The English-language "The Cleaners" is a new documentary from 2018, a collaboration between Europe, North and South America, and the first effort by writers and director Hans Block and Moritz Riesewieck and I see it got in at the prestigious Sundance Film Festival, which ios definitely a respectable achievement, perhaps because it deals with a subject that is really one of the most frequent and important ones these days, namely the internet, social media to be more precise. This film is about those people who face the difficult task to work as moderators, maybe you could call them censors, and who are enforcing guidelines, rules and regulations at Facebook and other dominant social media platforms. The internaet is full of trolls obviously and you are partially correct if you talk about how they are in charge of stalkers, spam, insults etc. all relatively harmless stuff and while this is most likely the dominating aspect of their profession, the focus during these 1.5 hours is the heavy stuff. We are talking about pictures and videos that involve mutilations, terrorism, war crimes, sexual offenses like rape and pedophilia, and all kinds of violence you could, but certainly don't want to imagine. This film is actually one of the rare occasions where I had to look away on one occasion as it showed very graphically a scene when a man's head is severed with a knife very unsuitable for such an act, so it was a lengthy procedure and maybe it would have been a wiser choice to leave this scene out. Anyway, there are also many references to historically important upload like for example what was the right way to react to a video that showed Saddam Hussein's execution and his corpse afterward. Or another one that talks about a caricature of naked President Trump and his hilarious reaction to it. Honestly, this is one of those fields where I had to applaud the filmmakers for his approach because it is not the usual anti-Trump propaganda you see on hundreds other occasions these days, but the film made clear that Facebook had to operate similarly in certain situations and that it does not matter at all who is the one that gets depicted in special scenarios but that a breach is a breach regardless of who you see. There were maybe a few moments when they sacrificed realism and authenticity and the informative aspect for parts of sheer sensationalism and shock value, like the "Delete. Delete. Delete." moments that were a bit too frequent for my taste. And on other occasions with these court hearings or the Zuckerberg recordings, they moved a bit too far away from the film's core intention, maybe to show known faces or important events to get more people interested in the movie. It's fine though. The interviewees all had interesting stuff to say with the exception of one moderator lady who really messed things up, not just when she spoke about the impact of the sexual content on her life, but also eventually when she talked about the significance of the job that felt very shallow and self-important and never really as essential as what the others had to contribute. Oh well, it's not a perfect film by any means and maybe it takes itself a bit too seriously (the top secrecy aspect e.g.) without offering the substance I hoped it would, but all in all, it is a good watch that offers many interesting moments to me and probably everybody else in the audience on a subject that is really not shed too much light on yet. And it's pretty impressive to find such an area in the world of digitalization and all the films made about this subject already. Certainly a thumbs-up for me, an impressive rookie effort by the two filmmakers and I'm curious what else they have to offer in the next few years. Go see it if you get a chance, even for somebody who is not on Facebook this was definitely worth the time.

Being an IT-consultant myself, having worked in information security for many years already, the movie did not offer many new insights, for me that is. Nevertheless, I'm always interested in any serious attempt to get the negative aspects of Internet across. Yet it may shoot above the heads of the average end user, thus failing to reach the intended audience and probably also won't effectively work as an eye-opener.

An interesting approach is to revolve the story line around the so-called content moderators, to consistently return to one of them to delineate the respective sections of the documentary. Their jobs are not easy, for example 3% of their decisions are checked by their supervisor, and they can make only a few mistakes per month. On the other hand, they are paid very well relatively in terms of the usual salaries in that part of the world.

A continuous stream of violence and other hefty photos or video's, all bordering on what is tolerable, will have ultimate effects on these moderators, something that is rightly touched by the movie. Their jobs will have nasty side effects on their minds. Despite the short exposure times per photo (20 seconds??), the sheer volume and the high percentage of disturbing images is bound to leave long lasting effects. I assume some sort of PTSS, despite the moderator not being physically involved in the situations at hand. As a form of self-defense, he may maintain the position that what he sees is happening far away and not affecting him dangerously in a physical sense. Conversely, it may broaden their horizon and make them aware of things not common in their own country. For example, one of the moderators told she developed an interest in sex toys as a side effect of her job, being something completely new to her before.

There were a few relatively short scenes wherein general counsels of the most-involved companies (Google, Facebook and Twitter) were questioned in the US House/Senate. What we got to see seemed devoid of any real content, possibly merely added to demonstrate that these companies are closely watched by politicians. The trivial questions we saw put to them and their prepared responses, did not contribute to my feeling that they are really scrutinized by politicians. (Side note: In April 2018 Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg made an appearance in the US House/Senate, in the aftermath of the Cambridge Analytica revelations. His questioning left a similar impression of triviality.). We cannot blame the politicians, as their inability is inevitable due to a lack of understanding how Internet works. However, in a way it was still relevant to add these sessions, if only to let the companies quote some numbers about people involved in the "cleaning" process. One of them mentioned even 10,000 employees, leaving unclear whether this also included contractors outside the US, like the ones in Manilla who were the main topic of this documentary.

The documentary provided also for some insight in the mistakes these moderators can make, for example because of little knowledge of (slang) vocabulary, missing cultural context, different norms in other parts of the world, and so on. Best example is the iconic picture that had an important influential role in showing the US people the truth about the Vietnam war, but it contained a frontal nude minor, hence had to be removed according to the written rules. My personal fear is that the deletion process tends to err on the side of caution and thus become too careful, thereby removing important documents about e.g. political conflicts (some examples were mentioned, but this topic got too little attention). Also pointed out were contemporary trends that some countries put pressure on the "platforms" to remove content that is not friendly towards the acting government, thereby suppressing the opposition and disconnecting them from their audience. These platforms prove to be lenient, just to prevent being blocked altogether which would render their business (e.g. advertising) impossible, with a negative influence on their profit/loss figures and their stakeholder value.

Though one of the reviewers complained that a beheading was shown on screen that took too long and was too painful to watch, I did not see his/her issue (maybe that scene was deleted afterwards). What they showed instead was an already beheaded body with the severed head on top, thereby explaining some details about the way this victim was beheaded, given the marks on the skin (apparently a kitchen knife was used, which is far from painless).

It's really something that you may not really think about. But who is checking the posts? For nudity, violence, propaganda or other "inappropriate" content? And how do they decide? Now I guess you could have shown this in a short documentary. But then you wouldn't have all the people who are actually doing this in the movie.

In this case the net or rather social media in general (Facebook in general for being the biggest plattform), has some issues. And it's in countries you may not have heard before. But they unwillingly help certain people there, because they didn't put resources in place to check certain things. And having some people checking pictures all day, may sound fun, but it is also exhilirating to some extent, especially if you consider the quota they have to fulfill and what that amounts to in pics watched and what that means "quality" wise when it comes to the controlling the content.

If you like documentaries and if you have an open mind, you will find many interesting things here ...