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

solution:

[Anonymous Coward]

hire via 4chan?

Re:solution:

[Yvan256]

That's no good, they won't filter anything.

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[Anonymous Coward]

Oh, they'll filter alright. Just the other way around.

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[kill-1]

Hire surgeons?

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[stonewallred]

Seems like the best place IMNSHO. Of course they would have to work nude and searched before leaving each day, because if not, you could count on the best 10% of CP, gore and other fucked up shit would immediately hit /b/ within 30 minutes of them leaving work. I'd do the job, especially if I could work from home. Easy work, easy money, and the money would feed my alcoholism and drug addiction. And give me an excuse for why I drink and drug.

Re:solution:

[couchslug]

The grain of truth is that there are plenty of people who can watch anything and laugh about it, while functioning just fine and having no emotional problems from doing so.

Overly sensitive people shouldn't mess with shit that will damage them.

Not everyone is sensitive, and not everyone has to "suppress" themselves to cope with seeing Bad Things.

Re:solution:

[robnsara]

Oh, they'll filter alright. Just the other way around.

Actually, a better solution: Just upload EVERYTHING to /b/. If it gets reposted by anonymous, automatically add it to a filter list. That way you don't have to pay people to do the work. This reverse-filter idea is a good one!

Re:solution:

[Anonymous Coward]

The grain of truth is that there are plenty of people who can watch anything and laugh about it, while functioning just fine and having no emotional problems from doing so.

Yes, they are called sociopaths, but they already have far deeper issues to deal with.

Re:solution:

[eln]

The problem is that most 20 year old kids don't really know how sensitive they are to things like this until they're repeatedly exposed to them, by which point much of the damage has already been done. Luckily for me, I was exposed to the Internet and all of the nastiness on it when I was only 13, and I've managed to get by with no ill effects at all except for the occasional extended blackout followed by a dead hooker in my bed. Some more sensitive people might really lose their minds, though.

Re:solution:

[couchslug]

"Yes, they are called sociopaths, but they already have far deeper issues to deal with."

Being able to cope comfortably is only a pathology to those who fetishize sweet, delectable sensitivity. One can understand and see things which are unusual and outside social taboos without giving a shit. It's called perspective, as opposed to morbid emotional wallowing.

In most cases, IMO, the term "sociopath" is used in society the way "troll" moderations are commonly used in Slashdot, which is to express Bitchy Disagreement.

"I disagree with you, you a sociopathic troll!" brings to mind the Soviet practice of sending those who didn't agree with commie politics to asylums, because such wrong thought MUST be pathological.

Re:solution:

[mikael_j]

Not necessarily sociopaths, there are plenty of people online who are either just so desensitized that they don't really react anymore (as long as it's not happening IRL but on-screen) and others who are just able to apply very heavy "mental filters" to cope with stuff. Now, being able to tell the difference between these people and sociopaths at a job interview, that may be a bit of a challenge.

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[steelfood]

Yeah they will.

Then they'll turn around and put it on /b/

I have a feeling demand for these types of jobs are going to increse 4-fold in a few days.

Re:solution:

[danlip]

I'm sure the surgeons will be lining up out the door for this $8/hour job

Re:solution:

[bit9]

I used to think I was one of those people, until I saw a full length, uncut video of some terrorists beheading a captured American.

I would advise anybody who thinks they're not one of those "overly sensitive" people to give it some serious thought before they decide to watch something like that, much less get a job doing it all day long. Some things you just cannot un-see - although you'll certainly wish you could.

Re:solution:

[Anonymous Coward]

You haven't really lost your mind until the dead hookers start waking up on you...

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[Anonymous Coward]

What's /b/ ?

Re:solution:

[Hylandr]

/signed.

People in general need to grow the f* up and be adults.

*Deal* with it!
- Dan.

Re:solution:

[Anonymous Coward]

You overestimate your own mental strength if you don't think you'd be affected by seeing horrific shit 40 hours a week.

I feel like you're the type of person who would tell me that PTSD is bunk.

Re:solution:

[interkin3tic]

One idea, (probably a terrible one but maybe worth mentioning here) is have confessed child molesters do it.

I am not any type of psychologist, nor do I know much about the criminal system, but maybe experiencing that flood of sewage will give them negative associations with those images that they lack naturally. Maybe seeing some CP that would appeal to them among tons of images that would be repugnant to anyone, which sounds like what these screening services have to deal with, would make the whole mess less appealing to them.

On the other hand, I also see the obvious potential dangers of taking non-violent molesters and showing them CP alongside violent images.

From what I've heard, reforming them through prison and counseling doesn't really work. I don't know how convincing the evidence for that is, maybe that's not true, but maybe there's no way to make it worse by viewiing this stuff. I also haven't seen anything to suggest you can deprogram someone's sexuality like that, I've heard that those programs trying to turn gay people straight are complete wastes of time, so it's probably not something that's malleable. TFA talks about decreased sexual appetites with the current workers, that's probably due to the fact that the worst of the worst doesn't appeal to them, wheras that might appeal to the molesters and might be counter-effective.

Who knows? I certainly don't, nor would I be at all interested in these jobs, child molesters, or studying any of the above, but it seems like some criminal psychologist might want to run a small trial of that.

Re:solution:

[horza]

How about:
wget <posted-page> | wc "bump" | echo "Page: <posted-page>\tDepravity level: $1\n" > filter.txt

Phillip.

Re:solution:

[painehope]

Speaking as a sociopath (which I am - I can cut off anything even vaguely resembling emotion at will), I don't have any deep issues to deal with (unless you count the current state of the economy). I don't consider my "condition" as a liability. I am capable of love, dedication, grief (someone very close to me died, and I only found out about it early this morning, and I'm pissed-off and "upset" about the it, even though I realize the world ain't fair and no one ever told me it would be), happiness, anger, the full spectrum of human emotion. I can also quite calmly bleed you, leave your body lying behind a dumpster, and walk off - given a good reason, of course.

Logically speaking, that kind of capability is evidence of a higher level of being (I'm speaking in terms of both cognitive ability and emotional stability) than all the silly hand-wringing and "I'm like this because my parents were alcoholics/abused me/I wasn't popular/I hate to watch bad people doing bad things on a screening service/whatever" bullshit that keeps head-shrinkers in business and your mental halters firmly in place.

Re:solution:

[Anonymous Coward]

I think he was talking about Daniel Pearl, a journalist kidnapped and killed in Pakistan in 2002.

And sorry, but the "real world" does not involve frequent beheadings. Being unable to see another human being brutally murdered without being disturbed isn't a result of living "sheltered".

That's the vast majority of the world. Going by the numbers, lack of brutal decapitations is the norm. You talk down to people who can't stand such a sight, and think you somehow value life more?

Yours was the most bizzare high-horse post I've ever read.

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[Impy the Impiuos Imp]

Or worse, get used to it and take seeing busted open, severed heads in stride.

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[cayenne8]

"...would immediately hit /b/ within 30 minutes of them leaving work. "

I've seen a couple of references to this "/b/"....what is this?

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[c6gunner]

They will if they want to get paid. Captain Capitalism to the rescue, once again!

Re:solution:

[Impy the Impiuos Imp]

My fav was the guy who bit a blasting cap and was sitting around in the emergency room on video, his whole nose/mouth/throat turned into a big hole with flower petals of flesh around it.

Re:solution:

[c6gunner]

You see worse things on TV all the time. It's only different because you've convinced yourself that one is real and the other one fake. If someone had taken that footage and spliced it into a Hollywood film, you would have taken it completely in stride. And the IMDB page would have at least one comment saying "I only gave it 6 starts because the execution scene wasn't realistic enough".

Re:solution:

[Skuld-Chan]

I had a job like this at a web filtering company (Rulespace Inc if your curious) where we trained porn filtering engines. Basically looking at porn all day long (some nice, some very sick) and grading it for a recognition engine. Once in a blue moon other kinds of content (firearms, gambling etc) but for the most part - porn.

It did desensitize me to the point where I can look at obscene images and not get all that aroused, but at the same time to get to that arousal point my lust for more saucy images went up.

Its kinda like when we were in high school we all wanted that copy of the SI Swimsuit edition - on one hand - the last edition I picked up I certainly appreciated the beauty of the women in there, but on the other hand - not all that arousing.

Sorry if that's too much info, but wasn't quite sure how else to word it.

A lot of the people who worked with me (men and women actually) used to work at a local call center. And it wasn't that bad a job - I used to listen to audio books while the machine presented another site to grade.

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[Quiet_Desperation]

You mean the Daniel Pearl video? That's why I have chosen to never watch it along with the fact that the people who created it want me to, and I do so love to disappoint them in any small way I can.

Re:solution:

[icebraining]

"I'm 12 and what is this?"

It actually fits your description, as you apparently don't know how to search the web for keywords.

Re:solution:

[Axel2001]

I've seen these videos. While not pleasant to watch, they certainly didn't bother me. I hear people talking about extremely disturbing videos and photos, and when I see them, I'm not really affected.

Perhaps I'm cut out for this job?

Re:solution:

[hondo77]

Speaking as a sociopath (which I am - I can cut off anything even vaguely resembling emotion at will)...I am capable of love, dedication, grief..., happiness, anger, the full spectrum of human emotion.

I don't think "sociopath" means what you think it means.

Re:solution:

[Quiet_Desperation]

Yes, they are called sociopaths, but they already have far deeper issues to deal with.

And they soon become *our* deep issues once they inevitably win the election.

Re:solution:

[severoon]

Sociopaths lack the empathic response. People that respond negatively to disturbing videos are responding emotionally, though not necessarily empathically.

There is obviously overlap, but that overlap can be trained away in many people. It is quite common, for instance, for surgeons to initially respond to use of a cautery gun by getting ill or faint (mostly because of the normally out-of-context smell of cooked meat that one knows is produced from a live human...the association is unsettling). But talk to any surgeon that's been doing the job for a long time, and that smell simply makes them hungry.

Why shouldn't it make them hungry? Cooked meat, human or otherwise, is supposed to trigger that response. The hunger response is the mechanical reaction of a working human brain. Feelings of guilt at being hungry are, in the operating room, entirely misplaced; why should a surgeon feel guilty because of an automatic response when, in the offing, they are helping the patient? Much in the same way, these workers are ostensibly helping customers by protecting them from content they presumably don't want to see (though that is debatable).

I know a doctor that once told me she gets great satisfaction from draining cysts. Despite the absolutely foul smell and gross result, she said it is absolutely one of the most satisfying activities she does as a doctor because it is a nearly risk-free procedure to a patient and the payoff is profound in that the patient immediately feels better. In that scenario, where you might think she's sick because she enjoys dealing with gross stuff, she sees herself as someone willing to endure something gross in particular because it does have such a great and positive effect; emotionally speaking, when viewed in the proper context (and it is the indisputably correct view), it is perhaps one of the most emotionally satisfying demonstrations of empathy I can think of.

So it's mediation and mitigation of the guilt response that allows people like her to continue helping people, and if anything it makes them the opposite of a sociopath...likewise with any gruesome job—if one works in a slaughterhouse, a mortuary or morgue, crime scene cleanup, etc. So I tend to think that only people that are internally emotionally secure could do such a job. If your response is that it would take a sociopath, that is probably based primarily on fear about what you might discover about your own emotional stability in the same situation.

Re:solution:

[mreed911]

You learn to turn emotion off when you have no control over the outcome beyond what you've been able to do. I do this quite well as a paramedic. I see horrific things, encounter situations that would leave others crying in the fetal position for days... but I get through it through a sense of personal accomplishment and team camaraderie. Am I stoic? To a degree. But I also know when to ask for help, and there's a communication style among my peers that allows for expression through humor, anger, etc. that's not frowned upon. Some of the best therapy I've ever had was sitting on the bumper of the ambulance at the hospital after a particularly bad call, scene, patient, etc. I don't *like* what I see, but I like being able to affect it. And being trusted to affect it. That doesn't make me a sociopath... just someone who WOULD be a sociopath if you locked me up in a windowless office for eight hours a day with Excel and actuarial tables.

Re:solution:

[Cruxus]

This kind of stuff sounds like, especially in the doses these workers are seeing it at, would be tough to stomach even for people who aren't hypersensitive. On the other hand, disturbing and violent images of the kind these people see all day everyday will result in emotional issues in probably a majority of people. A sociopath has a callousness of temperament that makes them, in addition to being able to stomach the most extreme imagery, also able to engage in the more directly harmful activity that leads us to call them sociopaths in the first: namely violent crime, robbery, etc. The sociopath, in addition to being "tough," is emotionally lacking where it's needed: the social emotions (empathy, guilt, remorse, shame, compassion, etc.) and the ability to form bonds with others, including family and sexual partners.

Re:solution:

[Flea of Pain]

It is the random channel from a site called 4chan. Do not go there if you value your morals, ethics, eyesight, etc.

Re:solution:

[LoRdTAW]

There is a big difference between video and pictures. I had a few friends who served in Iraq. They would show me pictures of burnt bodies, scattered remains, heads blown to bits by M2 machine fire etc. It pretty fucked up stuff but I could easily stomach it. Why? because they were already dead, you don't see the actual violent act that leads to the corpse in the picture. So even though the image is morbid, its not violent.

I too watched one of those beheading videos. I am sorry I even watched it, something I never want to see ever again. I saw a few of the faces of death videos as a teen and thought that was bad enough. But seeing and actual act of violent torture and murder is a whole different ball game.

On a separate yet somewhat related note: One thing that repulsed me was the string of shitty torture porn movies that were released in theaters (Saw series, Hostel, etc.). I bet if you showed the audiences a real beheading video instead of Saw, they would have a much different reaction than they would watching simulated torture and murder. Heck play the video before Saw starts and I am sure half or more of the patrons would leave.

Re:solution:

[Cruxus]

There is a larger difference between intellectual knowledge that a few people in the world are cruel, brutal, and sadistic and then the visceral experience of seeing the fruits of their evilness. There is a world of a difference between seeing violence in a movie, where we know it's fake, and seeing video of an actual murder. We know the person is really suffering, and we are quite distraught by this. It's our normal human reaction of empathy. It's wrenching.

Re:solution:

[Flea of Pain]

This comment need a "clockworkorange" tag. That would be right on the money.

Re:solution:

[el3mentary]

"...would immediately hit /b/ within 30 minutes of them leaving work. "

I've seen a couple of references to this "/b/"....what is this?

The deviant sphincter of the internet.

Re:solution:

[openfrog]

Being able to cope comfortably is only a pathology to those who fetishize sweet, delectable sensitivity. One can understand and see things which are unusual and outside social taboos without giving a shit. It's called perspective, as opposed to morbid emotional wallowing.

You yourself assume a superior, balanced attitude, while in fact you don't use argument but personal attack to defeat the opposite perspective. You come out as pretty aggressive in fact. And your 'big guy' pretension that you would not be affected by this shit is not backed by any actual knowledge or argument: you are just making it up... "all sissies..." I see you thinking and boasting.

Do a bit of anthropology. We have evolved into a highly cooperative species through a very, very long process and our emotions, feelings of compassion, sense of ethics, etc. do define our individual characters and our common human culture. The grandparent does have a valid point when he suggest that someone unaffected could qualify as a sociopath. Your rationalizations don't even begin to convince me to the contrary.

Re:solution:

[elucido]

There is a larger difference between intellectual knowledge that a few people in the world are cruel, brutal, and sadistic and then the visceral experience of seeing the fruits of their evilness. There is a world of a difference between seeing violence in a movie, where we know it's fake, and seeing video of an actual murder. We know the person is really suffering, and we are quite distraught by this. It's our normal human reaction of empathy. It's wrenching.

It depends on how you look at it. It's a matter of perspective as I've said before. There have been videos of beheadings on the internet. The one in particular that I'm talking about was the Russian video of Neo Nazi's beheading two ethnic minorities.

I did not look at the video from an emotional perspective. I looked at it without any emotional response at all now that I think about it, although I was surprised that the video was an actual beheading and not fake. I see these sorts of videos as

1. Evidence of a crime
2. An example of human brutality
3. An example of human psychology
4. An example of human anatomy

But in general I saw the video from a detached scientific perspective rather than from a personal emotional perspective. The fact that it was in Russia might have had to do with it. The fact that I didn't know any of the guys in the video probably had something to do with it. But I don't see cruel behavior in the same way that most people see it, I see it as the individuals who are being cruel are both sick in the head and brainwashed individuals. And I see the victims as victims, and I think about how to prevent this behavior from happening in the future.

I don't emotionally connect to any of the individuals in the scene. I don't think it's necessary because it doesn't help the situation. Feeling the situation is not going to prevent the next person from being brutally murdered by Neo Nazi's whether or not they are beheaded. Feelings don't get the job done.

Re:solution:

[Anonymous Coward]

You know some screwed up surgeons, man. Cautery smoke smells terrible, on par with burned hair.

Re:solution:

[interkin3tic]

Oh yeah, I knew it sounded familiar.

Well, if anyone needed yet another reason not to advocate my idea, it didn't work out in fiction, so it might not work in reality either.

Re:solution:

[JamesP]

You have clearly not seen anything close to what these guys have seen.

Sorry, I'm not giving examples.

Re:solution:

[bonch]

No, you don't see worse things on TV. You must not have seen the video.

Re:solution:

[T Murphy]

I doubt many people have delusions that bad people only exist in movies- most people do, however, have sympathy for victims. They are dead whether you watch the video or not, but once you give your mind something to relate to, it hits you a lot harder. Understandably, people can end up with psychological problems seeing a loved one brutally murdered, so it makes sense seeing strangers have similar happen to them would have a lesser, but similar, effect.

You don't focus on the victim at all, so you may be the odd one out (not a bad thing, but you might not be in a position to say people have psychological issues).

Re:solution:

[Anonymous Coward]

Normally I'd say "Google is your friend", but friends don't let friends read /b/.

Re:solution:

[bit9]

I think I saw the video you are talking about, the video of the Russian Neo Nazi's who beheaded those two jewish guys.

No, that definitely wasn't it. I think it may have been Daniel Pearl, but the video I'm thinking of wasn't the highly-edited version with all the Arabic subtitles and what not. The one I saw was a full length unedited version with full audio, that started with the victim on his knees pleading for his life, and ended with his head being cut completely off and held in front of the camera. The camera never panned away, and there were no edits. It showed every scream, every tear, every cut and slice, etc. They guy was in complete and utter terror from the time they made the first cut, and the only thing that made the poor guy stop screaming was when they sliced through his trachea and he started making these horrific gurgling sounds. And quite unlike the guillotine executions you might have seen in old black & white movies, this was no quick and clean beheading - it took several minutes before he was finally dead.

If you can watch that and be completely unaffected, well then congratulations - you're an asshole!

I thought the video was brutal, cruel, but it has no serious affect because I knew people were brutal and cruel before I saw the video.

People who are so sensitive that they cannot watch a person get beheaded, have psychological issues of their own to deal with because they have been sheltered from the real world.

This moronic drivel doesn't deserve a response.

Re:solution:

[Darkman, Walkin Dude]

The real world is cold, brutal and cruel

No its not. Its cockheaded idiots that purposefully go out of their way to make it brutal and cruel that make it so. Every terrorist that chops off a head, every engineeer that thinks he knows the rules of the game and picks on the weakest in the group to make sure its not him, every sales rep and marketroid told by mammy that the only way to thrive is on the backs of your fellow. Fools all.

Re:solution:

[couchslug]

"I feel like you're the type of person who would tell me that PTSD is bunk."

Negative. I'm a vet and know that isn't the case. However, I also note that there are plenty of folks who don't get PTSD easily, and many who do fine even after repeat combat tours.

In other news, some people are different than others. I do consider that in recent years "sensitivity" and "victimhood" are popular, and people aren't encouraged to be tough. Observing new enlistees down near three decades, even in the pampered Air Force one could see a change. One does not prepare people for a harsh life by encouraging them to be pussies. In other news, water is wet (sometimes oily) and the sun rose in the East.

Re:solution:

[sexconker]

Wrong. I've been to the edge of the internet and back, and I'm no sociopath.

I don't for one second believe seeing something on the internet, no matter how bad, could compare to actually doing those things or having them done to you.

There's this thing called war. Sure, some people can't handle what goes on, what happens to them, or what they have to do. But most people can. For them, there's no sociopathy involved. There's no emotional deadening.

There's just the simple realization that the world isn't a fucking fairy tale, that crying about it won't make it any better, and that you've got a fucking job to do.

Maintaining composure in the face of any sort of disgusting, terrifying, etc. thing is not sociopathy, nor is it indicative of any other psychological problem. What IS indicative of various psychological problems is letting a gang rape, beheading, torture, whatever video on the internet affect you for more than a few minutes of thinking "damn, that's horrible".

