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'I was moderating hundreds of horrific and traumatising videos'

The BBC speaks to social media moderators, whose job it is to find and remove distressing and illegal content.

Moderators are often employed by third-party companies, but they work on content posted directly on to the big social networks including Instagram, TikTok and Facebook. The people I spoke to while making our series The Moderators for Radio 4 and BBC Sounds, were largely living in East Africa, and all had since left the industry. I was expecting them to say that this work was so emotionally and mentally gruelling, that no human should have to do it – I thought they would fully support the entire industry becoming automated, with AI tools evolving to scale up to the job.

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