WWhen James Irungu took a new job at technology outsourcing company Summersource, his manager gave him few details before training began. However, the role was so sought after that his salary almost doubled to £250 a month. Additionally, it provided a way out of Kibera, a vast slum on the outskirts of Nairobi where he lived with his young family.
“I thought I was one of the lucky ones,” the 26-year-old said. But then he finds himself examining a trove of violent and sexually explicit material, including tragic accidents, suicides, beheadings, and child abuse.
“I remember logging in one day and seeing a child with a huge slit in his stomach, suffering but not dead,” the Kenyan told the Guardian. When he saw the subject matter of child exploitation, he said, “that’s when I really knew this was something different.”
He was hired by Samasource to moderate Facebook’s content and eliminate the most harmful posts. Some of the most painful images were etched into his mind, sometimes causing him to wake up in night sweats. He kept it to himself for fear that opening up about his work would cause discomfort, concern, or criticism from others.
His wife, annoyed by his “secrecy,” gradually became estranged from him. Irungu continued to work for three years, resigned to the possibility of their separation and convinced that he was protecting her. He says he regrets pushing.
“I don’t think it’s a job for humans,” he says. “I became really isolated from the real world because I started to think of it as a very dark place.” He became afraid to take his daughter away from his eyes.
“If you ask yourself, was it worth sacrificing your mental health for that money, the answer is no.”
Another former host said some of his colleagues dropped out after being alarmed by some of the content. But she found purpose in managers’ assurances that their work protects users, including young children like her.
“I felt like I was helping people,” she said. However, when I stopped, I realized that what I had taken for granted until now was now a problem.
She recalled screaming in the middle of her office floor after seeing one horrifying scene. She said it was as if nothing had happened, except for a few glances from co-workers and a team leader pulling her aside to tell her he was “going to wellness” for counseling. The wellness counselor told her to take a break and get that image out of her head.
“How do you forget when you get back on the floor after a 15-minute break and move on to the next thing?” she said. She questioned whether the counselor was a qualified psychotherapist and said the moderator would never escalate a mental health case, no matter what she saw or how distressed she was.
She was the kind of person who entertained friends at every opportunity, but she rarely left the house, cried over the deaths of people she didn’t know, felt numb, struggled mentally, and at times struggled with suicidal thoughts. Ta.
“This job damaged me and I could never go back,” the woman said, adding that the lawsuit will impact Africa’s content moderation industry as global demand for such services grows. I hope that you will give me.
“Things have to change,” she said. “I don’t want anyone to go through what we did.”
Source: www.theguardian.com