Are people so egotistical and self-centered today that they can't see a video from across the globe without psychologically framing it as if it involved them personally?

It's one thing to have an emotional reaction to such content. (I get upset whenever there's one of those damned starving kids or abused pets commercials on TV.) But it's an entirely different thing to see a video and then go beat your husband/wife, cut yourself, whatever.

Saying "the bad internet videos gave me psychological problems" is about as valid as saying "Violent video games made me shoot up my school". The bad internet videos / violent games simply exposed / played to an existing problem.

Re:solution:

[elucido]

I doubt many people have delusions that bad people only exist in movies- most people do, however, have sympathy for victims. They are dead whether you watch the video or not, but once you give your mind something to relate to, it hits you a lot harder. Understandably, people can end up with psychological problems seeing a loved one brutally murdered, so it makes sense seeing strangers have similar happen to them would have a lesser, but similar, effect.

You don't focus on the victim at all, so you may be the odd one out (not a bad thing, but you might not be in a position to say people have psychological issues).

I'm saying it's a matter of training, not a matter of someone like me being born one way or another. It's something you can train your mind to do. And it's necessary for some people to have this ability for obvious reasons.

There are people who are better at it than I am. I'm sure doctors, or people working in morgues are far better at dealing with dead bodies than I am. Does it mean that in their personal life they don't experience empathy? Of course not. All it means is that they keep their emotions separate from their workplace.

Sometimes this is necessary. Individuals working in certain fields out to be trained, and if they cannot handle the training they should be filtered out.

Re:solution:

[kyrio]

Really? If you don't already know then don't bother. It's a waste of time and nothing of value will be lost.

Re:solution:

[PitaBred]

If you eat meat, the "real world" most certainly DOES involve things like that. They're just hidden from you. And you're happy with that.

The grandparent post was mostly correct... the real world is brutal. We're just sheltered from a lot of it, and we compartmentalize a lot of it away from ourselves in modern Western society. I personally think that this is a huge mistake because it prevents us from being able to put things into proper perspective, and causes things like children not getting perfect grades to have panic attacks. How did we ever get to this point?

Re:solution:

[elucido]

I think I saw the video you are talking about, the video of the Russian Neo Nazi's who beheaded those two jewish guys.

No, that definitely wasn't it. I think it may have been Daniel Pearl, but the video I'm thinking of wasn't the highly-edited version with all the Arabic subtitles and what not. The one I saw was a full length unedited version with full audio, that started with the victim on his knees pleading for his life, and ended with his head being cut completely off and held in front of the camera. The camera never panned away, and there were no edits. It showed every scream, every tear, every cut and slice, etc. They guy was in complete and utter terror from the time they made the first cut, and the only thing that made the poor guy stop screaming was when they sliced through his trachea and he started making these horrific gurgling sounds. And quite unlike the guillotine executions you might have seen in old black & white movies, this was no quick and clean beheading - it took several minutes before he was finally dead.

If you can watch that and be completely unaffected, well then congratulations - you're an asshole!

I thought the video was brutal, cruel, but it has no serious affect because I knew people were brutal and cruel before I saw the video.

People who are so sensitive that they cannot watch a person get beheaded, have psychological issues of their own to deal with because they have been sheltered from the real world.

This moronic drivel doesn't deserve a response.

And this is the problem. Telling people they either have to respond exactly as you did or they are an asshole. Why should people like us respect how you respond to a situation if you don't respect how we respond? Everyone responds in their own way and one way isn't necessarily better than another, it depends on the context.

If you cannot watch these sorts of videos, congratulations. You shouldn't be doing this kind of work.

Re:solution:

[couchslug]

"Do a bit of anthropology. We have evolved into a highly cooperative species through a very, very long process and our emotions, feelings of compassion, sense of ethics, etc. do define our individual characters and our common human culture."

None of which excludes having your shit together and being able to do business. I tend to look at things from a military perspective, and the military is by far the _ultimate cooperative social unit_. Members tend to be highly sociophilic, not sociopathic.

Aggression has been well supported by evolution because (when properly channeled) it is useful combined with motivation. Aggression (properly channeled) is what overcomes obstacles. Aggression is why we have democracies today. The obstacles required killing, which was not sociopathic.

If we are invoking anthropology, look to chimps. They live as a group, war now and then, but if a chimp pisses off enough other chimps (displays genuine sociopathy) they have been known to kick his ass (healthy aggression in support of the group) and eject him.

Re:solution:

[sexconker]

And sorry, but the "real world" does not involve frequent beheadings. Being unable to see another human being brutally murdered without being disturbed isn't a result of living "sheltered".

So when an owl catches a mouse, the mouse says "Ah, you've got me! Okay, let me spill my entrails and pop my own head off for you."?

People are sheltered and weak.
You wouldn't last a day anywhere outside of your densely populated urban center.

Re:solution:

[bit9]

WTF? Seriously, moderators... How the FUCK did you mod this guy insightful???? I was 30 years old when I saw that video, and have experienced more than my share of death and violence in my life - my father died in a head-on collision when I was 7, and my mother later married a violent, physically abusive alcoholic. Is that your definition of sheltered? That video left me trembling and nauseous, and to this day, I wish I could erase that from my mind. So here's a big "Fuck You" to whatever morons modded this bullshit dime-store psychology as "Insightful".

Re:solution:

[elucido]

The real world is cold, brutal and cruel

No its not. Its cockheaded idiots that purposefully go out of their way to make it brutal and cruel that make it so. Every terrorist that chops off a head, every engineeer that thinks he knows the rules of the game and picks on the weakest in the group to make sure its not him, every sales rep and marketroid told by mammy that the only way to thrive is on the backs of your fellow. Fools all.

I agree it is those individuals. What do you want to do about it? If you would like to do something about it, the first step is accepting that these individuals exist in mass and are doing what they are doing. Videos such as these are evidence, and yes you might get emotional about it but it's still evidence.

An example of a video which upset a lot of people was that Youtube video where the teenage girls attacked Victoria Lindsay. Many people responded emotionally about how they want to kick their asses, and sent death threats to the girls responsible for the Youtube attack. Many individuals cried, were disgusted, and there was a range of emotional responses.

I saw that video and did not have much of an emotional response, but I knew what I was seeing shouldn't be happening and shouldn't be allowed to happen. Feeling a situation isn't necessary to determine that it's wrong. And feeling a situation does not help you investigate, it does not help you convict, it does not help you make the world safer. The only way to make the world safer is through reason.

You need to have a sense of empathy because it helps, but ultimately reason is what decide the best choice from a list of choices, and reason ultimately decides how to handle situations. Emotional reactions don't solve problems, and don't get the job done.

Re:solution:

[bit9]

If someone had taken that footage and spliced it into a Hollywood film, you would have taken it completely in stride.

You're an idiot. There was no mistaking this as real. This was several minutes of pure terror, unlike any movie you've ever seen. If you really believe that bullshit, then you've obviously never seen the video I'm referring to.

Re:solution:

[bit9]

In all sincerity, I envy you, sir. I wish I'd had enough foresight to refrain from watching it.

Re:solution:

[bit9]

Nice double-standard you've got there. You label me as sheltered and overly sensitive because I didn't respond the way you did, and then you turn around and cry foul when I give you a label in return.

Re:solution:

[Lil'wombat]

So its like Idle on Slashdot - but dumber with more depravity?

Re:solution:

[bit9]

One thing that repulsed me was the string of shitty torture porn movies that were released in theaters (Saw series, Hostel, etc.). I bet if you showed the audiences a real beheading video instead of Saw, they would have a much different reaction than they would watching simulated torture and murder.

Absolutely right. The difference between horror movies and real-life murder videos is NOT merely that one is real and one is fake. Even the goriest Rob Zombie movie cannot hold a candle to the sheer unadulterated terror of a real murder. People seem to think that the tricky part about simulating a murder in a horror flick is getting all the gory special effects to look realistic enough, but the thing that make a real murder so horrific is not the blood and guts, but the real terror and fear that the victims experience. No actor, no matter how good, can even approach that. Unfortunately, this is something people don't seem to understand until they've actually seen a real murder video.

Re:solution:

[c6gunner]

Thank you for that calm and well reasoned response. I can see why you might have initially thought yourself to be "one of those people". Clearly, you are not an overly-emotional individual who overreacts at the slightest provocation. I am rather surprised that you were unable to stomach this video; however, rest assured, many of us have no problem observing such material. I can only offer you my condolences, and relay my sincere desire that your "counseling" sessions achieve at least a small measure of success.

Re:solution:

[elucido]

Nice double-standard you've got there. You label me as sheltered and overly sensitive because I didn't respond the way you did, and then you turn around and cry foul when I give you a label in return.

Nothing is wrong with being sensitive or sheltered, unless you take a job which requires in specific that you not be. It's one thing if I call you sensitive and sheltered if you are doing an ordinary job but if you are being paid to look at disgusting images, you lose the right to complain about it because you chose that profession.

If you choose a profession you should know what you are getting into. If you don't like looking at Rotten.com then you probably wont want to look at Rotten.com all day everyday.

What ever happened to being qualified for a job? Any other job and we expect people to receive training and be qualified but somehow being a moderator/image screener requires no qualification or training at all, just take random kids off the street from random backrounds and hope they can last 6 months without losing it?

I'm sorry but this isn't even about me or labels. This is about the industry and the hiring practices that don't even attempt to determine the sensitivity level of the individuals who take the job. Any other job and you'd have 5 applicants for the 1 who gets hired and usually the 1 who gets hired has the precise traits they look for. Why can't they do the same with these sorts of jobs and only hire people who don't mind seeing disgusting images?

There are plenty of people who can handle it. Why not find some medical students, or some psychologists, or just people in general who have the backround or who might be able to be trained to see the human body in distorted forms?

It's gross yes, but it's a job people can be trained to do. The proof is the fact that people do other jobs which give them more intimate contact with death and victims, jobs which I probably couldn't do and would be labeled a wimp by some of tho people trained to do it.

So it's not about labels it's a spectrum and the people who cannot handle images fall on the opposite extreme of the spectrum with doctors and morticians at the other end of the spectrum, and neither of these individuals have to be assholes, or have some syndrome, or mental disorder.

Re:solution:

[T Murphy]

Point taken.

Re:solution:

[shutdown -p now]

I haven't seen the video that you had described, but it's not the only one of a kind, by far. For example, here is the one of the execution of captured Russian conscripts and their officer at Tukhchar by Chechen islamists during their invasion of Dagestan in 1999 (the beginning of the Second Chechen War):

http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=e58_1187043164
http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=01d_1187129093
http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=e37_1187214455
http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=176_1187215494

The usual warnings go: extremely graphic and violent, NSFW, don't blame me if you feel sick after watching it or start having bad dreams etc.

There is plenty more of that (and even more sick) kind of thing from Chechnya, and a couple more well-known ones from Iraq. Before that, it wasn't that uncommon in conflicts with islamists either (e.g. in Soviet-Afghanistan war), it just wasn't usually taped back then. So, sadly, this kind of thing is more common that you'd think it might be.

Heck, even when there is no war, people can be creatures sick beyond belief.

Re:solution:

[elucido]

Speaking as a sociopath (which I am - I can cut off anything even vaguely resembling emotion at will), I don't have any deep issues to deal with (unless you count the current state of the economy). I don't consider my "condition" as a liability. I am capable of love, dedication, grief (someone very close to me died, and I only found out about it early this morning, and I'm pissed-off and "upset" about the it, even though I realize the world ain't fair and no one ever told me it would be), happiness, anger, the full spectrum of human emotion. I can also quite calmly bleed you, leave your body lying behind a dumpster, and walk off - given a good reason, of course.

Logically speaking, that kind of capability is evidence of a higher level of being (I'm speaking in terms of both cognitive ability and emotional stability) than all the silly hand-wringing and "I'm like this because my parents were alcoholics/abused me/I wasn't popular/I hate to watch bad people doing bad things on a screening service/whatever" bullshit that keeps head-shrinkers in business and your mental halters firmly in place.

I don't believe you are capable of love, at least not in the way that empaths are. You love them because they can do something for you or because they are useful to you, but thats not really love. It's only love if you are willing to look out for their best interest, which sociopaths typically don't do.

Re:solution:

[bit9]

Whatever, douchebag. You're merely hiding behind the fact that this discussion has got my ire up to pretend that you're the calm, rational one, and trying to turn that into me being over emotional, etc. So drop the act - it's completely transparent. I am no less rational than you are, and on any other topic, I'd be just as calm.

This conversation isn't some dry, logical debate about whether ATI or Nvidia makes the best video card. We're talking about watching a human being die in sheer terror, and a bunch of know-it-all douchebags like you come along, who haven't even seen the video, and act like it's no big deal, just to try to make yourselves sound tough and calloused, when in reality you're probably just some fat geek like everyone else on here.

So pardon me for being a little riled up when someone calls me oversensitive and sheltered just because I couldn't stomach seeing someone get his head cut off with a hunting knife.

Fuck you and your faux-rationalism and feigned stoicism.

Re:solution:

[endymion.nz]

not really

Re:solution:

[bit9]

I never said the video I saw was unique. In fact, I'm not at all unsurprised that there are apparently many more just like it, and probably even a few that are worse.

I'm not exactly sure what your point is, and I find it a bit disturbing that you've got so many links to this kind of stuff.

The usual warnings go: extremely graphic and violent, NSFW, don't blame me if you feel sick after watching it or start having bad dreams etc.

No need for the warnings. I assure you that I will not watch them. I've learned my lesson as far as that goes.

Re:solution:

[jmv]

You mean a bit like this?

Re:solution:

[bit9]

Oops, I meant not at all surprised. Lest you misunderstand.

Re:solution:

[Quiet_Desperation]

Eh, I've just never had a very morbid curiosity. I don't even get most horror movies (or what passes for "horror" these days) which are just simulated snuff films as far as I'm concerned.

Re:solution:

[vertinox]

I would advise anybody who thinks they're not one of those "overly sensitive" people to give it some serious thought before they decide to watch something like that, much less get a job doing it all day long. Some things you just cannot un-see - although you'll certainly wish you could.

I don't know. I remember reading the memoirs of a German soldier where he said that at first, seeing dead people rather bothered him but after the 5th year of World War II, he hardly noticed stepping over dead bodies. He only noticed this after he was watching a bread line of people in Berlin where a Russian artillery shell decimated the people standing in line and then the people still alive pulled the bodies to the side and got back in line again waiting for bred.

He surmised that after a while all humans are desensitized to death no matter who they are are and what class of people they were brought up in.

Re:solution:

[endymion.nz]

"There's just the simple realization that the world isn't a fucking fairy tale, that crying about it won't make it any better, and that you've got a fucking job to do."

I'm guessing that if this was the case, there would be less wars because people would realise the pointlessness of it all. The fact that the US has been able to maintain a fighting force in Iraq and Afghanistan, while obviously retaining the necessary power to defend the homeland, and while also carrying out whatever other ops they are up to (missiles into pakistan?) suggests to me that not a lot of critical thinking goes on in the military, or the issues that lead to war would be dealt with peacefully. War is simply the continuation of politics by any means.

Re:solution:

[vertinox]

And sorry, but the "real world" does not involve frequent beheadings. Being unable to see another human being brutally murdered without being disturbed isn't a result of living "sheltered".

But if it did, people would get desensitized to it...

I mentioned in other posts about a memoir of a German solider in WWII where he was at first disturbed by the fact he killed someone in say 1940, but by the 1945, he was simply witnessing atrocities left and right without really thinking much about it. He also noted that civilians gave dead people the same attitude as he did simply because if they did not ignore the mass amount of dead people they saw in their daily lives they would go insane.

Perhaps if you lived in Afghanistan and saw beheading on a regular basis then it would not really bother you that much.

Its simply a part of human nature. If you witness or partake in it on a regular basis then you get desensitized to it.

Re:solution:

[vertinox]

If you can watch that and be completely unaffected, well then congratulations - you're an asshole!

Let's say your a CIA agent tasked to the review of watching the tens if not hundreds of beheading videos around the world (trust me... between the ones in Thailand on the monks, the Russians getting beheaded by the Chechen etc) then you would eventually get desensitized by it. You could be a nice or moral guy as the next person but if you watch enough, you will get desensitized.

Some people can't take it, but some people have to go through it. There are plenty of case studies during WWII where average persons would just be completely ok with atrocities they see if it happens every day.

It is human nature.

I'm not saying its moral or right, but just a fact of life.

See enough of violence. You will be fine with it eventually or you will have killed yourself (as some German soldiers in the concentration camps did).

Re:solution:

[Sabriel]

You can control your emotional reactions to deal with something ugly. A classic sociopath can't, or doesn't have any to control in the first place.

To put it another way, if our emotions are a computer system, most people have a decent interface but generally just follow the on-screen prompts. They've figured out point-and-click.

You apparently have a great interface. Not only have you got a nice keyboard with good tactile response and a low-latency mouse, you can touch-type and you've written your own code. Pop-ups don't fool you.

Sociopaths have a bad interface. The context menus are broken, and the control and shift keys are missing. Or the OS is bricked and simply not responding at all - or rooted and feeding them false info. Many of them don't even realise this isn't normal... imagine spending the formative years of your entire childhood being brainwashed by the biological equivalent of Sasser or Vundo.

Anyway, if you check the wikipedia entry for their definition, I suggest comparing it with the entry for psychopathy as well.

Re:solution:

[Sabriel]

Hmm, see also severoon's comment further down about empathy versus emotion, and on being the opposite of a sociopath. http://tech.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1724688&cid=32956624

Re:solution:

[Halborr]

/b/

Re:solution:

[stephanruby]

Yes, they are called sociopaths, but they already have far deeper issues to deal with.

Not to mention, most fully functioning sociopaths are expensive too.

CEOs, RIAA Lawyers, lobbyists, it's an impossibly super expensive talent pool to recruit from.

Re:solution:

[aXis100]

Just reading your description made me feel ill. I agree, anyone who could watch that and not be affected is probably a psychopath/sociopath.

Re:solution:

[c6gunner]

Whatever, douchebag

Once again, I am awed by the thoughtfulness of your response. If only I had not commented already, all of my mod points would be yours!

This conversation isn't some dry, logical debate about whether ATI or Nvidia makes the best video card.

Obviously - and that's the problem. Perhaps Valium would help?

We're talking about watching a human being die in sheer terror, and a bunch of know-it-all douchebags like you come along, who haven't even seen the video, and act like it's no big deal, just to try to make yourselves sound tough and calloused, when in reality you're probably just some fat geek like everyone else on here.

I'm sorry to hear about your difficulties with personal fitness, but that is hardly relevant to the topic at hand. I'm much more interested in how you've managed to convince yourself that you poses a rather specialized form of ESP. Do you believe that you can also detect what radio shows I listen to, or do your "abilities" only apply to visual mediums?

Re:solution:

[millennial]

Spending 20 hours a week or more on the internet for the last 14 years did that for me.

Re:solution:

[elucido]

Just reading your description made me feel ill. I agree, anyone who could watch that and not be affected is probably a psychopath/sociopath.

Will you please stop saying crap like this? It's insulting and unnecessary. I thought we are supposed to be better than the people doing the beheadings in those videos? I watched one of the video and I think it's a shame that people have to die in such a painful fashion, but I don't really feel anything towards the people in the video.

If anything it allows someone to know they aren't like the people they see in the video doing the beheading. It's not the act of killing that I'm talking about because people get killed all the time, it's the act of killing someone in an unnecessarily gruesome fashion.

If you insist on thinking everyone who can watch this videos and remain unaffected is a psychopath, you are free to believe that but I know you are wrong.

Re:solution:

[Chih]

oh you ^_^

Re:solution:

[shoehornjob]

So.... you advocate watching innocent people getting decapitated???

People who are so sensitive that they cannot watch a person get beheaded, have psychological issues of their own to deal with because they have been sheltered from the real world.

So because I can't(or don't)watch someone getting their head cut off I have issues and I'm sheltered? It must be nice to make general statements regarding the character of people you have never met. Watching some poor schmuck get his head cut off serves no practical value. Yeah I know there's a bunch of fanatical assholes who would love to make an example of (insert ethnicity or nationality here) just because they are fucked in the head and they want to blame someone else for their problems. Shit the whole world is filled with these people. The point is, I have little control over what some fanatical jackass does to another human being so I'm not going to let it affect me (yes it starts with an a not an e. queue the grammer nazi's).

