Be the Online Content Moderator! by adizz

I decided the best way to represent how online content moderators use emerging technology is for you to become one! I created this interactive story simulation as a way to explore the different ways both the volunteer and commercial content moderators use technology to do their jobs. Every page within the story has two choices. The volunteer mod pathway has one 'good' ending and several 'bad' endings while the commercial content pathway has ending is a results page that tells you how "correctly" you moderated the content. You are welcome to play each pathway multiple times to see the various ways mods interact with technology.

The inspiration for the content featured in the commercial mod story mostly comes Sarah T. Roberts' “Behind the Screen” as well as “Everything in Moderation” from Singh (2019). The volunteer mod story is inspired by incidents I have witnessed as a user on many different niche forum communities and the tech side of things comes from Seering et al. (2019).

As a general disclaimer, the actual content that commercial mods view is much more graphic and disturbing then what I choose to include here (though there is some slight nudity and graphic language so viewer discretion). I made this choice so that you would get a sense of the job the moderators do without having to experience the emotional distress that occurs on job after viewing graphic content. Also, you do not have to create an account to play the game and it may take a few seconds to load once you press play. Enjoy!

References

Notopoulos, K. (2019, September 23). Burt's bush and XXXTentacion's death: Why Facebook mods fail. BuzzFeed News. Retrieved from https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/katienotopoulos/facebook-moderators-are-set-up-to-fail.

Roberts, S. T. (2019). Behind the screen: Content moderation in the shadows of social media. New Haven: Yale University Press.

Seering, J., Wang, T., Yoon, J., & Kaufman, G. (2019). Moderator engagement and community development in the age of algorithms. New Media & Society, 21(7), 1417–1443. https://doi.org/10.1177/1461444818821316


Singh, S. (2019, July 22). Everything in moderation: An analysis of how internet platforms are using artificial intelligence to moderate user-generated content. Retrieved from https://www.newamerica.org/oti/reports/everything-moderation-analysis-how-internet-platforms-are-using-artificial-intelligence-moderate-user-generated-content/.