The Hell Known As Internet Screening Services

circletimessquare writes "Do you think your job is bad? Some websites outsource their moderation to firms where every work day, all work day, workers do nothing but sift through depravity after depravity. '"You have 20-year-old kids who get hired to do content review, and who get excited because they think they are going to see adult porn," said Hemanshu Nigam, the former chief security officer at MySpace. "They have no idea that some of the despicable and illegal images they will see can haunt them for the rest of their lives."' Some places only do year-long contracts, and have counseling services and staff psychologists, because of the psychological issues caused by this kind of work. One psychologist 'reached some unsettling conclusions in her interviews with content moderators. She said they were likely to become depressed or angry, have trouble forming relationships and suffer from decreased sexual appetites. Small percentages said they had reacted to unpleasant images by vomiting or crying. "The images interfere with their thinking processes. It messes up the way you react to your partner," Ms. Laperal said. "If you work with garbage, you will get dirty."'"

Comments

I notice with interest

[Anonymous Coward]

I notice with interest the posters of "can it really be that bad?" type of comments.

It can.

I spent some years handling abuse@ for a national-sized ISP that allowed "homepages" via dialin. Let's just say that I had severe temper-issues for a long while after that.

Re:Dirty Jobs episode?

[MBCook]

Heh. Because watching Mike sitting in front of a monitor all day, with his brand of narration/commentary, on a bunch of stuff that Discovery can't show or even possibly talk about given the subject matter and their audience would be great to watch.

That wouldn't make for very good TV.

I'm sure it's a dirty job (I certainly wouldn't want to do it), but I'd imagine there are quite a few dirty jobs that Discovery just wouldn't be willing to air. Heck, they've aired some stuff (like the episode where he castrates goats) that I couldn't believe they aired.

Re:Here's the thing

[nelsonal]

However, jumping in front of them with 5 of your best friends gives you a shot at becoming a rolling badass.