Re:solution:

[gutnor]

Well the good news is that if not seeing brutality to the level of beheading on a regular basis is being sheltered from the real world, society evolved to the point that the vast majority of the world is being sheltered from the real world.
And that's good because brutality to that level is foreign to the human nature - even soldier that are supposed to be killing machine need constant training and tricks to break the subconscious barrier to inflicting death to another human being.

On a side note, if you think the world is so cold, brutal and cruel that watching a beheading is not unsettling you, you may be a bit depressive. The world is not all rosy, but not that bad - we would not have made it to 7 billions otherwise.

Re:solution:

[shutdown -p now]

I'm not exactly sure what your point is, and I find it a bit disturbing that you've got so many links to this kind of stuff.

All links are to the same video, just different parts of it (it's long - there were 6 of them...). It was posted on a Russian military veteran forum, where they were trying to find out the names of people in it (both victims and perpetrators), and also what happened to their families afterwards.

Re:solution:

[wisty]

It sounds like you have a high level of self-control. Sociopaths often have a low level of self-control, but it doesn't show because they also lack most emotions (except anger and frustration).

Re:solution:

[story645]

b/ and my brain is broken from accidentally scanning it while pulling the link. It's not safe for work/children/adults/humans/animals etc.

Re:solution:

[lee1026]

Actually, for centuries, executions were done in public with lots of people showing up to watch. In other words, if there is anything inherently disturbing about beheadings, it can't be that innate.

Re:solution:

[Reservoir Penguin]

I can easily watch the most gory horror movies but Unthinkable where a terrorist and his family are tortured by a CIA blackops dude made me stop the movie several times, I guess there was something to real about it.

Re:solution:

[Reservoir Penguin]

And don't forget the gladiator fights as a form of mass entertainment.

Re:solution:

[linuxrocks123]

I agree with you completely, and you make a good point. Trolls are annoying; don't feed them. I'm sorry that video shook you up so much -- it sounds like it would shake up anyone with a normal psyche -- and thank you for posting: your experience may discourage others from making the same mistake.

---linuxrocks123

Re:solution:

[Anonymous Coward]

If you really don't know about /b/, just keep it that way. Trust me on this one. Really. You can live a happy and productive life without ever visiting /b/.

Don't go to /b/. Just don't.

Re:solution:

[Reservoir Penguin]

Right on, when I clicked on "2 replies beneath your current threshold" link I already knew what these comments will be about.

Re:solution:

[IndustrialComplex]

I've seen these videos. While not pleasant to watch, they certainly didn't bother me. I hear people talking about extremely disturbing videos and photos, and when I see them, I'm not really affected.

Perhaps I'm cut out for this job?

There is a VERY big difference between you having the option to say "Oh this is going to be bad, but my morbid curiosity compels me to watch this" and in the back of your mind, you know you don't have to watch this, you know you are removed from it, and you know that at any time you can just say, yup, that's my personal quota for the day and the people who don't have that option, and know that they are having to watch this for a job, and that more will be waiting for them.

It combines something negative along with a rather soul-crushing job. In your case, it is actually you just satisfying your own curiosity.

Re:solution:

[uninformedLuddite]

I think he's trying to trick you

Re:solution:

[pegdhcp]

I've seen a couple of references to this "/b/"....what is this?

Sir, believe me, if you do not know, you are a lucky man. You would not need to start dirty your eyes and mind, just out of curiosity. It is usually called "the sewage of the Internet", which is an insult to all sewages on the world...

Re:solution:

[AGMW]

Depends on what they're cauterizing, actually. Many operations do end up smelling like grilled meat.

... and it's not as easy as some might think either! If you're cauterizing a liver you've really got to know your onions!

Re:solution:

[HopefulIntern]

I saw that one. They aren't Jewish, they are Dagestani immigrants. The Russians cut the one guys head off with a combat knife, then shoot the other in the head. Its the only one of such videos I have seen (though I did see an animated GIF of a chechen soldier having his throat cut).

Re:solution:

[MichaelSmith]

"...would immediately hit /b/ within 30 minutes of them leaving work. "

I've seen a couple of references to this "/b/"....what is this?

NSFW links, but not as bad as people tend to make out.

http://boards.4chan.org/b/ The random board. A bunch of kids messing around basically.

http://boards.4chan.org/s/ A good source of porn.

Both those boards get filled with spam, and some of the spam is advertising for child porn download services. In fact a lot of the spam is exactly that. The boards are moderated (sometimes) but the torrent of spam often gets ahead of the volunteer moderators. The landing page for 4chan and the other chans (7, 420, etc) advertise the boards they host. They target pop and counter-culture audiences. Its all very ad-hoc. Run on php scripts. There is no archiving or tracking of users. The low tech nature of the forums is one of the attractions for some people.

Re:solution:

[jez9999]

And it doesn't have to be too graphic, either. I had to stop playing that video of the innocent camera crew getting gunned down in Iraq by US forces half way thru, because it disgusted me so much... just black and white video, with the inevitable asswipe US military voice soundtrack, of course.

Re:solution:

[Ginger Unicorn]

You're a pathetic child.

Re:solution:

[jez9999]

This moronic drivel doesn't deserve a response.

You say that, but think about the olden days when groups would gather round a gallows to see a guy being slowly strangled to death by his own bodyweight. Personally I find capital punishment horrible, but if 'normal' people are in the right frame of mind, they can witness this stuff quite happily.

Re:solution:

[eugene ts wong]

I wonder what would happen if we hired sociopaths to filter those images. Even if they applied for the jobs, and even if we could hire actual sociopaths, I don't know if we could trust them.

Re:solution:

[Mattskimo]

4chan is pretty mild. It's pretty rare these days that I'll see something truly shocking on there. For the really bad stuff you'd do best to check out the lesser known chans. Anyone remember evilchan?

Re:solution:

[DrgnDancer]

There is a huge difference between being "sensitive" and being merely "somewhat human". We're not talking about "normal" porn here; or even gross but "whatever floats your boat" stuff like "Two Girls, One Cup". We're talking about the full level of the depravity of man here. Child Porn, Snuff Porn, videos of people being beaten to death; If you can watch image after image of that and NOT be affected, there was already something wrong with you. Talk to police detectives, they're (relatively) well trained, (reasonably) prepared by beat duty, and (comparatively) well paid and they still have many of these same issues.

It's not a matter of being "tough" or "sensitive", it a matter of having normal human emotional reactions to the extreme degradation or destruction of others. So far as I'm concerned consenting adults can play whatever games they want; but I'm quite certain that a few hours of rape video would have me puking my guts up and looking for a place to cry.

Re:solution:

[KalgarThrax]

Respectfully, I think the military is the ultimate cooperative ANTI social unit. It's just anti the other social group. The war chimps make is not really the type of war we make, at least in the last 100 years (or farther back). The only real killing chimps commit to is if they manage to corner another chimp all by its lonesome, otherwise the type of war they wage is highly ornamental (kinda of like some Indonesian tribes).

The close social bonds that form within military units are a result of closeness due to a harsh environment, an environment in which you destroy other human beings and they destroy you.

The military just dehumanizes the enemy better than any other group, and honestly, if you look at it on a global scale, that is pretty sociopathic.

Not that there is anything wrong with that. IMO, only the strong must survive, lest all others drown our civilization with their resource needs.

Re:solution:

[mdwh2]

Scenes in movies like the ones you describe are usually ineffective precisely due to their unrealism.

Isn't that worse though? Seems to me that it's worse to mislead people over the consequences of actions.

usually considered

Considered by who? A fictional film worse than someone being a victim of a violent crime?

And you forget that rape doesn't have to "look" like anything at all. It's rape if there is no consent - let's not propagate the myth that the person has to be struggling or screaming. But sadly, the people who equate criminal acts with merely what an image lookings like, are doing this.

Re:solution:

[mdwh2]

We're talking about watching a human being

Surely that was his very point - it's terrible, precisely because you know it's a real human being, and because of what you know actually happened; and not simply because of what it looks like.

Consider, if such a video was run through a filter to make it appear unrealistic (e.g., cartoon-style), you'd no longer have any issue with what you saw, even if you knew it was still real?

Re:solution:

[Luyseyal]

Son, I am disappoint

(Probably good that /. is not an image board)
-l

Re:solution:

[Luyseyal]

I know a doctor that once told me she gets great satisfaction from draining cysts.

I bet she enjoys popping her significant other's zits all the time, too. Damn grooming instinct!

-l

Re:solution:

[sexconker]

How the fuck did you come to that conclusion?
Are wars fought by crying?

Here's a little nugget of truth for you:
Nearly every major conflict in history has been solved through violence.

Re:solution:

[ImprovOmega]

Speaking as a sociopath (which I am - I can cut off anything even vaguely resembling emotion at will)

Psychopathy (or being a sociopath as it's sometimes called) is not the ability to turn off emotions at will, it's the inability to turn them on ever. You, sir, are not a sociopath.

Re:solution:

[jd]

The British police have a unit specifically set up to handle such material. Officers are monitored by psychologists and are required to leave that unit when either the psychologist determines they've hit their limits or a certain maximum exposure has been reached.

I'm not thrilled with the approach, but it seems more rational and better thought-out than to throw college kids in front of the screens until their brains explode.

Re:solution:

[Jade_Wayfarer]

Look, how many "real men" shows their knowledge of "real world" in comments above. Interesting thing is that several real war-veterans I've encountered in my life weren't afraid to show how much they enjoyed simple pleasures of life. War, murder, gore - it's really a small part of our life, and men who really faced them are always trying to walk away from them into the "normal life". Otherwise they'll just become broken or completely crazy men - and they feel it always. So, any person claiming it's knowledge of "real face of life" (and assuming it's just pure terror and gore) is just showing his complete lack of real experience... or some troubling psychical "quirks".

Re:solution:

[Axel2001]

I'm saying I don't really feel anything. I just watch it and think wow I didn't know the inside of a human [whatever] looked like that.

Perhaps I'm a psychopath.

Re:solution:

[bat21]

More like completely pointless with obscene amounts of depravity.

Re:solution:

[Shotgun]

Watch "Pulp Fiction", "Inglorious Bastards", "Kill Bill", or any war movie made after "Full Metal Jacket".

Have we all gone bonkers yet?

Re:solution:

[Shotgun]

Dehumanizing the enemy is a REQUIREMENT if you are to remain sane. There was the study of a short story in English class at the Air Force Academy. The "other guy" gradually went from "friend", to "buddy", to "enemy", then eventually to "dirty bastard" before being shot in the head. You can't shoot "the innocent other guy" in the head and remain sane.

Re:solution:

[Shotgun]

Sorry, but I couldn't watch the "Saw" movies. Well, I could, but why the hell do I want to sit there with that sick feeling in my stomach. I get cut and burned enough with the metal working I do to know that it hurts like hell, and I don't want to watch other people enduring it, even if I know it is acting.

Re:solution:

[cavis]

I'm a 20-year veteran of Fire and EMS, and I love what I do. In that time, I've seen some really nasty stuff (both accidental and intentional) like dead babies, shotgun suicides, etc. But I watched one of the beheading videos as well... and I wasn't ready for what I saw (or even worse, heard). It bothered me for a very long time because the sound of a dying man screaming through a gash in his throat is pretty fucking brutal.

Re:solution:

[xouumalperxe]

Yeah, same as a nuke is like a grenade, only with more oomph

Re:solution:

[religious freak]

After reading your post, I'm glad I didn't watch the vid in the past when the "opportunity" arose right after the incident occurred. I believe a major newspaper actually published the vid on their website - amazing after the description you wrote.

I didn't watch the vid because I didn't want to watch gore (though I don't want to watch it), I didn't watch it out of respect for the guy and his family. If I was brutally murdered by assholes I certainly wouldn't want to have that seen by thousands of people.

Eh - fuck these guys. Serves as a reminder as to why they are our enemies.

Re:solution:

[painehope]

I'm not going to waste time responding to each and every comment. But - before the diagnosis of "sociopathy" was dissolved into "psychosis" and "antisocial disorder" - I read the entire DSM-IV (a psych handbook for diagnosing "disorders" aka "keeping useless fucks employed") front-to-back. Might as well, I'd been diagnosed with at least 20 different "disorders" at one time or another.

Sociopathy basically means a lack of empathy towards fellow human beings. I definitely have that, since most people are cattle. If I had my way, 99% of the world population would be dead, and at least 30% of my fellow /.er's. The fact that I recognize it and control it isn't something that any shrink would want to admit. Oh, and all of them would be dead except 2.

Re:solution:

[painehope]

I'll live my life as I choose, thank you very much. I don't need your sympathy, pity, or hack diagnosis.

The fact that you can't handle your own self is your problem. Not mine. Have fun paying for all those head-shrinkers' bills.

Re:solution:

[painehope]

Tell that to the head-shrinkers. They're the ones that diagnosed me when I was a juvenile (thankfully, I've never been diagnosed with anything like that as an adult, or else I'd be screwed when it comes to employment).

As of this date (July 28th, 2010), sociopathy is not even a diagnosable condition (it was split into psychopathy and antisocial disorder, two preexisting diagnosable conditions). Up until at least 17 years ago it was, and I was diagnosed with it (amongst other things). What no one bothered to pay attention to is the fact that I was perfectly capable of functioning as long as no one fucked with me or mine.

I'm not saying that I necessarily agree with the label (frankly, I think almost all shrinks are more insane and/or have more personal issues than the people they are "treating" - and I've dated a psychologist).

What I am saying is that when it was a diagnosable condition, that was the main condition that I was "treated" for (since I was in and out of juvenile correctional facilities and reacted violently to any attempt to control me or tell me what I couldn't do; I've always lived by my own rules and see no need to indulge others' illusions of control over my person...which is probably why no matter what jail I go to in whatever state, even if it's just overnight for public intoxication, I get put in administration segregation - the modern equivalent of solitary).

Psychopaths (though the extremity does vary) cannot turn on their emotions, nor in most cases control their urges. Sociopaths vary in that they experience either selective or complete lack of emotions. I am on the lower end of the scale and that, combined with my high intellect and the fact that I'm a nice guy if I like you, means that I don't often get into situations where I have to cut off emotions in order to do something that someone else would consider inhuman.

If you want a perfect example, a guy whom I had known for over 15 years stole my medication one night while most of our group were passed out drunk. That, combined with the amount of alcohol we'd drank and the other drugs in his systems, caused an overdose. Basically, he keeled over in a parking lot and stopped breathing. I laughed in his face, put my pistol up, and left him there. Parting words? "Thanks, now I don't need to ditch this piece." (because I was about 5 seconds away from killing him - I have a policy of killing people that steal from me). I felt nothing, still feel nothing, and this was one of my oldest friends (whose life I had saved several times when he had OD'ed before in my presence, since I was the only one around who had any basic medical training and knew how to handle the situation).

Re:solution:

[painehope]

Well, she was my "high school sweetheart" originally (meaning she went to high school, I dropped out and went to college and worked...things fell apart when she went off to college and started studying psychology, funny that).

Then we found each other again after some like 12 years, had a brief fling, and then she got all...psychologist (for lack of a better word) on me. I mean, just cold and without any logic what-so-fucking-ever (yet insisting that she was being the logical one, since it's logical to treat someone who's supposedly one of your best friends and also the best guy you ever dated like shit because you feel like he's putting pressure on you to do...absolutely nothing; I was putting no pressure on her other than suggesting that we hang out or talk to each other, stuff that people who are just friends and nothing more do, but sh freaked out on me. It was like night and day - one day she was my old sweetheart, affectionate and loving and the most wonderful (if somewhat naive) woman in the world, the next day she slips out and almost has a nervous breakdown and pushes me out of her life almost completely (despite the fact that we live 90 minutes away from each other, were only seeing each other once every few weeks, and it's not my fault if she wasn't getting enough sleep because she'd stay up talking and flirting with me on the phone or via chat/e-mail. Christ...

Yes, I have to be crazy to have thought that anything between her and I had changed. Things had only gotten potentially worse, since both of us had only become moere of what we individually were...

Here's the thing

[paiute]

Just get rotten.com to run a banner ad for these positions. Anyone who has ever been to that site is inured to anything anyone could post to MySpace.

Re:Here's the thing

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh, come on. Rotten isn't actually bad.

Rotten displays very candid pictures that you won't see in the mainstream media; things like terrible gunshot wounds, accidents, strange medical cases and so on. They're candid, and they're shocking, but they're not disturbing, at least once you've seen a couple and have gotten used to seeing things you don't usually see in our society.

Disturbing is something else. Have you ever seen a video of a puppy getting tortured and killed slowly, for instance? Even if you can't actually see much, it's horrifying. In fact, it's horrifying precisely WHEN you can't see anything, because between the frenzied howls of pain and anguish, your mind fills in the blanks of what must be happening, and you're powerless - absolutely powerless! - to stop the whole thing. You don't know who's doing it, you don't know where they are, you don't know anything. The only thing you know is that the moment you're watching it, the puppy already HAS died a horrible, painful, slow death, and even if they catch the guy who did it, the events in the video can't be undone or prevented anymore.

THAT is disturbing.

It's something that happens for police officers, too, BTW; those who're working on serial killer/rape/... cases will often need psychologica help after reviewing photographs and videos and so on.

And these are trained professionals who're only doing it *sometimes*, as part of their job, and they're officers who've already seen a lot, who're older and have already got more life experience and so on.

Can you imagine being a 20-year old who's doing NOTHING ELSE but review things like that, eight hours a day, five days a week, for an entire year or more?

It's gonna mess you up something bad. And rotten? Rotten doesn't even begin to compare to it. Rotten is harmless.

Re:Here's the thing

[Utini420]

Interesting comment, improfane. If we're going to start setting bars, who gets to place them?

Re:Here's the thing

[g0bshiTe]

Say what you will about rotten.com needing to go away, I think it needs to stick around, I think depicting the finality of death and how grotesque it really is may cause some children to make better choices, "maybe playing with dad's gun is a bad idea", "maybe jumping onto moving trains is a bad idea". Everyone in the world dies, Americans just seem to be the only country that likes to shelter their kids from death.

Re:Here's the thing

[Anonymous Coward]

Please. There are images of sick shit out there because sick shit happens in the world. And most of what's on Rotten.com is little more than occasionally shocking ... gory injuries and deaths, oh no. Nothing compared to some of the shit that's out there.

Re:Here's the thing

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

Umm... If Hitler had to face Rotten.com, he would be deeply confused. He would be submitting half the stuff, and banning the other half as decadent...

Re:Here's the thing

[Fuzzums]

totally forgot about that site. "thanks" for keeping the memory alive. ;)

Re:Here's the thing

[TheMeuge]

I disagree. Occasionally I wonder over to that website, and it makes me remember why I am a human being, why I love the people I love, and how life is fragile and must be both enjoyed and protected.

Also, knowledge is NEVER harmful, unless it's used to harm.

Re:Here's the thing

[Merls the Sneaky]

Who the fuck are you, Stephen Conroy? Seeing fucked up shit re minds us of how fucked up the world really is. If you want to bury your head in the sand then I suggest disconnecting your internet and taking your PC in the back yard and bury it six feet down.

Re:Here's the thing

[JWSmythe]

    There's a little phrase at the core of the American society. "Freedom of speech". You might be familiar with it.

    When any person or group has the ability to make decisions on what the whole of society can say or read, it brings an end to our liberties. Just because you don't believe Rotten.com should be up doesn't mean that there aren't others who appreciate it. I don't like seeing mythology based rantings which are frequently misrepresented as factual historical accounts or a basis for modern life (i.e., religion for those who didn't catch that). The difference is, if anyone made a move to censor their speech, I would defend their right to say it, even if I disagree with every word they say.

    If a person, group, or even mob rule were to guide censorship, virtually everything would be censored.

    The stuff on rotten.com really isn't bad. It seems bad, because you have likely been protected from it your whole life. It's not necessary to see such things, but there are people world wide who see first hand the reality of what is portrayed in those images. For every picture they post, there was at least one witness, the photographer.

Re:Here's the thing

[Pinky's Brain]

I don't think that question is accurate, it includes it by definition.

Is free speech worth having rotten.com out there?

Re:Here's the thing

[Fuzzums]

I suppose you're new to the Internet? You will soon learn the meaning of "what has been seen can not be unseen". Welcome to the Internet...

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.

Re:Here's the thing

[HeckRuler]

I feel the need to reinforce the tsunami of rage against censoring bastards like you. Despite whatever revulsion you feel about the site, it's your own will to go there or not go there. Keeping others from looking at it is impossible and evil. That is simple a battle that you cannot win, because there are too many good smart people willing to fight you.

Re:Here's the thing

[butterflysrage]

there needs to be a +5 horrifying

Re:Here's the thing

[xkillkillx]

that's because Knowledge is ALWAYS power : was it for good or evil, you need some kind of power to make your point.

