“There are surely some content moderators that haven't suffered mental health problems connected to the job, but I haven't met them,” says sociologist and computer scientist Milagros Miceli, who has studied the content moderation industry for the past six years. “I have no doubt that content moderation, like coal mining, is a hazardous job.” Coal mining, known for the proliferation of ‘black lung disease', is a classic example of a hazardous job, but there are only approximately 200,000 coal (…)
So, are you one of the “mental healthcare isn’t real healthcare” people, or are you just butthurt and unable to be objective because some mod banned you one time?
Mental healthcare is one of the most neglected forms of care in current modern western society. It IS and always HAS BEEN a serious and damaging form of disease.
What it isn’t is comparable to black lung or COPD in content moderation teams. The exaggeration by hacks like Miceli, to justify her grift and the continued funneling of grants towards her dubious work at TUB does more disservice for the cause than helps. It creates a situation of Peter and the Wolf and makes access to care extremely complicated to people who are suffering from mental illness, with severe social and personal consequences.
Then how can you say mental health is “one of the most neglected forms of care”, then go on to neglect the mental health concerns brought up by the article by minimizing it to a single comparison made in the first paragraph?
We can all agree that content moderation is incredibly harmful, and if we want to support mental health care, that should be the focus of discussion.