Human Smut Scanners Needed At Photobucket And MySpace

from the another-job-for-the-digital-working-class... dept

Thu, May 18th 2006 2:36am — Mike Masnick

We were just talking about digital working class jobs and how web filters suck -- so is it any surprise that some companies are now rapidly trying to hire human smut scanners to spend their days staring at photo after photo to try to catch "bad" pictures quickly? Specifically, this is targeted at MySpace, which gets so much bad publicity due to those who misuse the site. With politicians looking to fight back against MySpace, the company has been building up its own roster of employees to monitor as much as possible -- and also put pressure on Photobucket (the main service used by MySpace users to host images on MySpace) to hire a similar group of human watchers. As the article notes, software just isn't cut out for the job -- so, instead, people sit at computers and scan approximately 200 random photos per minute, looking for anything naughty to delete. Quite a job, right? Of course, both companies might find a better solution in distributing the workload. I'm reminded of Jay Walker's plans to build a massive "neighborhood watch" system, whereby people stuck at home could earn some extra money staring at photos taken from security cameras at various locations. Distributing the workload over large groups of people and paying them for each photo reviewed could help these companies build up their "human" filters much faster. In fact, this seems like just the type of set up that Amazon's Mechanical Turk was designed to do.

Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.

Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.

While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.

–The Techdirt Team

29 Comments

If you liked this post, you may also be interested in...

Reader Comments

Subscribe: RSS

View by: Time | Thread

Anonymous Coward, 18 May 2006 @ 3:53am

FIRST!!
Go smut!
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
throbi, 18 May 2006 @ 3:57am

dreamjob for pedofiles?
so they get paid for finding those pictures -and adding them to their collection! brilliant!
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Tyshaun, 18 May 2006 @ 4:05am

where can I sign up for tha gig!
Where can I get that job. I need a nice secondary income stream.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
- Millionaire, 18 May 2006 @ 11:56am
  
  Re: where can I sign up for tha gig!
  Do you honestly expect to make that much $$$
  
  It would be something like$.005/pic, so at that rate 200pics/minute = $1 which then equals $60/hour which is roughly equivalent to $120k
  
  Nevermind, as you were...
  [ link to this | view in chronology ]
  - Me again, 18 May 2006 @ 12:01pm
    
    Re: Re: where can I sign up for tha gig!
    But what if I wrote a program that "checked" automatically...at least in addition to my normal checks. Double your pleasure, double you profits...just this is a different form of adclicking scams.
    [ link to this | view in chronology ]
CrazyPunk, 18 May 2006 @ 4:40am

looks like a job for CrazyPunk
I am also interested in getting a job as "smut scanner" :P

I am currently stuck home with no decent income. I like working with pcs and am good at it too and am willing to "scan for smut" as a job. It should be easy, look at a pic, click GO or DEL and move on to the next one. Kinda like the rating system on ratemyfinger/poo.com but then with two choices.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Drama2Sell, 18 May 2006 @ 5:38am

Will scan smut for food.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Dam, 18 May 2006 @ 5:56am

It's The Same Thing.....
Having a wide open internet and services like Myspace being essentially unregulated is the same as having open borders. With no supervision or policing going on, the scum floats to the top, drowing out the users. It's said by many that most of the illegals coming across the border are good hard working people, and I believe that. But the criminals get all the attention. So it is on Myspace and others like it.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
- Lisa, 18 May 2006 @ 7:01am
  
  Re: It's The Same Thing.....
  [ link to this | view in chronology ]
- Lisa Foster, 18 May 2006 @ 7:01am
  
  Re: It's The Same Thing.....
  Amen!
  [ link to this | view in chronology ]
JimmyJamz, 18 May 2006 @ 6:37am

Ironically...
the ad pictures on myspace are borderline. So they want to promote and gain ad revenue through smutty pictures but turn around and scold users for uploading them? Don't get me wrong, as a youth group leader I agree with the "smut filter" but just logging in I'm forced to view a huge picture of a scantily clad woman. Tone down the ads to, I mean it's a site basically designed around high scool age kids. Do they really need to get a "date" or get "laid tonight"?

