even get to have the context of what you&amp;#x27;re doing, don&amp;#x27;t get to follow up on whether what you did was meaningful, whether the perp was caught and tried, whether the child was saved.&lt;p&gt;It&amp;#x27;s difficult to have a strong stomach if you don&amp;#x27;t see this as an occiasional element of your generally tame and meaningful work, but see hours upon hours, days upon days of some of the worst shit that the human race is capable of.</text></comment>
<story><title>A Facebook content moderator’s resignation note</title><url>https://twitter.com/rmac18/status/1382366931307565057</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>stickfigure</author><text>You know who else has to deal with these images - and &lt;i&gt;much&lt;/i&gt; worse, real-world living cases? Law enforcement. Lawyers. Juries.&lt;p&gt;Do we just sit back and say &amp;quot;let&amp;#x27;s stop subjecting those poor officers from having to see evil things&amp;quot;? Of course not. We hire people with strong stomachs and a strong sense of duty. Not everyone who sees this stuff is scarred for life.&lt;p&gt;See also: Soldiers. Firefighters. Emergency medical workers.&lt;p&gt;Personally, I&amp;#x27;d rather moderate gross things than, say, work in a coal mine. But that&amp;#x27;s me. I don&amp;#x27;t appreciate the insinuation that this makes me some sort of monster.</text></item><item><author>diamondhandle</author><text>People who comment on these moderator issues always overlook the huge huge mental red flag that these moderators always discuss: images of children being molested and tortured.&lt;p&gt;Endless images of young children. Being sexually assaulted, penetrated, made to do degrading things.&lt;p&gt;Think about how that statement makes you feel, and then imagine you’ve been tricked into looking at this stuff for money as a “content moderator.” It’s a form of cruel economic punishment.&lt;p&gt;Facebook wouldn’t have these problems if they weren’t obsessed with acquiring as many users as possible. They are the ones who should be forced to pay for the long term mental health of these workers.&lt;p&gt;California ballot initiative, anyone?</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>ceejayoz</author><text>&amp;quot;We hire people with strong stomachs and a strong sense of duty. Not everyone who sees this stuff is scarred for life.&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.theatlantic.com&amp;#x2F;national&amp;#x2F;archive&amp;#x2F;2014&amp;#x2F;09&amp;#x2F;police-officers-who-hit-their-wives-or-girlfriends&amp;#x2F;380329&amp;#x2F;&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.theatlantic.com&amp;#x2F;national&amp;#x2F;archive&amp;#x2F;2014&amp;#x2F;09&amp;#x2F;police-...&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; Two studies have found that at least 40 percent of police officer families experience domestic violence, in contrast to 10 percent of families in the general population. A third study of older and more experienced officers found a rate of 24 percent, indicating that domestic violence is two to four times more common among police families than American families in general.</text></comment>