Violating Community Guidelines - Reconstructing Du Bois

By Anonymous


        Smrami Patel

Through theoretical reconstruction, Hammer and Park highlight the value of applying and extending Du Boisian sociology to provide insight into “how racism and exploitative capitalist logics are baked into digital technologies” (Hammer and Park 2021: 227). In their article The Ghost in the Algorithm, Hammer and Park examine the role of humans in the emergence of artificial intelligence (A.I.) through a DuBoisian lens, utilising and extending his concept of The Veil in America to a Global Veil.  

Current questions about content moderators in India were just one of many examples given in the article, as highlighted by the cartoon. With former colonies being economically more vulnerable after the departure of colonial powers, private companies can abuse this vulnerability in the name of technological development. 

An exhausted content moderator stands in front of numerous screens - a few filled with user-friendly memes, however, most with disturbing and violent images. The vast amounts of distressing images and videos consumed “keeps physiological violence waged upon content moderators” (Hammer and Park 2021: 238). In countries, such as the US, consumers overlook this physiological violence, with many believing their social media is moderated by A.I. However, this explanation is too simplistic as for the current model of social media consumption to be maintained the consumer must not acknowledge the individual regulating their content. They are seen as not fully human.   

The scarf tied around the moderator’s mouth highlights just this – they are unheard, and thus The Global Veil is upheld, and the consumer can create a distance between them and the racialised moderators. The depiction of the content moderator as a cartoon further emphasises that these workers are not "fully human" with images of actual content moderators being rare as this would disrupt The Global Veil and cause disruption to the model of content consumption. 


Works Cited:

Hammer, R. and Park, T., 2021. "The Ghost in the Algorithm: Racial Colonial Capitalism and the Digital Age." Political Power and Social Theory, 38, 221–249.

Corey Brickley. February 25, 2019. “THE TRAUMA FLOOR, The secret lives of Facebook moderators in America.” From theverge.com. Retrieved May 4 2022. (https://www.theverge.com/2019/2/25/18229714/cognizant-facebook-content-moderator-interviews-trauma-working-conditions-arizona) 

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