Alongside all the good things the internet offers us, there is a virtual underworld full of evil and bad things, where offensive content related to violence, pornography, pedophilia, animal abuse, terrorism, and the like stands out.
This type of offensive content generally doesn't reach the vast majority of internet users, especially on social media. But for that to happen, there needs to be significant investment in systems with complex computational algorithms and a great deal of dedication from professionals working to identify and moderate this type of content.
With the aim of showing how content moderation is done by professionals in India, journalist Adrian Chen and director Ciaran Cassidy created the documentary "The Moderators" . The documentary portrays the daily life of the content moderation industry for online services and social media, where more than 150,000 professionals work in companies that provide services to Google, Facebook, and hundreds of other internet services.
When a user opens Facebook or performs a Google search, they generally don't see content containing pornography and violence. Why? The instructor begins the training session with their team with this simple question.
This is the objective of the work of these professionals who work with content moderation: to identify offensive content and determine which photos, videos, audios, or texts should be removed or categorized as explicit, as well as to try to identify fake profiles on the network.
However, the main objective of the documentary is to identify and present the effects that continuous exposure to content containing violence, animal abuse, pornography, and pedophilia has on professionals. We can see that the routine of these professionals can become quite dark , as they are constantly confronted with disturbing images or videos. Therefore, close monitoring of the team is important to detect any negative impact that these activities may be causing.
Watch the documentary The Moderators:
Even with all the concern from companies like Google and Facebook and so many other online services, it's important to take steps to ensure that you, your colleagues, friends, and family are not exposed to this type of explicit and offensive content. Just as with professionals who work with content moderation, any user can suffer some kind of negative influence, which can even cause trauma and lead to harmful actions against themselves and others.
A fairly simple way to restrict access to explicit content is to activate the search engine service called SafeSearch , which prevents offensive content from appearing in internet search results.
In another article, we demonstrated how to configure SafeSearch on your computer or on your company, school, or home network .
It is also recommended to use internet usage management services, both in businesses and homes, that allow you to control network usage and avoid browsing websites that display content related to violence, pornography, and the like.
In conclusion, it's important to remember that the internet also has many negative aspects, and we need to avoid any kind of interaction with that content. As active internet users, let's learn to take advantage of the countless services that make our lives easier and better, while avoiding any negative content that exists online.