Re:Here's the thing

[hoggoth]

I was about to post how I can't imaging anything so gross or horrible I haven't already seen on the Internet and how it wouldn't bother me.
Thanks for fixing that.

Re:Here's the thing

[couchslug]

Lot's of Rotten's content comes from ordinary newspapers overseas.

Re:Here's the thing

[OzPeter]

Everyone in the world dies, Americans just seem to be the only country that likes to shelter their kids from death.

I lived in russia for a bit and the local TV news wasn't shy about showing the bodies of people hit by cars or trams etc. Something that would never occur in a western country (and not just the US). In addition I remember watching an animated kids show about some kids running around in the forest playing kids games etc. When these kids went skinny dipping in the local lake the animators drew in little penises in order to be anatomically correct.

Re:Here's the thing

[tibit]

The notion of "trained professionals" as applied to police officers is, um, well, an oxymoron at best. The training, in the U.S. at least, for state- and local police is a joke.

There is nothing in their training that would let them understand their own psychology, and how to cope with and direct their own thoughts. Such a training is provided to members of some special armed services, and it's not something you can go over in a week or two. It requires months of concentrated effort to understand oneself and to be able to direct ones thoughts. A typical police officer gets about as much hands-on academy training on everything as would be required to just cope with oneself in face of terrible violence and suffering out there.

The truth is that police officers are about as prepared to dealing with "serial killer/rape/... cases", on average, as you and me. Just because they have a fancy job title doesn't mean anything here.

Re:Here's the thing

[socz]

Sometimes, seeing things like this gives fruit to something great: a desire to take up a cause to _______

There are somethings I go out of my way for, not because it's what "society expects me to do" but rather because I've seen what happens when someone doesn't step in to help.

Not completely unrelated, I always tell people the story of my brother going to help people in a burning house. The short of the story is as follows:

My brother and I were on our way to the Virgin Mega Store on Sunset one day, we see smoke behind a house. We pull over, realize it's the house behind, so we go to it not hearing any sirens or anything else indicating someone is helping.
At the house we see a LOT of people, no fire/police, and a detached garage on fire with someone in it (the apartment above). So my brother parks the CRX, jumps out and takes me with him. I end up manning the faucet in the kitchen with a neighbors hose and my brother out there trying to help water down the apartment.

You would think that with so many people present, at least 1/2 would be trying to help. Nah, they were just looking. Eventually, the water pressure drops and we're all out of water, my brother yells over to me to get out of the house. Just as I walk out the fire dept is running up with wooden ladders. I then learn a lesson in life: they use "antique old style" wooden ladders because when they touch the power lines, they won't get killed - only cause a lot of sparks because of the metal reinforced ends.

Within a minute or two we're out of there on our way to buy music. Maybe we didn't contribute much to help that day. Buy seeing people crying, pulling their hair out, yelling hysterically, not know what to do in such a situation taught me to take initiative.

So while this didn't really affect me immediately, it did make a strong impression on my person. The same way seeing a puppy die needlessly can help you fight for animal rights (via peta or other means) such as on whale wars.

Re:Here's the thing

[Itninja]

...They're candid, and they're shocking, but they're not disturbing,..

There is not a quantitative description of what 'disturbing' is. If it disturbs you, it's disturbing. As for me, I visited Rotter once several years ago. The first image I saw was a dead baby splayed open on the slab. Maybe some are desensitized to that type of thing due to necessity (e.g. coroners, police), or due to a desired to see death (i.e. the people that chant 'jump! jump!' to the guy on the ledge) but it sure as hell disturbed the shit outta me.

Re:Here's the thing

[improfane]

My question to you is why do they appreciate it?

Don't you think it's wrong to enjoy that content? I know censorship does not work and to believe in free speech you have to permit the stuff you do not approve of (I am an avid freenet user. I know this.)

It reminds me of the story about a man who thought he could bring back to life a dead young girl by giving it cunningulus. In his world, it was not evil.

There is someting inherently evil and sickening about the human soul. I will never understand it. I don't know how to express my fear and condemnation of people who enjoy violence. It goes against everything a living thing should stand for.

Except for eating.

Re:Here's the thing

[Kell Bengal]

I hate to put myself in the firing line, but why? Does it matter what people enjoy, so long as they don't hurt you? More than just a knee-jerk reaction of "But it's WRONG!", why? What is the harm to you? And if they aren't harming you... why complain about it?

And before anyone mentions "But it harms the viewers!" ask yourself why anyone should have any say in what you choose to do to yourself.

Re:Here's the thing

[c0d3g33k]

People should be self-censoring of this shit.

Most of them do, I think. I've been on the internet a looong time and have never heard of this site. It's encouraging that this site is discussed so rarely that I have been unaware of it until now. Now that I am, I am not even interested enough to go take a look, based on the descriptions I've read.

Take heart - most people have no interest in this stuff at all, based on my experience.

Re:Here's the thing

[19thNervousBreakdown]

Yes.

That's a categorical answer, but for Rotten.com in particular, trust me, if you ever have to deal with gore in real life, you'll be glad for every ounce of desensitization you got.

Re:Here's the thing

[mmontalvo]

Yes

Re:Here's the thing

[thetoadwarrior]

Part of me agrees with that because there is some truly awful stuff on there. But then I think if you start there then where do you stop? Some religious nuts decide that even something along the lines of Playboy is unnecessary and too accessible to their kids. Maybe they're right and softcore porn should be wiped from the net or parents do their job and we can decide for ourselves if we want to look at something awful.

I've only been to rotten.com or something like it in my 20ish years on the net. In fact I forgot about it until you mentioned it. I feel just ignoring things you don't want to see works quite well. Now for these people it may not be that easy but I have less sympathy for them since they choose to do that.Anyone who thinks it's just going to be looking at porn to remove clearly hasn't been on the internet for more than week.

Re:Here's the thing

[thetoadwarrior]

I'd disagree. Violence is much more acceptable in the US than nudity and there is something wrong with a child that needs to see a head being sawed off to realise people die and violence is bad.

Re:Here's the thing

[JWSmythe]

My question to you is why do they appreciate it? ...
Don't you think it's wrong to enjoy that content?

    I guess appreciation and enjoyment may be in the eye of the beholder.

    I appreciate that they make such media available. I won't say it's enjoyable. We can learn a lot about ourselves and our environment through observations of what has happened to others.

    I will say the links that follow NSFW, nor the weak stomached.

    You can tell a person "Don't stick your hand in there." They may have been told 1000 times, and they may still not quite comprehend why. Show them one picture.

    Maybe you're obese. Maybe you keep saying that you're just big boned. A clear illustration may change your entire attitude towards it.

    Some are a subtle reminder and editorial, such as the one on how glamorous doing meth really is.

    For those who glorify war, sometimes you can see what can really happen.

    Getting hit by a train can hurt a lot more than you thought

    And a shotgun suicide doesn't leave a pretty corpse.

    I intentionally left out most of the corpse photos, because of the audience who may be watching my screen. I don't consider them unviewable. I consider them an interesting view of what can happen. I'd rather learn from their mistakes, rather than for them to happen to me.

   

Re:Here's the thing

[Impy the Impiuos Imp]

"Haw haw! Somebody uploaded a video of a guy with one ball! Haw haw...hey!"

Re:Here's the thing

[Impy the Impiuos Imp]

When I lived in the NL for a while, some of the other-language channels showed some bomb blast victims, military, with these bald spots with hair radiating away like the Tunguska blast.

I noted the US never did, and still doesn't, show stuff like that on the "public airwaves".

Re:Here's the thing

[sznupi]

It doesn't really seem so, at least not in the cinema / TV - sure, boobies might be censored more than in some places, but death is almost cheerished (even if usually without the messy parts; but sometimes there is something like, say, "Passion" from Gibson)

Re:Here's the thing

[sznupi]

"Free market" / advertisers / ...people wouldn't like it?

Re:Here's the thing

[icebraining]

There is someting inherently evil and sickening about the human soul. I will never understand it. I don't know how to express my fear and condemnation of people who enjoy violence. It goes against everything a living thing should stand for.

So you're one of those egocentrics that believe there's ONE universal definition of evil, yours?

Not that I enjoy violence - I don't, I'm a believer in pacifism. But I'm not so egocentrically to think my view is right and everyone else's is wrong.

I agree with should stop people from committing acts of violence against others, but simply because the majority shares the same view about it, not because there's some universal constant.

In fact, that belief that there's something wrong with "humans" is laughable, because there are plenty of animals that performs acts of what we would call cruelty - my cats played with geckos they caught for hours, scratching and cutting body parts, and they weren't even hungry. Calling them "cruel" doesn't make sense, and the same happens with humans in different societies.

Re:Here's the thing

[bonch]

Or it may desensitize children so that they viewed the grotesqueness of death as entertainment to be posted online. Nice America quip at the end, though...instant +5 for that.

Re:Here's the thing

[bonch]

It desensitizes you. The cheering crowds of the Middle Ages who watched people burned at the stake or broken on the wheel viewed it as entertainment.

Re:Here's the thing

[icebraining]

You have all the right to despise and ostracize any person you know to enjoy that kind of stuff. Nowhere does it say we must be nice to people we dislike, just that we mustn't take action against them just for disliking them or what they do.

Personally, I find that there are plenty of stuff that disturbs me much more than watching that stuff. My mother once fell down some stairs and there was a woman there. She looked, turned away and started walking slowly while my mother laid there unable to get up.
This disturbs me much, much more than some dude watching movies on rotten.com.

Re:Here's the thing

[Darkman, Walkin Dude]

There's a little phrase at the core of the American society. "Freedom of speech". You might be familiar with it.

Oh get over yourself, and get back to your free speech zone.

Re:Here's the thing

[BluBrick]

... makes me remember why I am a human being...

Wait, what? You have a choice?

Re:Here's the thing

[shutdown -p now]

Don't you think it's wrong to enjoy that content?

I think it's not normal, in a sense of mental health. But it's harmless, so I wouldn't call it "wrong". And there are far worse and actively harmful mental conditions out there - e.g. sociopathy, which seems to be so prevalent among our, erm, "elites".

Re:Here's the thing

[DigiShaman]

Have you ever seen a video of a puppy getting tortured and killed slowly, for instance?

Ya, actually I have. A long time ago (before year 2000), someone sent me a link to such a video. It was a Korean video where they stuck a knife into a puppy. Not sure why or what it was all about, other than it was to prepare the meat for cooking. I've also seen other furry wooded animals skinned alive by Chinese game trappers. I think that was the worse. They guys would stand there shirtless and in frustration as they wobble about in pain tied up to a rope up-side down.

So ya, there's some serious fucked up shit out there. Never in my life did I look so hard for some Care Bear, Rainbow Bright, and My Little Pony videos to counter the effect!

Re:Here's the thing

[westlake]

There's a little phrase at the core of the American society. "Freedom of speech". You might be familiar with it.

The Fifth Amendment did not abolish the law of libel and slander.

It did not legalize pornography.

American law - like American society - has a deep distrust of absolutes.

Re:Here's the thing

[StikyPad]

Yeah, puppies are bad, but not as bad as people.

Re:Here's the thing

[Fredde87]

Whilst I am all for freedom of speach, I do agree something needs to be done to help protect children or adults who choose not to view these kind of websites. I completly disagree with you that it is "your own will to go there" as we all now is not usualy the case. I haven't got any statistics to back this up with but I bet you most people see this contents by somehow being tricked into seeing it by others. How often is this material not disguised as something else, or you are in a public place (schools unfortunatly being the most common place) where someone will open it up and ask someone else to come over and have a look at something on their screen? I believe in freedom of speech, but I do feel that we need somesort of "option" when someone subscribes to a ISP to give them a option to filter out contents like this which I belive 95% of the population is not interested in.

Re:Here's the thing

[Fumus]

Come on. After experiencing that a few times you get immune. "Shit happens" you flag the inappropriate stuff and check the next file.

Or maybe the Internet has taught me that anything I see on the screen I can dismiss as "I've no control over this so I don't care." Or I'm just a soulless monster, though that's improbable.

Re:Here's the thing

[cherokee158]

The best definition of evil I have ever heard was from a professional profiler. He defined it as the absence of empathy.

The interesting thing about people (and animals), is that empathy is not an either/or quality: empathy is possessed in varying amounts, and can often be bludgeoned into silent consent. A cat has no more remorse for a mouse than I do for a hamburger. But I would not enjoy my steak so much if I had to kill the cow with my own hands. A professional hunter or rancher might have less problem with the act, or even enjoy it. I would not describe them as evil, but their prey might. IF the cat turned on its own species, though, we would consider it sick. Likewise, if a hunter turned his knife towards his fellow bipeds for any motive other than self-defense, we would consider him evil.

There are (fortunately rare) individuals who are completely incapable of experiencing the slightest bit of empathy for ANY living thing, even members of their own species, and are capable of doing great harm to others for the slightest of motives. Some even take pleasure in the suffering of fellow human beings. These people are undeniably evil, and as a culture we work hard to weed them out of the gene pool. We are never completely successful at it, though...I suspect because the shadowy presence of the predator in our midst is somehow advantageous for the genetic health of the community as a whole. We cannot, after all, extinguish the predator inside us completely, lest a more bloodthirsty species overtake us in the great game of life.

Re:Here's the thing

[HeckRuler]

something needs to be done to help protect children

I think the best way to protect the children is to turn them into adults. It takes time, but it takes more then just time. If a child is on an unfiltered internet, then they should be mature enough not to be scarred for life if they see some porn. If they are not mature enough, they shouldn't be on an unfiltered internet.

I bet you most people see this contents by somehow being tricked into seeing it by others.

Unfortunately, there's no cure for stupid or douchbaggery. I feel no need to cater to the stupid.

believe in freedom of speech, but I do feel that we need some sort of "option" when someone subscribes to a ISP to give them a option to filter out contents like this

Well YEAH. It's called a parental filter. Go buy one. Most can be circumvented by 7 year olds, but that's sort of an arms-race thing.
Please tell me you understand the difference between keeping yourself from needing eye-bleach, and keeping OTHERS from doing what they want to do.

(also, and I too am just pulling statistics out of my ass, but I imagine that 95% of the population isn't interested in slashdot.)

Re:Here's the thing

[HeckRuler]

I feel an equivalent fury and rage when people enjoy violence and depictions of death. It's not human. It's like people who watch Saw and torture porn. How can you enjoy that?

I don't. And it was very wrong of you to assume that. I've never actually been to rotten.com, but I've been around. I don't enjoy these things, but I'll defend to the death their right to exist. If people want to host it, let them. I say this because censorship is evil. Plain and simple. There are exceptions, but I'm very very selective about them.

Censorship is obviously the wrong answer because it doesn't work but it would enrage the idiots. People should be self-censoring of this shit. This stuff should have been bred out of us from the days when we enjoyed executions and live brutality.

Well it's good that you had an about-face on censorship. But you're now going down the path of eugenics, which has had it's fair share of problems. Really, your solutions to this problem are worse then the problem.

Re:Here's the thing

[Theoboley]

I saw this about a year while at work, and I sat there for 30-45 minutes after watching it with tears in my eyes, not being able to get that image out of my head. likewise, today after reading your AC Comment and not even looking at the link... im sitting here with tears in my eyes. As stated above... What's seen cannot be unseen.

4chan

[Anonymous Coward]

So it's like getting paid to browse /b/?

Re:4chan

[sznupi]

"Words", eh?

Re:4chan

[Icegryphon]

Would you really want to pay /b/tards.
Giving them money is just asking for trouble.
They might blow up a yellow van or something.
repeatedly

/.ers

[TheMeuge]

workers do nothing but sift through depravity after depravity

I thought that was the definition of "browsing the Internet".

yup.

[ak_hepcat]

I've done this as an Information Security person. Get a report, validate, pass it on to the cops and FBI.

Not fun at all.

Glad it's 10 years behind me.

Re:yup.

[jaygatsby27]

What kind of stuff are you talking about. i used to have to process evidence for attorneys and that was downright depressing.

Re:yup.

[gmack]

Same deal here.. 10 years ago I was a sysadmin for a company with a top 100 list site that ended up being used by child porn sites to evade police/content filters. Sick bastards put images of toddeler/adult sex pics right in the banners.

I wish I could unsee all of that.

Re:yup.

[blair1q]

Defense or prosecution?

Because evidence processing for the prosecution has become a hero job.

Hell

[Anonymous Coward]

...is other people.

Re:Hell

[evil_aar0n]

... is a place a lot like New Jersey.

Goatse Posters

[Caball]

Hope all you bastards are happy. First time I saw that image, I had nightmares for a month.

Re:Goatse Posters

[Anonymous Coward]

Without reading your comment, I got the impression from your subject that you were selling something. Now that, I thought, is truly depraved.

Re:Goatse Posters

[PhxBlue]

Hope all you bastards are happy. First time I saw that image, I had nightmares for a month.

And how frequently do you click on random URLs from people you don't know now that you've had that experience?

Re:Goatse Posters

[DeadDecoy]

You are travelling down a long, dark corridor.
You have been eaten by a grue.

Re:Goatse Posters

[noidentity]

Sorry, tubgirl is easily the worst of the big three *shudder*.

Re:Goatse Posters

[jfoobaz]

No offense, but if that's all it took, you're pretty weak.

Seriously, though, check go check out some medical textbooks. I remember looking through this one on oral medicine when I was a kid; some of the shit that can happen to your face as the result of untreated facial infections, or cancer, or hundreds of other problems is deeply terrifying.

Re:Goatse Posters

[Scrameustache]

Hope all you bastards are happy. First time I saw that image, I had nightmares for a month.

And how frequently do you click on random URLs from people you don't know now that you've had that experience?

All. day. long! :'(

Re:Goatse Posters

[headonfire]

if that's the worst you've seen, you must be new here.

the internet is a terrifying place sometimes.

Re:Goatse Posters

[couchslug]

"Hope all you bastards are happy. First time I saw that image, I had nightmares for a month."

From the right angle, he kinda looks like my Dad.

Re:Goatse Posters

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

Perusal of medical textbooks really makes one wonder how "natural theologians" ever lasted as long as they did, as an intellectual movement...

Re:Goatse Posters

[ThatMegathronDude]

One guy, one jar. There is little that tops it.

Re:Goatse Posters

[pev]

If Goatse gives you nightmares then you really haven't seen much of this planet. Open your eyes and see what really goes on in this world of ours.

Re:Goatse Posters

[Kreigaffe]

3 guys 1 hammer.
1 girl 1 kitten.

there's plenty that tops it... the thing is, that plenty, all that stuff that tops 1 guy 1 jar, tends towards things that are outright illegal to do anyway. and tends to be less "wow what is wrong with that guy, why would he do that" and more "what the fucking... this person is a fucking monster"

honestly, though? i'm glad things like that exist on the internet. i'm glad because it's resulted in them getting caught.

Re:Goatse Posters

[Kreigaffe]

No.

Re:Goatse Posters

[Zerth]

3 guys 1 hammer.
1 girl 1 kitten.

Links?

You're hired

Re:Goatse Posters

[interkin3tic]

And how frequently do you click on random URLs from people you don't know now that you've had that experience?

Look, if you know a better way to play internet russian roulette, I'm all ears. When I play I'm hoping for malware or a virus, not something WORSE!

Re:Goatse Posters

[Surt]

I'm weirded out to know that there's a third of the big two I'll have to see sometime.

Re:Goatse Posters

[wurp]

To use the web, I need to click random URLs from people I don't know. Yes, you need to look at page context and the URL to decide whether to click, and how large a grain of salt to take with the content. Every attempt I've seen at goatse-ing someone was calculated to make the context and URL innocuous.

"Teaching someone a lesson" is useful when the lesson is valuable. When the lesson is "no matter what the page context or URL look like, any link may take you somewhere horrifying", it's no lesson at all. It's just some asshole doing what he does best.

Being the thing you're warning someone about is not a public service.

Re:Goatse Posters

[thetoadwarrior]

It was my phone background for awhile. It stopped people from picking up my phone and playing with it and it was cool to pretend the sound was coming from his ass.

Re:Goatse Posters

[bonch]

There are things that make it look family-friendly in comparison.

Re:Goatse Posters

[PhxBlue]

Every attempt I've seen at goatse-ing someone was calculated to make the context and URL innocuous.

And yet, hovering over the link generally gives you ye olde Goatse web address. At least, that was the case before URL shorteners became common. And when I see a bit.ly URL on Slashdot, I don't even go near it, because it's liable to (a) log me out, (b) goatse me or (c) RickRoll me.

