Face 2 Face With David Peck

Hans Block and Moritz Riesewieck talk about their fascinating and important new film The Cleaners, censorship, the new digital public, content moderators, and what it means to outsource responsibility. Watch the Trailer here. Synopsis Enter a hidden third world shadow industry of digital cleaning, where the Internet rids itself of what it doesn't like. Here we meet five “digital scavengers” among thousands of people outsourced from Silicon Valley whose job is to delete “inappropriate” content off the net. In a parallel struggle, we meet people around the globe whose lives are dramatically affected by online censorship. A typical “cleaner” must observe and rate thousands of often deeply disturbing images and videos every day, leading to lasting psychological impacts. Yet underneath their work lies profound questions around what makes an image art or propaganda and what defines journalism. Where exactly is the point of balance for social media to be neither an unlegislated space nor a forum rife with censorship