Im Schatten der Netzwelt

While it's a very compelling subject and well made on a scene to scene basis, by the time I reached the end of it I couldn't help but feel like it was really scattershot.

It wants to start as a look at the people who moderate content online and branch into a broader documentary about division, conflict, and other problems online, and how social media worsens it... but the transition felt a bit non-existent, and made this feel like two pretty good 40-minute documentaries smashed together.

It's disturbing, thought-provoking, and interesting, but unfortunately a bit all over the place and not very cohesive, perhaps biting off more than it could chew for a documentary under 90 minutes in length.

The issue presented is the readily fast deletion of information from social media. There are groups of paid cleaners (mostly outsourced) by the Corporate Internet; better known as Social Media. The deletion of facts through corporate policies, government silence, and the protection of family friendly optimism. In one instance being a photograph lacking content that is immediately erased because it shows harm to a child. The moral outrage of the image is that it doesn't belong on social media. The content shows it's an image outlining the government abuses in a country that doesn't have a voice to inform the rest of the world. It takes (maybe) all of 8 seconds to view & delete the image from Facebook. When you ask yourself, what's the best thing to do(?) Remove an image that could scare a young person or allow an image because it needs to be addressed?

'The Cleaners' provides examples of internet censorship and the harm it does to freedom. The current censorship in social media has become harshly political. Moderators with Google, Facebook, Twitter, Reddit, etc are free to enforce their own political opinions on a world that can & will disagree with them. Unfortunately the film shows it from the same perspective as a Democratic voter. So much of it points at the current Republican administration that how would a younger audience know it began with the Democratic administration? It draws a line rather than being bold enough to admit both parties are responsible for censorship on a scale as large as the internet.

Looks at the people and companies in the Philippines contracted to moderate Internet content on social media platforms and the effect it has on the employees - you cant undo what you have seen. Raises ethical and moral questions - has caused some employees to commit suicide. Ridiculous productivity goals given to employees - a disturbing view of what happens behind the scenes. Should be mandatory viewing for all media platform users.

It's really something that you may not really think about. But who is checking the posts? For nudity, violence, propaganda or other "inappropriate" content? And how do they decide? Now I guess you could have shown this in a short documentary. But then you wouldn't have all the people who are actually doing this in the movie.

In this case the net or rather social media in general (Facebook in general for being the biggest plattform), has some issues. And it's in countries you may not have heard before. But they unwillingly help certain people there, because they didn't put resources in place to check certain things. And having some people checking pictures all day, may sound fun, but it is also exhilirating to some extent, especially if you consider the quota they have to fulfill and what that amounts to in pics watched and what that means "quality" wise when it comes to the controlling the content.

If you like documentaries and if you have an open mind, you will find many interesting things here ...

A bald, revealing dive into the belly of the beast - Manilla, where ill-trained and more, dirt-level-paid sub-contract toilers attempt to curate 25,000 wildly sourced and morally divergent posts/images a day for a pittance. The implications for what passes for fact and news on the major social network platforms, and for the demographics that access this information, and often do not access more credible and valid sources, is enormous. Disturbing images are shown, You need to see this hard-hitting, shocking, film. It rates an 11. Disclaimer:after using Facebook from 2008, I happened to have closed my account weeks before. Karma.