In The Cleaners, Hans Block and Moritz Riesewieck launch an expose on a peculiar underbelly of social media. With a conspiratorial opening that casts whistleblowers in the total anonymity of darkness, we learn about the Content Moderators. These are men and women working for subcontractors hired by Facebook to click through photos, videos, and other content to decide whether or not a piece of content is appropriate for the site.
These mediators are expected to view 25,000 pieces of content per day and decide whether they should delete, allow, or report the content. They have strict guidelines, but that doesn’t protect them from seeing terrorist beheadings, child pornography, suicide videos, and all manner of terrible things.
This thankless job comes with an even darker side to it: the guidelines that these Content Moderators are using can function as censorship just as easily as they can function as protection. It’s…
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Plot and Theme 