Episode 4: The Affective Labor of Facebook Moderators
Nov 22, 2021•45 min
Episode description
Co-host Rae Jereza discusses their recent paper, "Corporeal moderation: digital labour as affective good" looking at the situations of content moderators working for Facebook. Hidden behind the app's Report button, often working for subcontractors and not Facebook itself, the stories and struggles of content moderators go largely unnoticed.
Sometimes likened to first responders or called "custodians of the Internet", Rae argues that they are only custodians if we see them as "working in radioactive environments... as they absorb the ills and contradictions of liberal democratic society: they carry their effects and are 'haunted' by them"
Sometimes likened to first responders or called "custodians of the Internet", Rae argues that they are only custodians if we see them as "working in radioactive environments... as they absorb the ills and contradictions of liberal democratic society: they carry their effects and are 'haunted' by them"