It's a matter of context and making a judgment call. To use the ubiquitous car analogy, clicking a URL you don't recognize is somewhat like running a yellow light: 99.9 percent of the time, it's perfectly fine, but there's going to be the one time that it isn't, and then you're fucked. If you're not sure about a particular URL, Google it (car analogy: stop and wait for the light to turn green).

Re:Goatse Posters

[Kreigaffe]

Chinese girl, high-heeled shoes, a kitten's head.

You don't need to watch it.

People actually tracked her down, though, I believe she got into trouble legally for animal cruelty. Hurray for internet outraeaeg?

Re:Goatse Posters

[noidentity]

Oh, you new-fangled kids. I don't have enough time to keep up with the latest mind-scarring imagery. I did see the two girls, one cup. Fortunately I've blocked that out, becuase I can't visualize it.

Re:Goatse Posters

[noidentity]

As someone else asked, yeah, it's Lemonparty. All I remember is that it's some old gay man or something forgettable. I only include it because for some reason others consider it one of the three.

Grown men crying like babies?

[nanoakron]

4chan'll do that to you...

Re:Grown men crying like babies?

[Anonymous Coward]

The people saying hiring from 4chan are right.

Not everyone is comfortable looking at all images, but if you actually like 4chan enough to have moderated there, then nothing bothers you much.

The fact is, for most people it doesn't take long to get to the point where pictures don't bother you.

After all, the spotty 13 year old who's posting a picture of a gruesome car accident didn't actually run anyone over, he's just a bored adolescent trying to shock someone. That will be a constant in life forever, why should it bother you?

Words of Wisdom:

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

As the great Jello Biafra once said: "Want to see child porn? Join the vice squad."

Re:Words of Wisdom:

[coaxial]

When I was on a federal grand jury once. One of the Assistant US Attorneys had a habit of bringing in a piece of evidence for the grand jury to examine during the cases. Bringing an indictment against a prisoner for making a shiv? Pass around the confiscated shiv in an evidence bag. Bringing an indictment for safety violations? Pass around photos of the unsafe truck. Bringing an indictment on child porn? Well, he didn't pass them around. Instead he placed them face down on the table, described the photos, and then said that if anyone wanted to view them they could.

No one did, probably because you had to walk to the front of the room filled with 20 people. Still, part of me wanted to go up, look at them oh so slowly, salivating, say, "Oh. Oh. That's. That's... That's nasty. Mmmm." Then turning and excusing myself for the bathroom, just to watch their horrified faces.

Never did though.

Re:Words of Wisdom:

[cpghost]

Never did though.

Just out of curiosity: was the defendant ultimately found guilty, without the jury looking at the central piece of evidence even once? If yes, that would be scary.

Re:Words of Wisdom:

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

It would be twice as evil as it would be nervy; but if you've set the situation up like that, where anybody who wants to look has to face the entire courtroom staring at them like a dirty paedo, you could use just about any picture you wanted...

I wonder if that attorney was ever tempted to "accidentally" put a wholly innocuous picture on the table(with the real one in reserve, just in case), just because he could?

Re:Words of Wisdom:

[Monchanger]

That'd be one hell of a bluff to try when it's entirely possible one of the jury would actually feel it was as necessary for the jury to see the photos as the parent suggested.

What are the consequences of faking evidence? Contempt of court, firing, disbarment? Nobody could get away with "I didn't realize I had my vacation pics in the evidence folder."

Is it just me...

[kryptKnight]

Is it just me, or does the summary give no indication of what the article is about? And on top of that I can't even RTFA without registering. This is retarded.

Re:Is it just me...

[steelfood]

Yeah, pics or it didn't happen.

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:I notice with interest

[wurp]

Because he didn't know the depths of depravity he would see before taking it, and after he had it he felt pressured by "macho" assholes not to "whuss out" by proving he's a human with human reactions?

Re:I notice with interest

[PCM2]

They should hire people who are qualified in the first place and this would not happen.

Who's "qualified"? Is there a certificate you can get for that?

You've posted a lot of posts to this thread now, and all I get out of any of them is that you think you're the world's biggest tough guy with brass balls the size of cantaloupes. What I get out of them, on the other hand, is you have an obnoxious need to brag about your lack of empathy as mask to conceal your insecurities. You'd probably be terrible at this job.

Dirty Jobs episode?

[BigDXLT]

I'd like to see Mike spend a day cleaning up the interwebs!

Re:Dirty Jobs episode?

[natehoy]

"It's a dirty job but someone's gotta do it. Whoa-oh-oh-OH-oh."

[[ cut to Mike in front of a web browser, screen not visible ]]

[click]
"Oh, God!"
[click]
"Oh, God!"
[click]
"Oh, God!"
[click]
"Oh, God!"
[click]
"Oh, God!"
[[ commercial break ]]
[[repeat]

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:Dirty Jobs episode?

[operagost]

"I was expecting some poo... but not this much... and not in that manner... or in that location." *vomits*

Re:Dirty Jobs episode?

[celery stalk]

Sheep. Not goats, it was sheep he castrated. With. His. Teeth.

Still makes the boys shrivel up just thinking about it.

Re:Dirty Jobs episode?

[Anonymous Coward]

Wait, aren't 2 girls 1 cup reaction videos popular to watch?

Re:Dirty Jobs episode?

[natehoy]

Mike is the man who has inseminated turkeys with a syringe, and gotten turkey jizz on himself. He has immersed himself in ponds of feces. He's been inside machines that grind up animals. He's hung off skyscrapers, wind turbines, and all manner of high ugly places.

He's a brave guy. It's not that he's braver than any of the people he covers - they all just think of it as their job. But he's sampled ALL that ugliness in employment has to offer.

And, yes, I fully expect that he'd probably projectile-vomit at some point while covering that job.

Re:Dirty Jobs episode?

[sjames]

They can't do it because, for the first time, Mike might just not be able to finish the day.

Wading into an actual sewer to unclog it is one thing, but trying to clean the inter-tubes is just too much.

Re:Pussies

[Manfre]

Occasionally seeing disturbing images is not a problem for most people, but if you spend 40 hours a week, every week, looking at all sorts of disturbing crap, your mind will become twisted.

Plenty of evil out there...

[sirwired]

Being forced to look at kiddie porn as part of your job could really mess you up. Looking at pictures of gory violence, torture, and abuse of all kinds, all day, day after day... I'd say that would mess somebody up far more than occasional crap coming up during web browsing.

wtf

[JeanBaptiste]

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."

That's me now, and I'm not getting paid. =(

Re:wtf

[boneclinkz]

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.

That's me now, and I'm not getting paid. =(

Yeah, replace "unpleasant images" with "401k statements."

Re:wtf

[Kreigaffe]

My 401k statement IS an unpleasant image, you insensitive clod!

Re:20 year old kids ?

[pinkj]

Or get a braille screen and hire blind people.

Re:as they say

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

Y'know, man, fuck. I don't even think I want a cheezburger anymore.

Definitely need some automated system for this

[parallel_prankster]

This is exactly the kind of stuff you need bots for. Some kind of picture recognition algorithm is needed that can at least weed out the ones that are obviously gruesome or twisted ( with no false positives etc) and then some of the ones where the machines cannot make a decision, can be sent to the humans to look. At least that will reduce the burden on these poor employees! Hope their insurance is really good !

Re:Definitely need some automated system for this

[TheMeuge]

with no false positives etc)

Any AI that was that capable would eliminate humans as a distraction very fast.

Re:Definitely need some automated system for this

[blair1q]

If you rtfa, you learn that Youtube has bots.

But the bots can't get it right. They can only sort into "think it's okay" and "needs human inspection".

So the humans get to see the scum all day, and none of the material the bot passed.

The system we need is one where we track the offensive material back to the mental deficient who uploaded it, and take a microplane grater to his grill. And make a prime-time television show of the process.

Re:Definitely need some automated system for this

[Culture20]

This is exactly the kind of stuff you need bots for. Some kind of picture recognition algorithm is needed that can at least weed out the ones that are obviously gruesome or twisted ( with no false positives etc) and then some of the ones where the machines cannot make a decision, can be sent to the humans to look.

Skynet wasn't really all that bad. It was just trained the wrong way...

Re:NYTimes subscription ...

[Anonymous Coward]

Not paywalled here:
Ricky Bess spends eight hours a day in front of a computer near Orlando, Fla., viewing some of the worst depravities harbored on the Internet. He has seen photographs of graphic gang killings, animal abuse and twisted forms of pornography. One recent sighting was a photo of two teenage boys gleefully pointing guns at another boy, who is crying.

Ricky Bess works near Orlando, Fla., and says workers are affected by the images they must view day after day.
An Internet content reviewer, Mr. Bess sifts through photographs that people upload to a big social networking site and keeps the illicit material — and there is plenty of it — from being posted. His is an obscure job that is repeated thousands of times over, from office parks in suburban Florida to outsourcing hubs like the Philippines.

Re:NYTimes subscription ...

[couchslug]

"Will the mods stop posting stories where the only link is into the fucking NYTimes paywall?"

Just grab a password off Bugmenot. Who actually pays for pay sites?

Cause and effect?

[MSBob]

What if we turn this around and consider that maybe those who apply for jobs to screen the internet already have an unhealthy fascination with weird and/or illegal content? Maybe the post-contract counseling only reveals all the issues they harbored prior to starting the work?

I'm not saying this is the case, but it's a possibility...

Re:Cause and effect?

[cavebison]

What if we turn this around and consider that maybe those who apply for jobs to screen the internet already have an unhealthy fascination with weird and/or illegal content?

Thinking about it, that's actually a great way to attract those sorts of people for the purpose of counselling and so save the rest of society from the various ills they'll eventually inflict.

Then again, if they drown they probably weren't witches anyway.

I used to be a content moderator

[ILuvRamen]

I used to be a content moderator for ehow.com, a demand media subsidiary. Luckily all I had to do was sort out the bad user articles that weren't up to their quality standard. I came across some oddly disturbing stuff but at least it was only text. I definitely now have it embedded in my mind though that 99% of people can't write an article properly to save their own life and most Americans are degenerate mutant freaks who need to go back to school to learn basic grammar and spelling skills but other than that, I came out of it perfectly sane lol.

Re:I used to be a content moderator

[Anonymous Coward]

Except you're one of those people who end sentences with "lol" lol

Help me lol

i wrote the summary

[circletimessquare]

i was preparing to apologize for a lack of clarity in the summary, but, on further review, sorry, it really is just you

Re:Pussies

[Aphoxema]

Occasionally seeing disturbing images is not a problem for most people, but if you spend 40 hours a week, every week, looking at all sorts of disturbing crap, your mind will become twisted.

I think just about anyone could handle seeing someone after a "BOOM HEADSHOT" or one of those other things we take lightly in so-called "violent video games". It's easy to say "It's not me, it's not someone I know" or anything else we tell ourselves.

After seeing it over and over, though, you start to wonder what if it were you or someone you knew. You start immersing yourself in possibilities like we're programmed to, rehearsing the situation in case you ever had to face it. You start living life making sure it doesn't happen to you, watching out for attackers, people out to hurt your family, people out to rape your children. You start to worry about yourself, wondering if another human being did it so can you... because you can't tell yourself to be cruel is inhuman anymore.

When you're immersed in the worst the killer instinct kicks in. Not the Counter Strike bullshit, not that stuff you see in the movies where there's a cause or justification, everything loses intrinsic value, every life but your own loses meaning. It's all about you and surviving.

After that it takes years to fit back in, but it'll never be a perfect fit.

But it is just porn.

[LWATCDR]

How can pictures harm you? I mean really it is just Porn....
Maybe it isn't all that harmless?

Re:But it is just porn.

[MBGMorden]

It's not going to be porn that disturbs people. Moreso violent images and the like. Things like car accident photos. I remember when I was in college my roommate clicked on a link on one of those "oddball" sites that was labeled something like "Bikini pictures". It was actually accident photos where a small car had been hit by a semi. The driver, lets just say, didn't make it. Half the skull was missing. The top portion of the torso was torn from the rest somewhat diagonally, with one arm still attached and the tear coming off prior to the other arm. Another picture was just the foot/lower leg severed at the shin. Other pictures of miscellaneous innards thrown all over the road.

It was truly a disturbing set of images. Not at all "porn", which is typically a happy thing for many to look at. Looking at it in general, it's not like I was scarred for life or anything. Mostly just a "Dude, that's pretty gross." reaction, but I can imagine that having to look at that stuff for 8 hours a day would take its toll.

I wonder how these guys relax after work

[arkham6]

Maybe a nice soothing viewing of the human centipede?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_centipede

(warning, even reading the description will make you reach for the brain bleach)

Re:I wonder how these guys relax after work

[interkin3tic]

(warning, even reading the description will make you reach for the brain bleach)

Heck, I don't need wikipedia to reach for the tequila.

Re:I wonder how these guys relax after work

[Animaether]

What shocks a person depends on the person and their experiences (direct or indirect).

I, myself, enjoy fictional movies in which people meet peculiar deaths - the Saw franchise, the Final Destination franchise, Mindhunters, Untraceable and to a lesser extent the more recent Unthinkable.. that sort of thing. With me a hundreds of thousands to millions of others. As a result, I do think I've become desensitized a little. The news showing images of people burning, getting shot, a protester on the street with brain matter where it certainly shouldn't be.. just doesn't shock me. I wouldn't say that seeing such movies has trivialized real life events, as I don't go unaffected - it just doesn't 'shock' me.

On the other hand.. when some guy dropped a dog off a bridge with a friend making a video of it, the dog obviously in pain and unable to get up again, and uploading that to some site for the world to see so as to boast about it... and similarly, when a military man decided throwing a puppy off of a cliff was a good idea (I seem to recall the excuse being that they can't take in and care for all the hundreds of stray dogs and blablabla.. what, a bullet to the head was a waste of a bullet?) - that shocked me. Heck, they enraged me for a bit.

I certainly couldn't do the job described in this article; but not because of whatever corpses of people I might see, but because of the animal cruelty I might see* - and who knows what else.

* in before the "you should see what they do to cows before they become your hamburger" crowd.. I have, thanks. If you can't see the difference between regulated killing for food - even where that food is a luxury rather than a necessity - and killing for e.g. a misguided sense of entertainment, there's no point in even debating that topic; but it comes down to this.. if a cow gets tossed off of a ledge 'for fun', I will feel just as enraged - and if a culture thinks dogs/cats/etc. make for delicious meals, I don't condemn them either, regardless of my disapproval.

Re:I wonder how these guys relax after work

[StikyPad]

warning, even reading the description will make you reach for the brain bleach

Meh.. I'm a huge pussy when it comes to seeing *actual* injury, especially intentional, but fictional scenarios don't bother me much at all -- especially a highly implausible and unworkable scenario such as this. I haven't watched the film, but you'd have to prevent suffocation, dehydration, malnutrition, and infection. Not to mention that popping stitches is hard enough to prevent accidentally, let alone intentionally. It's ridiculous.

Incongruity

[macemoneta]

The problem for many people is the incongruity between how they were raised and reality. People are generally raised to believe that people are good, that there are norms of behavior, there is justice in the world, authority figures can be trusted, things happen for reason and are overseen by an omnipotent deity. As we grow up, we learn that these are simply convenient lies that define our society.

When presented with conflicting visual evidence, we can be shocked and damaged - our world view is broken. Some go into denial (classifying the content as depravity), and some go into depression (recognizing that society is simply a veneer). Education and experience over time tends to break these falsehoods more gently, incrementally. The Internet is not so gentle.

Re:Incongruity

[Rod Beauvex]

Finally, someone else who understands this. Where are my mod points?

Re:Incongruity

[King_TJ]

Yes, except I *do* think it still holds true that "things happen for a reason". The problem is, people often can't comprehend (or don't REALLY want to know) the reasons behind the actions some people choose to take.

Re:Incongruity

[Mongoose Disciple]

Insightful as hell. If I had mod points I'd toss you one.

It does make you wonder what other kinds of jobs are disillusioning -- certainly I'd put government jobs that are actually public-facing in that bin, if in a slightly different way. I recently did some contract work for a city government and the people I worked with there had an unreal collection of stories in which they were shot at, otherwise attacked, or inappropriately urinated on or near by people. As someone who still believed that, if not exactly that people are basically good, that they didn't generally do things like that, I found it a little horrifying -- but you could tell that these people had just become desensitized to the fact that someone who was angry at something wholly unrelated to them might just walk into their office with a gun or piss on their desk.

I've also heard it claimed a number of times that software testers tended to have high divorce rates because their job forces them to be so exacting at finding fault, but I've never tried to hunt down data to confirm or refute that.

Re:Incongruity

[Surt]

People just need an exposure to some basic math. If even 1 in 1000 people is horrifically evil, and if 1 in 1000 of those like to video their activities and post them, you have a forum of 6000 people posting crazy evil shit.

Re:Incongruity

[c0d3g33k]

The problem for many people is the incongruity between how they were raised and reality.

People are generally raised to believe that people are good, that there are norms of behavior

Most people are good, most of the time. I wasn't raised that way, I've observed this to be the case.

there is justice in the world

There is, most of the time. The existence of exceptions doesn't negate the rule, and certainly doesn't justify giving up.

authority figures can be trusted

This is a tough one. Many authority figures can be trusted, but not unconditionally. Any authority figure should be open to question and monitored closely. The problem isn't that someone with authority can't be trusted most of the time, it's what happens when they stray and the trust is misplaced. Even if rare, the ramifications are great.

things happen for reason

Generally true. You may not like the reason, but cause and effect seems to affect most things that happen, in my experience.

[Things] are overseen by an omnipotent deity

Nope. I have no evidence of that. I'll grant you this point.

As we grow up, we learn that these are simply convenient lies that define our society.

They aren't convenient lies. Believing in good, justice, trust and reason are things to be aspired to, because if you don't, you have given in to evil, injustice, distrust and unreason. The existence of the latter does not necessarily make the former "lies".

Re:Incongruity

[men0s]

The problem for many people is the incongruity between how they were raised and reality... As we grow up, we learn that these are simply convenient lies that define our society.

When presented with conflicting visual evidence, we can be shocked and damaged - our world view is broken. Some go into denial (classifying the content as depravity), and some go into depression (recognizing that society is simply a veneer). Education and experience over time tends to break these falsehoods more gently, incrementally.

Or, perhaps, people were raised with empathy? I would bet that when there is an abuser and someone or some animal is being hurt, most people don't identify with the abuser.

Re:Incongruity

[avandesande]

But being exposed to this on a day to day basis isn't reality either. I would hate to live in a world where the frequency of gross things happening in the real world resemble rotten.com. Even if you work in a morgue or emergency room.

Re:Incongruity

[openfrog]

The problem for many people is the incongruity between how they were raised and reality. People are generally raised to believe that people are good, that there are norms of behavior, there is justice in the world, authority figures can be trusted, things happen for reason and are overseen by an omnipotent deity. As we grow up, we learn that these are simply convenient lies that define our society.

When presented with conflicting visual evidence, we can be shocked and damaged - our world view is broken. Some go into denial (classifying the content as depravity), and some go into depression (recognizing that society is simply a veneer). Education and experience over time tends to break these falsehoods more gently, incrementally. The Internet is not so gentle.

Rubbish.

If society is only a veneer, how do you explain that it works at all? I mean, why can you go out in the street and feel secure? We evolved those social behaviors over a very long time. We react with strong emotions to those things because we have slowly built a cooperative culture through those choices, however arbitrary they may seem, and we have integrated them into our limbic system. Our distant ancestors could have chosen otherwise: they could have decided that it would be more reproductively advantageous to assume a bullying, no mercy attitude. Well, some might have done so, but they have failed to reproduce, or at least to dominate. Those who advocate insensitive attitudes through an ideology (I think of fascism here) have not made it through history either.

I find it funny that the most naked cynicism is always accompanied by aggressive injunctions to "get real". I would answer to that: get a clue.

Re:Incongruity

[vertinox]

Most people are good, most of the time. I wasn't raised that way, I've observed this to be the case.

Do you live in a major city? Secondly, do you live in a impoverished area? If not, then go do so and get back to us. I'm not saying poor people are evil, but the area does seem to have more crime than others (hint, I live near a drug dealer and chalk lines of a murder scene)

There is, most of the time. The existence of exceptions doesn't negate the rule, and certainly doesn't justify giving up.

The drug dealers are still there. I could buy crack if I wanted, but I rather not. Also I'm pretty sure no one ever caught the person that got shot the person standing on the corner. Ok. This maybe anectodale, but I could pull up a website with our city (hell I could pull up detroit's or camdem's statstics) and you'll see most crimes are unpunished.

