Net watchdogs make a quick buck

CHENNAI: Imagine a gory image of a murder popping up when you log into Facebook or abusive language related to your photo.You don't see such objectionable images and comments because there are hundreds of internet watchdogs who meticulously “de-weed“ corporate and social media sites, silently pulling down what you don't want to see.Content moderators, as they are called, are highly sought after by corporates to manage their digital image.

Sandeep Sharma, a student from Ghaziabad, works part time with SquadRun, weeding out content from corporate websites. “I have been spending close to six months working for a couple of hours every day to keep the websites clean.My assignments vary -ranging from removing hate spee ches to negative reviews,“ he said. SquadRun works with companies like Snapdeal, Flipkart and Sephora.

Requiring no tech qualifications, content moderation is being taken up by homemakers and students who form close to 80% of the team. While social media giants such as Facebook and Twitter have a dedicated team, e-commerce companies out source their content moderation. These moderators earn anywhere from Rs 10,000 to Rs 50,000 a month. “Sixty per cent of the moderation is now automated, with algorithms that can detect blurry images or nudity . But when it comes to hate speech, human intervention is needed, because algorithms cannot spot such messages,“ said Pranav Savlani, head of business deve lopment, SquadRun.

Digital marketing companies are also doing this as part of their mandate for clients. Santhosh Palavesh, founder, UMM digital, says that weeding out negative reviews forms a small part of the business, but removing explicit and plagiarised content form a chunk of the operations.

Lokesh Jey , founder, Sight Media, offers these services under the banner of social reputation management. Any digital content has a life of seven days, Jey says. “So we watch every video, meme, article, blog post of our clients and monitor it closely for the next seven days,“ he said. Viral content startup Wittyfeed is looking to offer comment content moderation services soon. Parveen Singhal, chief content officer, Wittyfeed said, “We are working on an algorithm or application that will automate part of the process,“ he said.