“If you work with garbage, you will get dirty”

It never occurred to me that someone has to sit at a computer screen and physically evaluate whether images that people load to social networking sites are deemed offensive. The NYT reports on the negative impact it has on workers to view hundreds of thousands of disturbing images every week:

One major outsourcing firm with staff in the Philippines was aware of the risks of this type of work and hired a local psychologist to assess how it was affecting its 500 content moderators. The psychologist, Patricia M. Laperal of Behavioral Dynamics…reached some unsettling conclusions in her interviews with content moderators. She said they were likely to become depressed or angry, have trouble forming relationships and suffer from decreased sexual appetites. Small percentages said they had reacted to unpleasant images by vomiting or crying.

“The images interfere with their thinking processes. It messes up the way you react to your partner,” Ms. Laperal said. “If you work with garbage, you will get dirty.”