This is a tough one. Many authority figures can be trusted, but not unconditionally. Any authority figure should be open to question and monitored closely. The problem isn't that someone with authority can't be trusted most of the time, it's what happens when they stray and the trust is misplaced. Even if rare, the ramifications are great.

Hrm... Corruption is quite large in the cities. Not as bad as it used to be, but they nailed a few city officials back in the day.

Generally true. You may not like the reason, but cause and effect seems to affect most things that happen, in my experience.

Not so. Irattionality has a lot more to do with the universe than it lets on. Secondly (more of a philosophy point) if there was cause and effect to the extreme then there would be no room for free will as everything has already been caused.

They aren't convenient lies. Believing in good, justice, trust and reason are things to be aspired to, because if you don't, you have given in to evil, injustice, distrust and unreason. The existence of the latter does not necessarily make the former "lies".

The GP is right in ways... But my argument is this... Move to a high crime, impoverished area and get back to you opinion. I live simply because its where I am. I am used to the crime and corruption. You would be too if you lived here. Maybe if I had a wealthy family and lived in the suburbs I'd be less cynic.

Re:Incongruity

[ducomputergeek]

See what happens when basic services are disrupted for more than 72 hours in any large metro area.

Re:Incongruity

[c0d3g33k]

Most people are good, most of the time. I wasn't raised that way, I've observed this to be the case.

Do you live in a major city? Secondly, do you live in a impoverished area? If not, then go do so and get back to us. I'm not saying poor people are evil, but the area does seem to have more crime than others (hint, I live near a drug dealer and chalk lines of a murder scene)

Yes I have lived in a major city (several, in fact). And in or near impoverished areas (couldn't afford much else on the grad students stipend and had to be close to school). And the biomedical research institute I happened to be at was adjacent/connected to the local county hospital, so I've seen all kinds of shit.

I still maintain that despite all the crap that went down nearby, or was evident from the condition of the folks coming into the ER, the mayhem was caused by a small percentage of the population, *not* the majority. Most of the people I've encountered in my life have been good people, even those who, perhaps in a moment of weakness, have done bad things.

Being in a place where the concentration of wrong is high doesn't mean everyone is bad, though it can be daunting. We all have the capacity for wrong within us, but that generally doesn't manifest itself except under duress for most people (there are exceptions, of course). Back when life was much harder, it was a survival skill. Now, not so much. Put people in circumstances where survival is paramount and they will do what they need to do. That's not the same as evil.

Re:Incongruity

[cavebison]

No, sorry but I think you're falling into the classic "bad drivers" trap (to use a car analogy). Most drivers behave on the road and generally do the right thing. But if we encounter *enough* bad drivers in particular city, we say "god, Sydney drivers suck!" So just because, out of thousands of drivers we pass every day, one or two get up our nose each day, it feels "common". Common enough to us personally, but not common in the general population.

So no... most police officers DO want to do a good job, most politicians DO expect to make some improvements.. all you have to do is ask them and see. The bad apples spoil the meal.

Also, another bad-driver effect is that road rules are often made to accommodate bad drivers. Speed humps are there often because *some* people don't slow down enough. Most probably do. Thing is we don't really know, but seeing the speed humps (ie. the accommodation of the worst drivers) gives the impression that most people don't follow the rules. Whether that impression is correct is not really my point.

Re:Incongruity

[Reservoir Penguin]

Luckely it's not far from the truth, most people are more good then evil, authority can generally be trusted and what happens to you generally happens for a reason (sure there are women who had never been exposed to nicotine smoke get cancer but in general do not smoke - do not get it works well). The world works because people are mostly good and mostly follow the rules. But people ofnen forget the "most" part, so the first time I got ripped off by a person I trusted was a total shock to me, I did not know people could be like that.

Re:Incongruity

[cffrost]

It does make you wonder what other kinds of jobs are disillusioning [...]

Cracked.com features several articles that might relieve some of the wonderment you mentioned:

5 Jobs You Wanted as a Kid (And Why They Suck)
The 5 Most Overrated Jobs Of All-Time
6 Dream Jobs That Would Actually Suck

There's also one that discusses preemptive disillusionment: The 6 Worst Jobs Ever (Were Done by Children)

...and finally, one that describes a really shitty Job involved in the actual manufacture of illusion. ;)

Re:Incongruity

[Dread_ed]

I am sure I will get hell from people for this, but raising a child in the manner you describe is completely irresponsible and tantamount to child abuse.

I will give you my take on these and how I dealt with them as a parent:

people are good

Children must learn that a limited subset of people are good, and even they are not good all the time. The higher the pedestal we put people on, the farther they have to fall. Universal acceptance based on this untruth leads to lack of discernment, and without discernment there is no framework for evaluation of self or others.

there are norms of behavior

Children in a one-color-one-culture-one-religion society can possibly get along ok with this as it stands. However, socializing children with people of diverse backgrounds is preferable. In the process children will have questions. Candidly explaining the differences in cultures and beliefs will allow them to develop a more complete view of the world. The objective is to create fertile ground for acceptance of new and different people and experiences and to choke out the fear-based roots of bigotry and prejudice.
there is justice in the world
The world is an inherently unfair and unjust place. Sheltering children from this is not only futile but also counterproductive. They will see it sooner than you think, probably at the hands of a teacher or relative. If you haven't been honest with them you not only prove the point they are so harshly learning, but they can begin to see you as untrustworthy and unreliable. Dealing with the unavoidable instances of personal injustice without resorting to inappropriate behavior, unnecessary martyring, or loss of self esteem is difficult if you are a child. It is impossible if your parents allow you to be blindsided by it.

authority figures can be trusted

Distrust of authority will be guaranteed if you follow the sheep creating method so far proscribed by your assumptions. Children should be able to trust their parents as authority figures. Parents can earn that trust daily through respecting their children enough to give them facts, experiential knowledge, and the freedom to test those things they have taken on faith from their parents. Children who see the proper execution of authority at home will recognize the counterfeit versions that plague our schools, churches, bureaucracies, governments, and businesses. Instead of lying to them, show them different methods of dealing with impotent and destructive authority figures. They need to be taught to deal with the frustration and difficulties internally as well as learning how to negotiate and manipulate (YES! I said MANIPULATE!) the situations created by faulty authority. The sooner they know the truth, the sooner they can start practicing the skills they will need and use for the rest of their lives. Keeping them blindly following authority is a recipe for victimization, rebellion, and wastes invaluable teaching moments.

things happen for reason

From basic discipline to physics this principle is a staple for the instruction of children. Extending the cause and effect relationship from the purely physical realm into the more esoteric realms of interpersonal relationships and their own inner thoughts and attitudes will allow them to learn more from their own failures and successes. In addition, it gives them stable ground from which to launch their transition from dependent childhood to independent adulthood. Teach children that things happen for a reason, and more often than not, they are the source of and have control of that reason. Now, if you mean in the nebulous, cosmic sort of sense, well maybe they do and maybe they don't. However, if you can teach children they need to create meaning in their own life and inspire and empower them to do it, then that is a step in the right direction regardless.

and are overseen by an omnipotent deity

Every religious text I have read or studied states that the current worl

I have read far worse than I have seen

[Shivetya]

and some of it is on mainstream sites. Why pictures and video may be more in your face text can be just as bad. Worse while not law breaking the amount of hate espoused and condoned on some sites boggles the mind. The problem is many of these site moderators hold particular views and see no reason to affect change in their enlightened views all the while not realizing the amount of traffic lost because of it.

I gave up reading some Mac centric sites simply because of the bashing that goes on in their open forums (usually political and the like). I know, "but don't read these". Well there are many conversations that I do want to participate in, however getting past the tripe that lands in even these legitimate threads gets tiresome. Worse is when the site treats one type of speech offensive versus another where both are hateful.

No, I don't think I would want to do either job. I get annoyed enough at some sites as it is, I cannot imagine having to do it purposefully.

Re:I have read far worse than I have seen

[Locke2005]

Worse while not law breaking the amount of hate espoused and condoned on some sites boggles the mind.

Yeah, the microsoft-bashers on slashdot ARE pretty bad!

Re:NYTimes subscription ...

[stonewallred]

I did not see a paywall. And I am not a registered subscriber or user. Maybe you are an idiot?

Dumbasses

[MikeRT]

These are probably the same guys who, in high school, thought it would kick ass to be a Gynecologist. It never seemed to enter their heads that if a woman is paying them to check out her vagina, chances are... it's because of something a typical man would never want to see...

Re:Dumbasses

[aug24]

Big Al, my medic neighbour at Uni: "Yaaaay! First placement, Obs&Gyn!"

Six months later I asked how it had been: "Uuuuurgh. I never want to see another one."!

Re:Pussies

[Monkeedude1212]

I mean, i've seen my share of ugly shit in the net. I do think that i've seen most of the worse it has to offer. I mean REALLY? Are there people out there that will get all fucked up because of goatse?

I think it's safe to say that if you think Goatse is even close to the bad things on the internet*, or that you think that the worst stuff you've seen wouldn't mess someone up, than you have not at all seen the worst the internet has to offer.

The world is MUCH uglier than what any publication shows. ANY.

*On a scale of -10 to 10 (0 being neutral, 10 being awesome and -10 being disturbing) Goatse Ranks a -2. You don't even breach -5 until you see the involuntary stuff. Where people are tied up and forced into terrible acts of sexual abuse and mutilation. Then you see the same thing happen to children. A man's anus pales in comparison.

Re:I have to do this sometimes...

[stonewallred]

Nazi/KKK stuff reported to the FBI? Under what reasoning? Clue to you, in the USA, both Nazism and the KKK are perfectly legal. Might not be something you support, but they are well within their rights. Jut as Black Panthers, NOI and Scientologists are.

Caveat operatio

[rpresser]

Fred, if you're afraid, you'll have to overlook it,
Besides you knew the job was dangerous when you took it! (cluck, awk!)

Dirty Jobs with Mike Rowe

[peterofoz]

Sounds like a candidate for Mike Rowe's Dirty Jobs TV show, except they can't show the images on TV, but his reactions and commentary would be great.

Re:Dirty Jobs with Mike Rowe

[interkin3tic]

The youtube video of a grandmother viewing "Two chicks one cup" is pretty funny, so you might have an idea there.

Spoiler alert: she is somewhat disturbed and upset.

(If you're interested note that it's on youtube: it does not actually show the actual material, do a search for it)

Re:Dirty Jobs with Mike Rowe

[32771]

Given that he castrated a sheep by biting off its balls, ... well I suppose that is different. I wouldn't expect excessive reactions anyway though.

Re:Dirty Jobs with Mike Rowe

[Quiet_Desperation]

I actually sent in "Crime scene cleanup" to their suggestion box a while back.

Hmmm.....

[NetNed]

"She said they were likely to become depressed or angry, have trouble forming relationships and suffer from decreased sexual appetites."

So it has similar effects as playing world of warcraft?

Goatse.cx comes to mind

[erroneus]

Yeah, there are disturbing images out there and a lot of people get their jollies putting them out there just to get reactions from others. Who are these people? Are they just trolls or something worse? I believe I have been affected by the endless barrage of offensive images on the net. I believe my desensitization is demonstrable harm. I can't say that I have a decreased sexual appetite, but I definitely have concluded that most women look better with clothes than without... that very few women actually look better naked. Oddly, this knowledge doesn't preventing me from wanting to SEE most women naked, but I am not as devastated when I am disappointed again... and again...

Re:Goatse.cx comes to mind

[drinkypoo]

Oddly, this knowledge doesn't preventing me from wanting to SEE most women naked, but I am not as devastated when I am disappointed again... and again...

This is one of the reasons why the extreme close-up is so popular in pornography. The closer you get, the more similar women look. At some point you have to close your eyes to keep out the pubes, and then it's all in smell-o-vision.

digital fingerprinting can save a lot of work

[SethJohnson]

More than 80% of this work can be knocked out with a digital fingerprinting tool like tineye.com uses. Spiders can check every image referenced from any myspace.com html against a fingerprint match with a blacklist of images.

TFA mentions google doing something like this with YouTube videos, but it sounds like the majority of sites are crowdsourcing their visitors to flag content that gets reviewed by these folks. A digital fingerprinting tool can eliminate tedious review by both visitors and the moderators.

Seth

Re:digital fingerprinting can save a lot of work

[MaJeStu]

Spiders can check every image referenced from any myspace.com html against a fingerprint match with a blacklist of images.

Someone's still got to generate that blacklist...

Re:digital fingerprinting can save a lot of work

[SethJohnson]

Sure, but that only entails one person looking at a disgusting image once. Right now, they're subjecting many people to the same disgusting image every time someone posts it.

Use older techies

[ATestR]

There are enough of us around who're looking for a meaningful job. The dark side of the Internet may disgust us, but in general, the older members of society are jaded to some of the depravities of life, and less likely to be bothered. Not that I'd take that job right now... but there was a time a few years back...

Re:Use older techies

[Capt.DrumkenBum]

Depends on the pay. Can I work from home? I did this once many years ago, and I loved it. Get up in the morning, walk to the coffee maker, and over to the computer. In the year that I did that job I only once saw an image that made me want to vomit.
I did miss the human interaction of going to a job. Strange, that was totally unexpected.

Re:Use older techies

[Monchanger]

Well the article did have the following bit:

We help each other through any rough spots we have," said Mr. Bess, 52, who previously worked in the stockrooms at Wal-Mart and Target.

So I'm guessing these aren't high-paying jobs.

...And jokingly wonder just how much more awful working at Walmart is than I've heard to have this be an improvement.

Where do I sign up?!?!

[DedTV]

Seriously. Where can I get one of these jobs? I don't care how much it pays. I'm financially secure enough that I only need to work for a little extra spending money. Something like this sounds a lot better than being the buffer between a bunch of people who hate their jobs and upper management who hates their employees.

Two girls one cup just makes me hungry for Ice Cream and Goatse makes me want pizza. I'm so desensitized to the internet at this point that Miley Cyrus is far more disturbing to me than anything on 4chan, Ogrish or Rotten. I'd love to get paid to allow a few people to retain their innocence a little while longer.

Re:Pussies

[Adrian Lopez]

You don't even breach -5 until you see the involuntary stuff. Where people are tied up and forced into terrible acts of sexual abuse and mutilation.

But how do you know it's involuntary? How do you know it's not role-playing (as with BSDM) or special effects (like in fake snuff films)?

will the CHECHCLEAR?

[lupinstel]

I will watch anything as long as the CHECHCLEARs the bank.

Re:Pussies

[CharlyFoxtrot]

No shit : "Ricky Bess spends eight hours a day in front of a computer near Orlando, Fla., viewing some of the worst depravities harbored on the Internet. He has seen photographs of graphic gang killings, animal abuse and twisted forms of pornography"

That are the shocking examples they come up with ? Check, check and check.
I'm going to flag some pictures of cute wittle puppy dogs and kittens so these delicate little flowers get a break.

I wonder

[Adrian Lopez]

I don't envy these people their jobs, but I have to wonder how much of the content in question is truly illegal versus how much of the content is simply disturbing (like the stuff you might see in a graphic movie). Perhaps this is naive of me, but it seems to me this article is playing up the negatives in true yellow-journalistic form.

Re:NYTimes subscription ...

[Thud457]

Bess? Is that his real name?

Police photograph archives

[kriston]

One of my colleagues' former jobs was to index the photograph archives of an international police organization. He spoke about some unspeakable crime scene photos that he took years to get over. The mere descriptions of the photos also took *us* years to get over.

This kind of thing is not good for anyone.

Re:Police photograph archives

[sexconker]

The mere descriptions of the photos also took *us* years to get over.

Try me.
Post the pics or descriptions.

Re:Police photograph archives

[DigiShaman]

Listen, there's some serious EVIL out there. My advice? Purchase a gun and take safety/proficiency lessons. You have a right to protect your wife, children, and you self.

After seeing just *one* of these images, you will want your wife to pack some heat too as an extra precaution.

Re:Police photograph archives

[StikyPad]

Pics or it didn't happen.

Re:Police photograph archives

[Reservoir Penguin]

Sure and when you die your wife will take her gun and kill herself your 19 y/o daughter. Thanks but no thanks.

Re:Police photograph archives

[HopefulIntern]

Cant. Not American. In the UK you will go to prison if someone breaks into your house and you attack them. Here we are taught to be good little bitches and take it. We can always just make a police report later..though it will be too late at that point, and even if something does go to court, the perp will be out in 3 months.

Re:Police photograph archives

[HeckRuler]

Yes, there is. But it's rare. It's ludicrously rare depending on your location. You can be afraid of lightning strikes and never walk in the rain or fear meteors falling out of the sky and live in a bunker your entire life. And that will help protect you from these events. It's not a guaranteed safety, but it will help.
But doing those things is unreasonable. The chance of the event killing you doesn't warrant the actions to help prevent it.
But this is the really important point I want make sure I'm getting clear: the chances of the event happening are so slim that it doesn't warrant living in fear of the event. You can be armed to the teeth and be a killing machine and still piss your pants when the girl scouts come to sell cookies. You can run naked through the lion pen and be fearless. Neither are healthy states of mind. But most people really don't need to be armed.

Unless you live in the Bronx, or Detroit, in which case keep your head down, don't talk to strangers, pack some heat, and GTFO of there as soon as you can.. But you don't make any mention about that and give some blanket advice to everybody. And that makes the advice bad advice. Because, for the vast majority, you're not really making them safer, you're making them afraid, which really does have a negative effect. I'd say that that that the fear your inflicting on the majority outweighs the caution your imparting on people that actually need it. I guess I'm just pushing for rationality and reason over unreasonable fear and paranoia.

Re:Police photograph archives

[DigiShaman]

Sticking your head in the sand isn't good advice either. At the very least, be ever vigilant of your surroundings. My advice is simply that, advice. But please don't call those that take it paranoid and fearful. It's simply being prepared. Especially true if you live in a bad part of town for whatever reasons.

If you live near the Gulf coast, would you not prepare for hurricane seasons. In California, earthquakes, Up north, blizzards, and midwest, tornadoes? Same thing here.

But I do agree, it's all about the risk assessment. But it doesn't hurt to error on the side of caution either.

Re:Police photograph archives

[DamnStupidElf]

and even if something does go to court, the perp will be out in 3 months.

On the other hand, 3 months in jail for shooting a would-be thief/rapist/murderer is not that bad. That's if the police bother following up on the report of a missing thief/rapist/murderer.

Re:Police photograph archives

[HopefulIntern]

Oh yeah they would. The poor rapist had a difficult upbringing and cannot handle prison, and certainly does not deserve being attacked for his misdeeds. Meanwhile, even though I might only spend 3 months inside, that's my career prospects ruined. Nobody wants to hire an ex con, regardless of what they did and how long they were inside.

Where do I sign up?

[Mantrid42]

I think the problem is they're getting people who are still grossed out by lemonparty. One of the guys in the article is 52. What they need are people like me and my friends, who are hardened internet veterans. I've seen just about every horrible thing on the internet. How do I apply for this job?

Re:Where do I sign up?

[edremy]

That's the whole point- this is *far* beyond lemonparty, or goatse, or other classic shock images. I've seen all of those- yeah, they're disgusting, but they don't bother me. The folks in them are there voluntarily, and if they are a bit messed up in the head so be it.

However, I seriously doubt you spend your time browsing photos of what this story is talking about. You really have browsed tons of photos of grown men raping 6-year-olds? Photos of mutilated bodies of kids? Videos of people being tortured, for real, or killed in brutally horrifying ways?

Thanks, but no. Not for any amount of money.

Re:Where do I sign up?

[gay358]

I suspect that only quite small percentage of the photos or videos is truely shocking. Probably most of them are just indecent, somewhat offending or disgusting. Of course every now and then there will be truely shocking material, but I don't it is that serious if you don't see it too often. And at least for me, images of shocking material aren't that shocking. But animal abuse or torture videos which often end when the victim is killed, are quite horrifying -- and I have seen that kind of videos. But I don't think I have been scarred for life for seeing those videos as I know it is something that has already happened and there is nothing I or anyone else can do to undo it. However, what is troubling me a great deal, are ongoing human right abuses, ethnic cleansings etc. I often have serious trouble falling asleep if I have read for example what Israel is doing to Palestinians without any real opposition from international community.

Re:Where do I sign up?

[Mattskimo]

You really have browsed tons of photos of grown men raping 6-year-olds? Photos of mutilated bodies of kids? Videos of people being tortured, for real, or killed in brutally horrifying ways?

Who me? Never. Honest, guv.

