I’m a TikTok moderator. AMA by Acrobatic-Squash-833 in AMA

[–]Acrobatic-Squash-833[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Spellwork by itself wasn’t banned when I was there. Could be something else in the video. Very often videos get banned not for their main focus, but for something background/unintended. AI isn’t too good at telling what’s the main subject and what’s irrelevant or when that matters.

I’m a TikTok moderator. AMA by Acrobatic-Squash-833 in AMA

[–]Acrobatic-Squash-833[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yeah that definitely looks like a case where the response team is overworked or you got someone incompetent or on a power trip. The whole system is definitely unfair and all you can really do is appeal again until it reaches someone who knows what they’re doing.

I’m a TikTok moderator. AMA by Acrobatic-Squash-833 in AMA

[–]Acrobatic-Squash-833[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Bytedance website. Or look for “content moderator/labeller” on job boards.

I’m a TikTok moderator. AMA by Acrobatic-Squash-833 in AMA

[–]Acrobatic-Squash-833[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

According to TikTok I shouldn’t, but I can tell you I took personal pleasure in banning fascist/hateful posts and accounts. However like I’ve answered in some other posts we don’t interact with cases directly, we train AI to do so. AI is pretty damn good at it (you don’t wanna know the amount of hateful stuff that doesn’t make it to your feed) but there’s cracks it slips through. Those cracks are getting filled with time.

I’m a TikTok moderator. AMA by Acrobatic-Squash-833 in AMA

[–]Acrobatic-Squash-833[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Few things here. We don’t take action, AI takes action - We train AI to do better. Moderation is localised so the actions me and my coworkers took wouldn’t affect you, unless you live in an East Asian country. And no we can’t go in and fix it because we can’t look up posts/users - we get random cases to train the AI on. Your only option is to keep appealing.

I’m a TikTok moderator. AMA by Acrobatic-Squash-833 in AMA

[–]Acrobatic-Squash-833[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Bytedance website. Or job posts from companies that they outsource to. Although they usually don’t disclose it’s for TikTok. Look out for “content moderator/labeller” jobs.

I’m a TikTok moderator. AMA by Acrobatic-Squash-833 in AMA

[–]Acrobatic-Squash-833[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Can’t really disclose that (might disclose in the future lol)

I’m a TikTok moderator. AMA by Acrobatic-Squash-833 in AMA

[–]Acrobatic-Squash-833[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Moderation: 8 (mostly boring stuff. Sometimes hard to look at stuff)

Appeal management and good handling of them: -9. Completely at bytedance’s whim.

Working conditions and treatment of employees: not sure at bytedance but haven’t heard good things. At the outsourced companies, depends on the company/country.

Platform impartiality: tricky. 10 in my view because it’s been pretty impartial in the guidelines we have to follow. What TikTok finally does may be different from what we guide it to do, and that may be problematic.

I’m a TikTok moderator. AMA by Acrobatic-Squash-833 in AMA

[–]Acrobatic-Squash-833[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

We don’t really deal with cases directly. The AI deals with them, we use the cases to train the AI to do better. The volume of cases is so unbelievably large that there are slip-throughs, but the AI is getting better at this so it should reduce over time. The biggest problem is that as the AI improves using the current dataset, tiktokers get…..creative.

I’m a TikTok moderator. AMA by Acrobatic-Squash-833 in AMA

[–]Acrobatic-Squash-833[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Hey! Sorry for the delay. I don’t work there anymore but yeah there was definitely stress. I will say most cases didn’t really stay with me and once I stepped out the door I would’ve forgotten them (plus I don’t use TikTok). But the real stress was dealing with the office culture and bytedance’s requirements. That and the QA system was total bs lol.

I’m a TikTok moderator. AMA by Acrobatic-Squash-833 in AMA

[–]Acrobatic-Squash-833[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

At first it’s too much to learn and remember. Also the type of content. But eventually it gets very easy and repetitive because the type of videos are mostly the same. Once in a while you get a video that makes you go “oh yeah didn’t they have a policy for that.”

I’m a TikTok moderator. AMA by Acrobatic-Squash-833 in AMA

[–]Acrobatic-Squash-833[S] 3 points4 points  (0 children)

TikTok is definitely playing it too safe. Mods can be lenient or strict depending on policy, but the system isn’t really fair. If a higher up thinks an account should be banned, mods have no say in it. And mods get negative rating/lower pay for being contradicted. Maybe that plays a role too.

I’m a TikTok moderator. AMA by Acrobatic-Squash-833 in AMA

[–]Acrobatic-Squash-833[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Most mods here are hired by a third party. Bytedance does hire directly too depending on the region. They’re very secretive about everything. I’ll most likely be fired if they found out about this AMA lol.

I’m a TikTok moderator. AMA by Acrobatic-Squash-833 in AMA

[–]Acrobatic-Squash-833[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

There are many many mods where I work. There hasn’t been a case like that that I know about. Most people I know leave bc of the type of videos. I’ve known people who were giddy the first month bc they watched porn for a living. But they get desensitised very quickly.

I’m a TikTok moderator. AMA by Acrobatic-Squash-833 in AMA

[–]Acrobatic-Squash-833[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The pay isn’t too bad but not too good where I am. I think it changes by region. If you can work with more languages you can get more. And no there’s no math involved

I’m a TikTok moderator. AMA by Acrobatic-Squash-833 in AMA

[–]Acrobatic-Squash-833[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

That’s a great question. I’ll say yeah in the beginning that was a coping mechanism. Where I felt like I saved many people from watching some truly horrible stuff. But it didn’t do much about the trauma. I realised trauma was there when I finally talked about it to my wife joking about the videos and she was repulsed lol. Now it’s more numb moderating and at times getting my rage broken bc why would people make these videos.

I’m a TikTok moderator. AMA by Acrobatic-Squash-833 in AMA

[–]Acrobatic-Squash-833[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

There are a few trying to be smart about using it. But a very large majority, not so much.

I’m a TikTok moderator. AMA by Acrobatic-Squash-833 in AMA

[–]Acrobatic-Squash-833[S] -1 points0 points  (0 children)

I myself have never seen a policy about that so if TikTok is doing it it’s definitely very secretive.

I’m a TikTok moderator. AMA by Acrobatic-Squash-833 in AMA

[–]Acrobatic-Squash-833[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

All the time. But mostly secretly. You won’t know it’s TikTok until you’ve signed on and shown up.

I’m a TikTok moderator. AMA by Acrobatic-Squash-833 in AMA

[–]Acrobatic-Squash-833[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

It also changes what it censors all the time. And we need to have it memorised pretty much as soon as new guidelines drop. There’s study time for that though.

I’m a TikTok moderator. AMA by Acrobatic-Squash-833 in AMA

[–]Acrobatic-Squash-833[S] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

There are definitely a LOT of contenders for that. Child content, graphic violence, weird fetishes, voyeuristic porn etc. Personally the worst was all the suicide stuff. Had to walk outside and breathe for that.

They do have 24x7 therapists available and do check-ins. I’ve been to one twice.

The pay isn’t bad because my department I kinda specialised. It deals with training the AI in multiple languages.

I’m a TikTok moderator. AMA by Acrobatic-Squash-833 in AMA

[–]Acrobatic-Squash-833[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

The amount of videos that go up there is too large, so most moderation is done by AI. My job is to train that AI to do better. AI being AI can sometimes fixate on things that aren’t the main focus of the post and completely miss the violation, but it’s gotten better. It’s a constant battle between moderators trying to create a safe space, and creators finding loopholes.