In the trenches,
Jim D.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
- Your students, 18 May 2006 @ 11:57am
  
  Do they really need to get a "date" or get "laid t
  Yes
  [ link to this | view in chronology ]
Eileen, 18 May 2006 @ 6:43am

calm down about the immigration, seriously
LOL... nice analogy. teenage brats with nothing better to do than post suggestive or lewd photographs of themselves on myspace are to the god-fearing clothed variety just as mexican criminals are to hardworking illegal immigrants! Why didn't I think of THAT before?!
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
- DanK, 18 May 2006 @ 7:14am
  
  Re: calm down about the immigration, seriously
  why should we calm down about the immigration? What do you propose gets done about it?
  [ link to this | view in chronology ]
Ben McNelly, 18 May 2006 @ 7:13am

In other news...
Immigration officials have recently begun cracking down on naked immagrants coming over through the internet. A spokesperson for IIF (Internet Immigration Filter) says that they are in need of computer literate backwards southern people, who hate naked immigrants, to help with thier filtering. "We have not come this far to let our warped little children's lewd and indecent photos be outshadowed by naked mexicans.."
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
- Sha, 18 May 2006 @ 7:36am
  
  Re: In other news...
  PUH!
  [ link to this | view in chronology ]
- Anonymous Coward, 18 May 2006 @ 11:58am
  
  Re: In other news...
  HAHA!
  [ link to this | view in chronology ]
kilroy, 18 May 2006 @ 7:44am

reality check
SMUT is smut and illegals are ILLEGAL - period. If you are a hard-working illegal alien you are still a criminal. If you are a smut peddler you might be one too depending on the law-of-the-land where you are. You can justify it all you like and not change the facts...
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Lost in Ohio, 18 May 2006 @ 7:44am

Can we keep the pictures we find?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Anonymous Coward, 18 May 2006 @ 8:56am

If you think scanning images for smut is time consuming, try scanning smut on a video hosting site. Yes, I was a smut scanner.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Anonymous Coward, 18 May 2006 @ 9:02am

The trouble is not all the "bad" pics are necessarily overtly naughty. I admit I've perused a fair amount of adult content over the years, and I'm forever coming across pics that aren't clearly explicit that I know were pulled from adult content sites. If a profile has basically no content but yet has 900 friends, and a pic that looks like she could be a stripper, it's a good bet it's just a "scam" profile.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Benjamin, 18 May 2006 @ 9:19am

Mycroft would be better than mturk at this
Check it out - for this sort of distributed checking, a lot more appropriate than mturk's micropayment model: http://mycroftnetwork.com
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
anonymous coward, 18 May 2006 @ 10:02am

paid to look for porn? where do i sign up?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Intergalactic Hussy, 18 May 2006 @ 10:41am

Spammers and Liars Ruined Myspace

Myspace: Good in theory, terrible in execution.

Sigh...I remember the days before I had "identity theft" (so to speak) in that wretched place. And I actually only had FRIENDS as friends! And still...argggh...I'm safe here...I guess...
MUAHHHH!
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
..., 18 May 2006 @ 8:18pm

A very interesting job becoming available but I guess it's necessary. The bad part about it; from my understanding it's these same people that post the "bad" pics on myspace that feel they are violated/ invasion of privacy when people they do not want to witness the pictures see them. When will they realise it's a public domain or at least why put them up if you don't want the world to see.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
The Technocrat, 22 May 2006 @ 1:11pm

exactly
I wrote on this a while back, on using a service like MT to pay people for AI training. The mTurk people responded pretty well...here's to hoping it comes true... link
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Jodi M Honeycutt, 24 May 2006 @ 10:54pm

Where do I apply?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Chris James, 24 Sep 2006 @ 3:35pm

Has Myspace Ruined Your Life?
I couldn't help but noticed how so many peoples lives have been disrupted due to Myspace.com. I just created a new site called RuinedMyspace.com...tell us your story!
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Skillet, 18 Jan 2007 @ 4:31pm

i think this is gay!
IF KIDS ARE GETTING THROUGH THE WEB BLOCKERS THEN LET THEM. IF THEY GET CAUGHT THEY GET CAUGHT. OH WELL. JUST LET 'EM HAVE IT THEIR WAY. SOMEHOW SOMEWAY EVERY KID GETS THROUGH THESE FILTERS SO WHY SHOULD WE WASTE MONEY ON THE KIDS WHEN WE CAN WASTE MONEY ON OTHER STUFF!!!!
[ link to this | view in chronology ]