The horrifying experience of a YouTube moderator

Jane Doe, a former YouTube censor has just filed a lawsuit against the old company in the California High Court (USA) for failing to fulfill her responsibility in protecting her employees. According to the lawsuit, the defendant had to watch videos of murder, abortion, rape of children, animal torture, suicide.

During the training, this person also accused the company of showing them a video of everything in a broken skull, a woman kidnapped and beheaded, a tank rolled over a person’s head, skinning a living fox. or shoot at school. It is worth mentioning that they did not know they would have to watch such a video to prepare. The trainer said that they could leave the room if they wanted to but did not dare for fear of losing their job.

Google, the parent company of YouTube, is facing increasing pressure to control violent content and false information, especially as the 2020 US presidential election approaches. Google also faces exclusive investigations from federal attorneys, the Justice Department and the US Congress.

Jane Doe censors YouTube content through the human resources company Collabera from 2018 to 2019. She has trouble sleeping and if she can sleep, she has nightmares. She often finds herself waking up in the middle of the night thinking of the videos she watched during the day. She could not go to crowded places like events or concerts because of fear of shootings. She also has a serious psychological problem.

YouTube content censors have access to Wellness Coaches, but these professionals are not well trained to diagnose or treat psychological malaise. One even advised the defendant to use illegal drugs to deal with the symptoms, while another told the defendant’s colleague to “believe in God”. In addition, they have to pay their own money when they want to seek real expert help.

The lawsuit states that YouTube lacks employees, so censors often have to work overtime and exceed the 4-hour-a-day viewing limit recommended by the company itself. Despite the great workload, they have to maintain a very small rate of error. Specifically, YouTube expects each moderator to watch between 100 and 300 videos per day with an error rate of 2% to 5%. YouTube also controls and tracks how videos appear to moderators: full screen or just avatars, blurred or how fast they view.

YouTube has thousands of content moderators, most of which work for middlemen like Collabera, Vaco, and Accenture. The job is often low-wage, short-term contracts and few medical benefits. Employees must sign a nondisclosure agreement in order not to speak publicly about their work.

The incident shows that YouTube needs to put more resources into content moderators. During an epidemic, video-sharing networks use artificial intelligence to review and remove offending videos. But recently, they continue to rely on censors because the computer deleted too many videos even though they did not violate the regulations.

According to CNBC