When people have the freedom to create and post content on the internet, particularly anonymously, they do not always respect the rules and regulations of the websites on which they post, leaving other unsuspecting users vulnerable to sexism, racism, threats, and other unacceptable content in their daily cyberspace diet. However, content moderators witness the worst of humanity on a daily basis in place of the average netizen. This takes its toll on moderators, causing stress, fatigue, and emotional distress akin to the symptomology of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). The goal of the present study was to explore whether adding positive stimuli to breaktimes-images of baby animals or beautiful, aweinspiring landscapes-could help reduce the negative side-effects of being a content moderator. To test this, we had over 300 experienced content moderators read and decide whether 200 fake text-based social media posts were acceptable or not for public consumption. Although we set out to test positive emotional stimulation, however, we actually found that it is the cumulative nature of the negative emotions that likely negates most of the effects of the intervention: the longer the person had practiced content moderation, the stronger their negative experience. Connections to compassion fatigue and how best to spend work breaks as a content moderator are discussed.
翻译:当人们有在互联网上创建和张贴内容的自由时,特别是匿名地,他们并不总是尊重他们所张贴的网站的规则和条例,让其他未预料到的用户容易受到性别主义、种族主义、威胁和其他无法接受的内容的伤害,他们日常的网络空间饮食。然而,内容主持人每天目睹人类最坏的情景,而不是平均网状。这给主持人造成与创伤后应激障碍症状相似的压力、疲劳和情感痛苦。本研究报告的目的是探讨是否增加积极刺激,以打破对婴儿的幻想或美貌,让风景变色能够帮助减少作为内容主持人的消极副作用。为了测试这一点,我们有300多名经验丰富的内容管理员阅读并决定200个虚假的基于文本的社交媒体文章是可以接受的还是不适合公众消费的。尽管我们打算测试积极的情感刺激,但我们实际上发现,消极的情绪的累积性质可能抵消干预的大部分效果:人们更强烈的情感练习,他们更强烈的情绪与最强烈的情绪,他们更强烈的情绪与最强烈的情绪与最强烈的学习。