Social media’s canaries

Content moderators between digital labor and mediated trauma

Bibliographic Data

ID11268095
AuthorsAmit Pinchevski (0000-0001-7839-1732, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel, corresponding author)
Year2023
Volume45
Issue1
Pages212-221
Publication date2023-01-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueMedia Culture & Society (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0163-4437 • E-ISSN: 1460-3675
PublisherSAGE Publications (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1177/01634437221122226
OpenAlexW4296139556
LanguageEN
Citations received15
References cited6

This paper takes recent PTSD claims by content moderators working for Microsoft and Google as a starting point to discuss the changing nature of trauma in the context of social media and algorithmic culture. Placing these claims in the longer history of how media came to be regarded by clinicians as potentially traumatic, it considers content moderation as a form of immaterial labor, which brings the possibility to be traumatized into the cycle of digital labor. Therefore, to the extent that content moderators’ trauma exists as a clinical condition, it cannot be taken as an incidental side-effect but as a built-in potentiality. It is about the commodification of traumatic vulnerability itself. The discussion then proceeds to speculate about the possibility of using algorithms to identify potentially traumatic content and what would that mean for the understanding of trauma, especially as a mediated experience

Commodification · Computer security · Content (measure theory · Context (archaeology · Digital content · Digital media · Economics · Media content · Moderation · Multimedia · Point (geometry · Social media · Vulnerability (computing · World Wide Web · Computer Science · History · Humanities and Social Sciences · Posttraumatic Stress Disorder Research · Psychology · Social Psychology · Youth Education and Societal Dynamics

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