“The Cleaners,” commercial content moderation documentary, airs on PBS’s Independent Lens

UPDATE: The Cleaners is currently available for streaming for US audiences. At long last, The Cleaners makes its American wide-release début! The documentary film, first released this January at the Sundance film festival and making appearances at Hot Docs, Human Rights Watch Film Festival and other festivals around the world, will air tonight on the… Continue reading “The Cleaners,” commercial content moderation documentary, airs on PBS’s Independent Lens

“The Cleaners,” Cleaned – Google’s YouTube Removes Trailer for Content Moderation Documentary, Citing “Shocking Content”

PLEASE SEE THIS UPDATE FOR IMPORTANT CLARIFICATION Today, news from France: it seems the French outlet of the Franco-German television channel ARTÉ (known as ARTE in Germany) has found itself on the wrong side of Google and YouTube's opaque and mysterious content moderation policy for videos. The irony? The video that has been removed is a… Continue reading “The Cleaners,” Cleaned – Google’s YouTube Removes Trailer for Content Moderation Documentary, Citing “Shocking Content”

WIRED Publishes Piece on Commercial Content Moderation (CCM) in Philippines; US

After many months of anticipation, journalist Adrian Chen's piece on commercial content moderation as practiced in BPO (business process outsourcing) sites in the Philippines is out in WIRED magazine today. In it, Chen focuses on the employees of a US firm, TaskUs, whose employees are laboring on behalf of Silicon Valley social media startup Whisper and… Continue reading WIRED Publishes Piece on Commercial Content Moderation (CCM) in Philippines; US