Re:Pussies

[Monkeedude1212]

Often times you can just tell. Once you see enough BSDM, you can tell when people are role playing. Especially when its in some room painted all black, and the people come out unmasked, and all those little nuances. When its comes from some tripod across the room in some empty warehouse, the guys wear ski masks to protect their identity and are viciously brutal beyond the point of "just enough to hurt but not leave marks". No one in role playing ever wants a real black eye.

Either way - faked or not - it doesn't really matter. If its convincing enough to seem like real abuse, it's disturbing.

You'll notice more and more BSDM sites are putting the disclaimer at the beginning or end of their videos with both parties saying on camera they consent to the activities.

I mean, not that I would know anything about that.

Meh

[Bemopolis]

Pics or it didn't happe — OH JESUS MY EYES!

Overworked and underpaid

[Animats]

The company's roughly 50 workers view a combined average of 20 million photos a week.

That's 10,000 images per hour per person, assuming a 40-hour week. (For $8-12 per hour). How can they do that? Even if the numbers are exaggerated, just looking at that many images has to be wearing.

Re:Overworked and underpaid

[imunfair]

Yeah I was trying to figure out how they do 2.7 per second, but what they're doing is browsing pages of 300 thumbnails for anything obviously bad. It's pretty easy to let your eyes skip over all the cats, babies, etc and pick out the bad stuff. Sounds extremely boring, but not nearly as evil as the article is trying to make it sound. Initially I was picturing someone viewing full-screen images one after another.

That said it sounds like they're hiring soft targets that would be impacted by moderately bad material. Most of the people that would be comfortable with this job wouldn't do work so boring for such low pay.

Re:Overworked and underpaid

[easterberry]

until they get to stuff that you can't tell if it's bad from the thumbnail and have to click in on...

Re:Overworked and underpaid

[skids]

That's still crazy. Spending all day on page after page of thumbnails... if you ever played with that amazon mturk stuff, or fought StarCraft addiction, you know how that kind of stuff can really get to you. Hacking it just for a day would be cognitively traumatic enough. Waking up each morning knowing you'll be doing that all day... ugh. And the nasty surprises on top of that. Sounds like a job that should be distributed across a larger workforce as one component of a set of tasks. Take a clue from the factories and rotate job responsibilities.

Re:Overworked and underpaid

[Marcika]

The company's roughly 50 workers view a combined average of 20 million photos a week.

That's 10,000 images per hour per person, assuming a 40-hour week. (For $8-12 per hour). How can they do that? Even if the numbers are exaggerated, just looking at that many images has to be wearing.

My guess: Known-good and known-bad URLs and/or file hashes are stored and compared against anything new. Probably 95%+ of those 20 million photos wouldn't need any human interaction on a well-set-up system. And 500 images per hour sounds much more digestible...

Re:Overworked and underpaid

[sexconker]

How fast can you go through google images with safe search off and pick out the NSFW images for a search of "teens"?

What about a 5x4 grid where all you have to do is flag whether or not the page contains any NSFW images?

Any pages that you've flagged get stored and sent to someone else to verify / mark the specific offending images. You're job is simply to hit the spacebar or the enter key for flag or pass, respectively.

No, its not just porn

[nurb432]

Images and videos that can haunt are not just porn. Porn would be the least harmful i would imagine.

Re:No, its not just porn

[LWATCDR]

Of course because porn isn't harmful and any study that says it is must be wrong.

I am sure that their are a lot of "disturbing images" but many studies have also shown that porn also has negative effects.
The thing is that most people on Slashdot do not want to believe it.

re: people who can watch anything

[King_TJ]

I'd have to agree with this.... If you've ever had much experience with people with Asperger's syndrome, they're likely to be in the crowd who could do this type of work without negative side-effects. They tend to have more of an emotional detachment to such things, as part of their condition. (That's also why psychologists have long suspected that many of the most successful CEO types have Asperger's to some degree. They're capable of looking at the company's situation in a purely logical manner, and doing mass layoffs without hesitation, if they determine that's the most economically beneficial course of action -- without hesitating because of personal guilt about it.)

Re:Pussies

[domatic]

If the camera is bobbing around a lot and the whole thing basically looks like an un light filtered home movie that hasn't had any real editing then chances are you are watching an amateur capturing something really nasty. At least you can be reasonably sure you're watching something that really happened with bad production values even if you can't be completely sure coercion is involved.
 

Re:That wont happen here

[drinkypoo]

I fear my post will sound like a troll, because of the nature of the content, but I'll type it out as I see it.

Your post is a troll because it is offtopic. There is a place for that and today we call them blogs. Slashdot gives you one for free, and calls it a journal. The topic of your last journal entry appears next to every comment you leave, which provides great publicity if you write comments that anyone wants to read. h0h0h0

goddamnit!

[Thud457]

thanks a lot for reminding us that there are NO EXCEPTIONS to rule 34.

I'm not even going to bother to verify that one.

Thats a dumb assumption.

[elucido]

In reality, if you see enough disturbing images you become less sensitive to it. Also some people just don't get any major reaction from disgusting images, yeah it's gross but it's not going to make a person vomit, or start crying, or have nightmares.

There are plenty of jobs where people have to do gross things they dont want to do. Just looking at gross images is nothing compared to working in a morgue or working on a farm.

Re:Thats a dumb assumption.

[brasscount]

There is no significant difference between the job they described, and a law enforcement innocent images related job.

With the exception that the law enforcement job you at least get to hope you can catch the A-hole who took the horrible image to begin with.

Re:Thats a dumb assumption.

[Peach Rings]

Except those farm workers really are sociopaths. The animal liberation movement horror videos make it pretty clear that there are a lot of people who have no qualms at all with kicking or viciously jabbing a screaming, dying animal, and do it all day long.

Re:Thats a dumb assumption.

[bzipitidoo]

Guess I'm one of those people who do not react strongly to pictures however ugly. To me, pics are somewhat removed from reality, so a lot of bad stuff doesn't make much of an impression. Without sound, motion, and especially smell, it just isn't very real. Descriptions are even further removed. The most disturbing pics I have ever come across were some too intimate images of dead victims stripped naked in some war in East Timor, posted for the pleasure of necrophiliacs. Thankfully I don't remember them well, I only remember that I have seen such images. Holocaust images are ugly, but tend to be more distant.

Images of severe medical problems, particularly the advanced stages of some parasitic affliction, can be stomach churning. Saw plenty of that in high school biology. And of course we all had to dissect frogs. Have to admire the doctors and surgeons who can stand the presence of blood and worse things. Goatse is tame compared to all those. Sorry if those conjured up ugly pics in your mind-- I understand that for a lot of people, to hear a description is to see it. How I'd take it if I saw it in real life, I don't know and hope never to find out. If I had to choose between disturbing pics and dissecting frogs again, I'd choose the pics.

Re:Thats a dumb assumption.

[elucido]

Except those farm workers really are sociopaths. The animal liberation movement horror videos make it pretty clear that there are a lot of people who have no qualms at all with kicking or viciously jabbing a screaming, dying animal, and do it all day long.

Not every farm worker works in a large factory farm.

I'm not denying that some of these farms are run by sociopaths, but family run farms are not run by sociopaths and don't operate like killing factories.

Just like not all hunters or meat eaters are sociopaths. And if you think they are then it's obvious you've never eaten meat.

Re:Thats a dumb assumption.

[psavo]

Well in reality you might get images/text that is in some way emotionally moving for you. For me personally if I'd see some abused kid I'd be interested in knowing what happened and if it worked out. It'd fucking haunt me, like a book left unread.

Re:Thats a dumb assumption.

[FakeStreet123]

Wrong. The best they can hope is catch those who distribute the image, or more likely, those who download it. They never catch the ones truly responsible, which makes the whole process useless.

Re:Thats a dumb assumption.

[bat21]

You're talking about huge megafarms with thousands and thousands of underfed animals and poorly paid workers. The average farm/ranch is completely different.

Re:NYTimes subscription ...

[Haffner]

or, you know, delete your nytimes cookies.

Re:If you aren't tough enough, don't take the job.

[sherriw]

I think the point here is that yes, it's just an image... but in the case of the child abuse, it was a real child being abused. For many people that image would fester and they would start to empathize with the child and would be upset about the act that was done in order to produce that image.

I doubt you would feel that it was 'just' an image if it was your younger sibling or your child who was in the picture.

But yes, people should be aware of the job they are taking on and whether they can handle it. Though sometimes you don't know if you can handle it until it's too late.

Desensitizing..!!

[thodelu]

I have not seen much rotten stuff. One video I watched in my teens made me feel nauseated and I almost puked. Since then, I watched some disgusting videos but the reaction was more subdued than the previous ones. I am now desensitized to most vile stuff and would love to get back my naivety.

Just do a backround check.

[elucido]

Usually a thorough backround check can determine if the individual is a sociopath or not. Just being able to see disgusting images and not react doesn't make one a sociopath. It depends on whether or not it was their first time seeing it, and it depends on how they look at it.

You can look at images of dead bodies, you've seen them before so you have no reaction. This doesn't make someone a psychopath or sociopath, as a sociopath would react like that in all situations no matter whos dead body it is, while most people who are just jaded or mature will only react when it happens to someone they care about, and even then, you cannot really judge reaction by whether or not they cry or get sick, you have to look at brainwaves and actually see if their brain can connect or is wired in a way so that it registers specific emotions involved with seeing brutality.

Most people can train themselves to shut that part of their brain off as part of their job. So they can function as a sociopath would function as part of their job, but they don't function like that in private. A sociopath or psychopath functions like that in all situations, all the time, in private, whether they have a job or not.

This is very much like the difference between a doctor or morgue technician, who deals with the human body in a clinical fashion, and the sociopath who might consider it play and not do it for money.

Re:Just do a backround check.

[Peach Rings]

I'm as hardened as any anon - no shock site will faze me anymore - but I would probably be seriously disturbed if I saw someone die in real life, or saw a lot of blood or something. It's the difference between real pain and suffering and pictures on the internet that are probably fake anyway.

Also, cue moar pooper comic

Re:Just do a backround check.

[elucido]

I'm as hardened as any anon - no shock site will faze me anymore - but I would probably be seriously disturbed if I saw someone die in real life, or saw a lot of blood or something. It's the difference between real pain and suffering and pictures on the internet that are probably fake anyway.

Also, cue moar pooper comic

Life is long. It's very likely that before you die you will see many people die. Some will be your friends, some will be family members, and some of them will die right in front of you.

This does not change the fact that death is a part of life. It's an exceptionally gross/disgusting part of life, but it's an experience we all share and will all have to face. We will all have to watch loved ones die, but most people try to imagine a world where nobody they know will ever die and everything is perfect.

The truth is, seeing images of dead strangers is absolutely nothing once you've seen a few dead family members and or friends. If you live long enough eventually these sorts of things happen. It might not happen for people in their 20s in most cases but by their 30s they'll have lost some people, by their 40s significantly more people, by their 50s even more, and by the time they are 60 or 70 most of the people they've ever known will be dead.

If you ever work in a hospital you see people die every day. The first time you see someone die it's shocking, but just like with anything it's most painful the first time you experience it and you do get stronger. Just like if your first bf or gf breaks up with you it feels horrible, but after you've been through that experience before it's not as bad anymore. Dealing with death is a part of growing up.

Re:Just do a backround check.

[Anonymous Coward]

Anon because I've modded.
It's not that big of a deal. I watched a 15 year old girl die when she came in with massive swelling of her brain. When the neurosurgeon got into the fluid-filled spaces to relieve the pressure, the fluid hit the wall of the OR. She got better for a few minutes, and then she ran out of space to swell into. A side effect of this was that she went into pulmonary edema, so pink froth was pouring from the tube in her throat faster than we could suck it out.
 
  I watched a man with lung cancer die when his tumor finally ate into the pulmonary artery. He coughed, once, and the wisps of tissue separating that artery (right off the heart) and the inside of his lungs gave way.
 
He coughed with increasing violence as he proceeded to drown in his own blood, every cough increasing the torrent. I was only 30 yards away when it started. Obviously, there's not much you can do about this, although we tried.
 
  I've watched a man die when the giant aneurysm in his chest exploded only 5 minutes before he would have been on a heart-lung bypass machine. I've pulled the plug on trauma victims that were so swollen with fluid that they looked like the Michelin Man. I've seen a 26 year old, perfectly healthy nurse die in five days from pneumonia. I've seen people die from exploded viscera. I've seen 1000-gram babies with so much dead gut that they'll never survive.
 
Sooner or later, you just get used to it. It's nothing magical; people do it all the time.

Re:Just do a backround check.

[Screen404-O]

I think he meant "seeing violent death". There is a huge difference between viewing already dead people (morgue or funeral) and witnessing violent murder. Emotions and feelings (or chemicals in the brain) that are involve are completely different and have different affect on people. During violent death you will get adrenalin rush witch mixed with fear. This tends to make a lot more permanent imprint on to your memory then sorrow and pain witch you would fill at the funeral. The fact is that very few Americans will ever see violent death. Thous that have high likely hood of witnessing are trained to deal with it. Doctors/nurses are trained through acclimation over at least 4 year period often longer and have large support network to seek help with. Military does it through "group think" or "mob mentality" in a lot less time 6 month to a year but with less favorable outcome (more cases of PTSD and less of the affected seeking help).

Re:Just do a backround check.

[jez9999]

Just like if your first bf or gf breaks up with you it feels horrible, but after you've been through that experience before it's not as bad anymore.

Hah! Speak for yourself.

Re:NYTimes subscription ...

[imunfair]

I remember reading a while ago that NYTimes only pops up the paywall after you read a certain number of articles per day. Calling them an idiot just makes you look ignorant - as if the same website can't serve different content to two people.

Re:If you aren't tough enough, don't take the job.

[nebular]

Obviously you don't have children yourself. As a parent, one of my worst fears is: "that could happen to my child."

So you're childless when you get the job, then a bit down the road you have one and then it starts hitting you. Or the nature of the job changes and you're now exposed to something that you weren't before (A site being used to evade child porn investigations would absolutly qualify if it wasn't when you started)

Sometimes you don't know what you're going to be exposed to until you already are, you think you can handle anything until you don't. It's why people say, "you wish you could unsee something".
Or you think you're cool with it, but then it comes back a a horrifying flash at random moments or in a dream, the mind is weird that way.

If it's bad enough and fast enough, they call it Post Traumatic Stress.

Re: people who can watch anything

[cthulu_mt]

Everyone has Aspergers now. It's the new Twinky defense.

I know I was scarred for life

[Pinball Wizard]

mainly from the kind of sites people from Slashdot would link to like rotten.com or that goat site.

That was like 10 years ago and I still havent recovered!

Now it's a syndrome?

[elucido]

What you are saying is anyone who isn't an emo type person has a "syndrome"? That is ridiculous. It's really simple, experience creates the syndrome you speak of. Some people see nasty images and death, and they grow tougher and stronger from their experiences. Other people see these things and they cry, have nightmares, and want to unsee it.

The point is there are some jobs which require a strong determined mind. Where you'll do your job no matter how gross or disgusting it is.

I'll prove my point, you claim that people with this syndrome, which I guess includes me, are able to think logical and make mission critical decisions. If it's a syndrome to be logical then something is wrong with the psychiatrists, not the individuals who can make sane rational decisions.

That being said people who have aspergers syndrome or the logical people you speak of, actually do feel personal guilt. Nobody feels good about hurting other people, but in order to help people you have to hurt people, and in order to win you have to sacrifice, and everyone knows that you cannot accomplish anything great without some pain and hurt. Being able to put your emotions aside for the good of the business means you aren't a selfish leader, but a selfless leader who will do what is right regardless of how it feels to you personally.

This means you'll resign if it's right. This means you'll fire your best friend if its right. This means you'll do exactly what you are supposed to do to make the business successful, even if it hurts you personally.

How is that a syndrome?

Re:Pussies

[Red Flayer]

I agree with your post in general, but:

No one in role playing ever wants a real black eye.

That's not true. There are people who are into role-playing who are also into masochism. Some of them even like being marked (bruises, scarring), it's a turn-on for them.

Sure, most masochists are ashamed and don't want to be marked (or they know that being marked will affect their "normal" life). But not all...

Re:I have to do this sometimes...

[Surt]

It's what they have a tendency to post, eg threats against specific persons, calls to violence, etc, that can cross the legality line.

Re:Pussies

[Pollardito]

Something that only appears involuntary is going to be just as shocking to a viewer as something that is truly involuntary. Since we're talking about the strength of the impression on the viewer, it only matters what they think they're seeing. (I'm *not* saying that they should be treated the same in the eyes of the law)

Re:Pussies

[Adrian Lopez]

While I'm sure you can often tell when a video is fake, I'm not convinced it's so easy to tell for a fact that a video is not. Without the ability to somehow confirm that a video is real, telling the fakes apart from the real videos is an exercise in futility. That certain videos look real compared to others that look fake to you is no way to confirm the accuracy of your identifications. Some extreme videos may indeed show enough as to leave very little doubt as to their reality, but are all the videos that seem real to you quite so extreme as that?

I do agree, however, that a video that's convincing enough to look real will be disturbing to those who are convinced that it's real. I guess I'm just skeptical about the number of such videos in existence... or it could be I just have my head buried in the sand.

Re:If you aren't tough enough, don't take the job.

[elucido]

I think the point here is that yes, it's just an image... but in the case of the child abuse, it was a real child being abused. For many people that image would fester and they would start to empathize with the child and would be upset about the act that was done in order to produce that image.

I doubt you would feel that it was 'just' an image if it was your younger sibling or your child who was in the picture.

But yes, people should be aware of the job they are taking on and whether they can handle it. Though sometimes you don't know if you can handle it until it's too late.

The mind can be trained to shut that off. Haven't you watched a movie from multiple perspectives? Yes you can watch the movie from the typical main character perspective and empathize with the main character, or you can watch the movie in a clinical or scholarly perspective and not feel anything for any of the characters. It's about how you train your mind to interpret data, either with the logical portion of your brain or the emotional. What I'm saying is it's easy to shut empathy off when it's a complete stranger in the image.

If it were my younger sibling thats a different story, I would want to murder the person who did it. But lets be realistic here, there is a huge difference between doing a job dealing with complete strangers, and having to do a job on people you know. It's just like you can work in a morgue on random people and feel nothing, but if you had to work on your younger sibling you'd feel horrible about it because this is a person you know.

When it's people I don't know, it's just images. Death is death, even when it's people I know I don't always get upset about it, it depends. But I know I can handle any images or videos of people I don't know and thats all the job requires.

Re:20 year old kids ?

[32771]

>perhaps hiring pensioners/vets would be a better option

You can have both:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_use_of_children

I suppose there are worse things that happen to young people than watching junk on the internet. Somehow I hope the screeners were warned at least.

your description of reality

[circletimessquare]

only shows that you are out of touch with reality, and that you have some serious problems

"People are generally raised to believe that people are good, that there are norms of behavior, there is justice in the world, authority figures can be trusted, things happen for reason and are overseen by an omnipotent deity. As we grow up, we learn that these are simply convenient lies that define our society."

reality is that most people really are good, there really are norms of behavior, and there is a genuine concerted effort to promote justice in the world (the trustworthy authority and the god part: yeah, you're right, those are lies)

point is, there are some really screwed up people in this world: for example, that chinese chick who put a kitten under her high heels and maciated it to death on camera. it is the genuine truth that most people would never do this. i'm not asking for your comment about how under force, most people would do this: of course, under force, anyone would do this, but this woman chose do it of her own volition. she's screwed up, she's outside the norm, she's rare and demented

so the really fucked up things you see on the internet is not some sort of baseline of the genuine reality as you suggest, and is not the truth of human behavior. it is the work of some really, really fucked up depraved people

most people are good and decent, really

Re:your description of reality

[fremsley471]

No cite here but the FBI commissioned some huge study in the 1990s, 100 000 people, and worked out that about 98.5 % of people are 'good', with 1.5 % being genuine sociopaths. That doesn't mean that 1:75 people will kill you for your packet of chewing gum, just that if the opportunity arose to do the 'right' or 'wrong' thing, you've got damn good odds that people do things that make society work.

When travelling with my family, we met only a handful of objectionable people in a whole year of strangers.

Re:your description of reality

[cherokee158]

I've seen similar statistics to this. As a unanticipated result of a psychological profile done for a study in game theory, researchers discovered that between 1 and 4 percent of people were what they called "bastards"...that is people who operated purely from self-interest, and other wise fit the accepted definition of sociopath. (Men were more likely to meet this definition than women)

Re:If you aren't tough enough, don't take the job.

[elucido]

Obviously you don't have children yourself. As a parent, one of my worst fears is: "that could happen to my child."

