Workers who screen websites for explicit content are increasingly in demand, but many companies are failing to provide these employees with adequate psychiatric care.

• Internet content reviewers, people who police popular websites in order to identify and remove inappropriate content, are being hired in ever greater numbers.
• Although these jobs are in high demand, they do not pay well, and many companies that hire internet content reviewers don’t guarantee them psychiatric help in order to deal with the hundreds of graphic and disturbing images they see every day.
• The psychiatrists who have interviewed these workers have concluded that many of them have been psychologically affected by their jobs. These findings are troubling, especially considering that companies want to hire ever more screeners, young people are often attracted to the work, and the jobs are being increasingly outsourced.

Facts and Figures

• At one company, Telecommunications on Demand, 50 internet content reviewers examine a combined average of 20 million images per week.
• These employees are paid $8-$12 per hour.

Best Quote

“You have 20-year-old kids who get hired to do content review, and who get excited because they think they are going to see adult porn. They have no idea that some of the despicable and illegal images they will see can haunt them for the rest of their lives.” – Hemanshu Nigam, Former chief security officer at MySpace

Tags: explicit content, internet, jobs