So you're childless when you get the job, then a bit down the road you have one and then it starts hitting you. Or the nature of the job changes and you're now exposed to something that you weren't before (A site being used to evade child porn investigations would absolutly qualify if it wasn't when you started)

Sometimes you don't know what you're going to be exposed to until you already are, you think you can handle anything until you don't. It's why people say, "you wish you could unsee something".
Or you think you're cool with it, but then it comes back a a horrifying flash at random moments or in a dream, the mind is weird that way.

If it's bad enough and fast enough, they call it Post Traumatic Stress.

\

I don't see every child on planet earth as my child. I don't see every dead person as one of the dead people I care about. People die every day, dead bodies are being buried every day, carved up in morgues every day. Children are starving to death right now and I don't see you crying over that, why is this?

The reason is unless it's your child, or someone you know, you don't have to feel anything. You can train yourself not to feel your work if you are strong willed and understand how your subconscious works. I can shut that side of me off, but not everyone can do it. Not everyone can be trained to do it but most people can be.

No I wont experience PTSD from watching complete strangers. I've long disconnected emotionally from the masses. If I know a person then they aren't a stranger and thats when I can emotionally bond. It's logical to bond only with people you know, if you feel empathy for people you don't know you'll be depressed, upset, angry, and very disappointed with the world.

I used to be like that as a teenager. I would feel the worlds pain. The problem is you cannot live your life if you feel everyone elses pain. So at some point you have to learn to either shut that side of you off, or risk being driven insane in the long term because the world is filled with pain, filled with misery, filled with bad images and I'm talking the real world not stuff you see on a screen. When you experience real world situations, these images on the screen aren't a big deal.

Once again not everyone can do that. It has nothing to do with having kids and being able to relate. It has nothing to do with emotions. It has to do with self control and ability to shut emotions off to do your job just like a doctor.

@anonymous

[elucido]

Talk is cheap dude. It's not a matter of thinking I'm better than someone else based on having thick skin or high pain tolerance. It's more a matter of it's necessary for some people in the world to be able to view all the disgusting brutality and face it. Somebody has to look at the ugly world, and censorship is not going to make anything better because you can't learn anything from censorship.

The point is if people aren't able to do a job then it makes room for people who are able to do the job. It's really as simple as that and it would be better if we screen or filter those people out who cannot handle violent images, at least for this kind of work.

There are other kinds of work that they'd be better at that I'd probably be filtered out for. It's just how it goes.

Re: people who can watch anything

[Cruxus]

You're thinking of psychopathy, not Asperger's syndrome.

Re:My response, stop complaining.

[Fantastic Lad]

These guys sit in an office doing a simple job and are complaining in an economy where millions of people would take their job. Is this the best article Slashdot could find? Whining office employees who don't like their jobs screening internet content? Perhaps they'd rather join the unemployed instead?

And maybe you're one of the sick fucks who posts the very garbage they have to sift through.

Guess what, genius; traumatic images cause psychological trauma. It's a clinical reality; the body subconsciously responds to images of disease and injury. It's hard-wired in place, and if you don't get that, then either you are hopelessly naive, or you were one of those creepy little shits who tortured small animals when you were a kid.

-FL

Re:NYTimes subscription ...

[Culture20]

Just grab a password off Bugmenot. Who actually pays for pay sites?

Rupert Murdoch

/b/tards

[Smerky]

They should just hire /b/tards. That's all they do with their lives anyways, so why not get paid for it?

Re:Pussies

[geekgirlandrea]

No one in role playing ever wants a real black eye ... If its convincing enough to seem like real abuse, it's disturbing.

Oh, bullshit. I've had way worse than a black eye from perfectly consensual BDSM activities. I've been pierced dozens of times at once, taken beatings that left bruises still visible months later, had an electro-shock baton that could throw a spark centimeters long (allegedly of a type favored by Apartheid-era South African riot police) used on me, and enjoyed it all. I wasn't being filmed at the time, but it seems very likely that if I had been, it would look like 'real abuse' to you. To me, it was just fun. Real, intense masochists *do* exist, and 'disturbing' is always in the eye of the beholder.

@Anon

[elucido]

I think he was talking about Daniel Pearl, a journalist kidnapped and killed in Pakistan in 2002.

And sorry, but the "real world" does not involve frequent beheadings. Being unable to see another human being brutally murdered without being disturbed isn't a result of living "sheltered".

That's the vast majority of the world. Going by the numbers, lack of brutal decapitations is the norm. You talk down to people who can't stand such a sight, and think you somehow value life more?

Yours was the most bizzare high-horse post I've ever read.

It does not change the fact that the real world is cold, brutal, vicious and cruel. Whether you see beheadings, shootings, stabbings, it's happening everywhere and only the methods of brutality are different. People are being brutally murdered all around the world in all environments, in all methods and by all means. Once you understand this then you will understand that it's the nature of man to kill with a weapon.

Once you understand that mankind if a violent species, then you don't have to emotionally react to it because it's not a shocking revelation. The correct response is to treat it as a problem to be solved and how do we protect people from becoming victims? At the same time we have to protect psychologically sensitive individuals from being exposed to the brutal reality, and the problem we face is that the individuals who want to do something about it cannot communicate in the same language with individuals who don't believe the world is as dangerous, cold, or cruel as it is.

So how do we accept the true nature of mankind and deal with it in a way that does not harm the most sensitive among us?

It's not a matter of talking down to people. Not everybody should choose to be in a job which deals with the brutal aspects of human nature. These individuals can work with children, or take jobs which don't deal with violent crime, death, and the like.

But it does not change the fact that in order for these people to live under the illusion of safety, good people have to face the brutality of the world directly and deal with it. Safety is not free, you need people who are willing to hunt down people who hurt innocent people. Part of hunting them down requires analysis of images, analysis of psychology, and many other roles which exist for individuals who can fill them. So it's not about one role being better than another, it's about accepting a role you are fit for and if you cannot psychologically handle a job you shouldn't naively go into it.

Re:@Anon

[elucido]

The only reason 1 out of ever 1000 is a murderer and why theres less killing than in earlier times in human history is because of the consequences.

If life in prison or death were not a consequence for murder, meaning if people could get away with murder, a lot more people than you think would be murderers. People would be murdering each other for money, for corporate profits, over women, over sporting events. you just don't have a clue how people really are.

I'm not saying the majority of humanity is like this, but it's more like 10 or 20 out of every 100, not 1 out of 1000. Somewhere between 10 and 20% of humanity. If you think this number is a bit too large I'm willing to accept that it's 5%, but the point is it's only 1 out of ever 1000 because we have people who track murderers down and punish them with life in prison or death.

Re:Pussies

[Monkeedude1212]

Yes, I suppose thats true. I cannot say for certain that the videos are indeed %100 in their authenticity.

I guess where you are skeptical about how many are real, I'm just more worried that they are.

Re:Pussies

[Monkeedude1212]

So where do you work where coming in with visible bruises regularily is genuinely accepted and not questioned?

I don't doubt that there are real intense masochists out there - but unless that IS their life, its hard to seperate themselves from it. Even consentual abuse is not exactly healthy and could be disturbing to some people. After all, some people are disturbed by watching videos of suicide - and that's pretty much consentual.

Re:Pussies

[Darkman, Walkin Dude]

A man's anus pales in comparison.

Only if he bleaches.

In other news, what are you doing about it?

So... PTSD?

[AngelFrog]

So essentialy, these poor buggers are suffering from PTSD. I am not a psychiatrist but having served in afghanistan with the canadian military i have my self seen some nasty stuff that left me a bit messed up for months (i can still barely remember how to use punctiation :) and have known brothers that will never be the same. This looks just like it. When you think about it, seeing it with your own eyes or seeing pictures of it is the same. You have a bit more detachment but not that much. It is like police officers, fire fighters, paramedics and countless others who put them selves in harm's way to protect others. The gung ho 20 yo rushing in to be payed to "watch porn all day" is not very different from the young boys rushing to war to kill them some taleebans(yes that is intended). Young, inexperienced, without the defence mechanisms to protect a up to then sheltered psyche. So if that is what they are suffering from, that is how they should be treated. Now the thing is will the private companies recognise this and take appropriate actions like the government AH! did (sorry for the hysterical laugh. To their credit, some people, governmental and civilians ARE trying to make a difference).

Re:Pussies

[Monkeedude1212]

How is a Black Eye not visible? That was my point exactly.

Re:it's not all or nothing

[JWSmythe]

    Why would I need to be imaginative to find exception in a simple rule? People have the freedom of speech.

    Libel and slander are civil matters. Either one must have a demonstrable loss due to their actions. Even still, the law doesn't forbid you from making an ass out of yourself, it's only allowing for the recovery of losses due to your action. That is a long way away from censorship.

Are you against the laws forbidding yelling FIRE in a crowded movie theater?

    And the obvious answer, "What if there is a fire?". Since you're trying to find fault, you could be held criminally liable for not warning others that were in immediate danger. (IANAL. Consult a local attorney for clarification in your locale)

   

Re: people who can watch anything

[sexconker]

(That's also why psychologists have long suspected that many of the most successful CEO types have Asperger's to some degree. They're capable of looking at the company's situation in a purely logical manner, and doing mass layoffs without hesitation, if they determine that's the most economically beneficial course of action -- without hesitating because of personal guilt about it.)

And that's why psychology will never be respected as a real science, despite the actual science done and progress made by many psychologists.

Psychologists, as individuals, are all too happy to make up bullshit to get attention. Patients are the same fucking way. While ADD and Asperger's and any other trendy conditions are real, the vast majority of people who claim to have them are liars and idiots.

But hey - if historians can write a book detailing the evidence they found showing Hitler was retarded, gay, and black, why can't psychologists write books about the trendy conditions and baselessly apply them to entire swaths of people?

Re:Pussies

[geekgirlandrea]

Somehow I suspect that someone whose job description contains the phrase 'BDSM porn star' would be even less worried about visibility of bruises than I am.

Re:20 year old kids ?

[sznupi]

So comments would have to "show respect to yer elders"?

You've got to learn that pictures aren't reality.

[amanicdroid]

Keep staring into the abyss kiddies. Eventually it'll get bored and stop staring back.

Just like any other form of work, you've got to toughen up and build "calluses" whether it's getting used to standing for 8 hours or learning how to command others.

Hire medical students.

[elucido]

As most medical students wont be able to get work and it's good training for what they'll probably be facing, if they happen to see anything gross and violent.

that's not the real world

[yyxx]

The real world is not "cold, brutal and cruel", and beheading people is not "the true nature of mankind". Most people can't commit murder under normal circumstances and become distressed watching murder or violence. That's not a question of "perspective", it's something innate to most humans. People are generally non-violent and cooperative. Human society wouldn't work if many people operated like you think they do.

All your statements make me think that there is something wrong with you and that you have trust and empathy issues.

Re:that's not the real world

[elucido]

The real world is not "cold, brutal and cruel", and beheading people is not "the true nature of mankind". Most people can't commit murder under normal circumstances and become distressed watching murder or violence. That's not a question of "perspective", it's something innate to most humans. People are generally non-violent and cooperative. Human society wouldn't work if many people operated like you think they do.

All your statements make me think that there is something wrong with you and that you have trust and empathy issues.

Watching a video of murder should not be equated to actually committing murder or being violent. I said I could watch the video and remain calm. Being capable of empathy and having an inability to control your empathy are two different things. Just like some videos might make me angry, or make me laugh, but if I watch them over and over again, I feel less angry, and it's less funny each time. It's the exact same thing with violence.

Also who says human society works? Have you ever looked at how f*cked up society is? This is exactly what I'm talking about by sheltered. Human society does not work on the global level or even in this country. You can feel all the empathy you want, you can cry, you can scream, you can get angry, it's not going to stop millions of people from dying in foreign countries or in this country, and a lot of them die in violent ways, in genocide, in shootings, in all kinds of sad ways, and many of them are children.

The emotions don't help you deal with society. You cannot feel this world without eventually being driven insane. So the solution is that some people shut their feelings off, because it's necessary to do that. Just as if you have to save lives and you are scared, but you shut your fear off and you do something heroic or great it's the same thing. It's not that they don't feel fear, they just learn to process and interpret it differently. Fear becomes merely an adrenal response.

But you can believe something is wrong with me as you have the right to your opinion, but I can confirm that I do have empathy and it's just a matter of self control as to when and where to express it. You watch a video of people who are already dead, there is no reason to feel anything, especially if you've seen people die in that manner before and you don't know the people in the video.

Re:that's not the real world

[Jade_Wayfarer]

Well, it seems that there's more than one man with such issues here - look at comments above. I don't even know is it troubling or relaxing - knowing that most of these people are just harmless geeks in this "cold, brutal and cruel" life )

Re:that's not the real world

[yyxx]

You can feel all the empathy you want, you can cry, you can scream, you can get angry, it's not going to stop millions of people from dying in foreign countries

Empathy isn't some abstract thing, it is what you feel when you see another human being suffering.

The emotions don't help you deal with society. You cannot feel this world without eventually being driven insane.

Empathy is not supposed to help you; empathy makes you help other people and it keeps you from hurting other people. If you don't have empathy (or can "control" it), you're a potential threat.

bah, try call center

[Velex]

Ok, here's some people bitching that they have to read crap.

They could be getting paid to be cussed out by callers. Something tells me being cussed out day after day for things you have no control over (and often had no idea about until you figure out why your mother is a whore according to the caller---it takes serious effort sometimes to get a caller to even state what the problem is between hurling insults---often client's won't even state the problem assuming you're too stupid to understand the problem) is probably worse.

But who the hell cares. Only stupid, incompetent people work at call centers, right?

Re:bah, try call center

[Velex]

And apparently I've worked at a call center so long that I've started to use greengrocers' apostrophes and don't even catch them while proofreading.

Re:Pussies

[vertinox]

Occasionally seeing disturbing images is not a problem for most people, but if you spend 40 hours a week, every week, looking at all sorts of disturbing crap, your mind will become twisted.

Are you saying our soldiers in the middle east are twisted for witnessing violent situations on a daily basis?

Re:as they say

[Sabriel]

Link 404'd. Perhaps for the best.

Re:My response, stop complaining.

[Fantastic Lad]

BTW I think you owe me an apology for accusing me of being one of the bad guys. That was inappropriate.

No it wasn't. It was completely appropriate. You were displaying a callous lack of empathy so I simply drew the connection for you between your behavior and the label associated with that behavior. And it got an excellent response which I rarely hope for; You re-thought your position. Consider yourself fortunate. There are those who are not capable of doing this.

-FL

Re:Pussies

[Manfre]

Yes. Soldiers return home suffering from many psychological disorders, including PTSD, due to the horrible things they see and experience while deployed.

Re:Pussies

[Wolfling1]

So, you're telling me I should stop surfing /b/ at work?

Re:Pussies

[greg1104]

A man's anus pales in comparison.

Unless the other stuff you were talking about is filmed at the studio location in the middle of the goatse guy's anus, the one just left of the Starbuck's.

Re:Holy Jeebus

[symbolic]

Just reading your description of it makes me flinch.

Re:it's not all or nothing

[JWSmythe]

    Oh gee golly mister, I'm so sorry to of offended you. Let me ponder rescinding my previous statements.

    Hmmm.

    Nope.

    Yes, I am well known to be a sarcastic prick.

    Usually when people ask the fire question, they have no clue of what it's origins are. In that, it is one of the most annoying arguments that people always tend to bring up when arguing against free speech. Can you yell fire in a movie theater? Can you yell shark at the beach? etc, etc, etc.

    Back to the original question. No, I don't believe any speech should be censored. There are already provisions in place to deal with abuses of it, such as civil laws regarding libel and slander, and criminal laws regarding intentional disregard for the safety of others. Our current laws already overstep their bounds. Besides posting here, I run my own news site. We've been operating since 2003, and have been running stories including the constant erosion of our rights. Maybe you aren't aware of it, or maybe you're one of the brainwashed masses who argues for limiting free speech and our other rights for the sake of the cause of the day.

Reminds me...

[P. Legba]

...that, back during the big public debate over whether or not waterboarding constituted torture, a handful of intrepid "journalists" subjected themselves to a sort of trial waterboarding in which they were given some object to drop as a sign to make it stop. This method was because the person may be physically incapable of uttering a safe word or too addled to perform a gesture, so simply dropping something in one's hand was the chosen safe-out.

Then someone said sure, but what if you didn't have something to drop? What if you didn't know the safeword? That causes reality to set in even faster than these bozos dropped their talismans (which was usually in about five seconds).

Wife and I watched District 9 the other night. Or started to. We got all the way up to where Wicus was tortured to operate the alien weaponry and the depiction of the rote testing of the devices, one after the other until finally he was forced to fire at a living prawn. It was simply too much, and we knew it was a movie...horrifying.

Re:Shouldn't be such things as illegal images.

[ModelX]

Images are just a collection of pigments or pixels, they represent history, reality, fantasy, imagination, art, depravity, tragedy, etc. In the end just an arrangement of the color spectrum. I don't understand how this could be considered illegal. I understand a fragile mind may be stirred emmotionly but often times that is the content creators goal. What's next illegal texts? Speech?

    I kind of feel empathy for these people that can't view a cartoon or corpse and feel a need to retaliate or seek phsychiatric help.

Having seen some of the weirdest stuff found in computer forensics cases, I can tell you you have no idea how seeing really sick photos and videos changes even the perception of possible dimensions of sociopathy. Child pornography per example is not illegal because the photons are hitting your retina in an illegal way. It's because really sick people are torturing innocent children for the pleasure of a few other problematic people. Do you want to help them gain their weird pleasures or do you prefer to protect the children?

a yes, the internet tough guy

[circletimessquare]

if you have to go out of your way to announce how tough you are to complete strangers, you're obviously not very tough at all, and probably far weaker than the weak people you make fun of

genuine toughness is not boastful, and is not disdainful of the weak

the truly weak person has to go out of their way to make a drama about how tough they are, because they are so insecure, because they actually are quite weak

wrong comparison.

[leuk_he]

You are just a collection of water and some solid as result of some biological processes that happen all the time. Your flesh can be used to fill slashdot or feed some carnivores.

You see? with this kind of talking anything can become irrelevant.

But the pictures are not necessary illegal, they are just not wanted on some commercial/social sites. You canot post your porn on myspace. That is what these content screening places are for. And remember,

WHAT HAS BEEN SEEN CANNOT BE UNSEEN (SFW link) (and you wonder why /. does not support images.... ;)

Re:Pussies

[HopefulIntern]

For clarification, it's BDSM. Bondage/Domination Sado/Masochism.

Re:Pussies

[Mattskimo]

I quite like that scale. What would you rate as a +10? What rating would you give the most disturbing thing that you have ever seen (and what was it)? Also what would you rate commonly distributed shock videos as? I'd say "2 girls 1 cup" is about a -2.5, "1 guy 1 jar" a -4.

Decker

[Michael O-P]

What they need to do is hire some replicants.

re: Everyone has Asperger's now ....

[King_TJ]

No denying that like many other medical conditions, people are out there who want to use it as an excuse for their illegal behaviors.

But the replies to my original comment make it pretty clear most of you guys haven't bothered to read up much on what Asperger's is and isn't.

Basically, it's a mild form of autism, at what you might call the "just south of normal" part of the spectrum. People with Asperger's have problems picking up on non-verbal and more subtle aspects of verbal communications. They tend to focus intensely on one or two subjects of interest, without realizing that the world around them views them as "odd" for "hyper-focusing" so narrowly on them.

(EG. I know a kid, diagnosed with Asperger's, who is fixated on the weather. If you turn on the Weather Channel on TV, he'll sit and watch it intently for an hour at a time, and spend the rest of the day talking to all the other kids he encounters about tornado warnings, storms expected in random cities of the U.S., the record low temps. some region had back in 1948, and whatever else he memorized. Of course, when they do what normal kids do to try to show they're not interested, he doesn't pick up on it. Eventually, he might get frustrated that "he doesn't have any friends" - but doesn't really grasp how that happened to him.)

So no, "thinking logically" is NOT Asperger's Syndrome and psychologists aren't trying to suggest that. But people with Asperger's tend to be highly intelligent people who DO think logically -- and when that's coupled with their other social issues, they wind up rejecting anything emotional or subjective as relevant to their decision-making efforts.

Re: people who can watch anything

[jd]

Actually, the best CEOs are psychopaths and sociopaths. Asperger's makes for awful CEOs. And it is arguments like this that make me feel like psychology should be kicked to the door until it uses causal diagnoses rather than symptoms.

Re:Holy Jeebus

[religious freak]

ugh - agreed