Episode Five - The Future

Available for over a year

Over 500 hours of video are posted on YouTube every minute. Over 4 million photos are uploaded to Instagram every hour. There are around 500 million posts to X (formerly Twitter) every single day. These numbers are growing by the second. How do you even begin to monitor and police such a relentless avalanche of information? In this new series, Zoe Kleinman journeys into the world of the online content moderators. Big social media platforms rely on automation for much of the work, but they also need an army of human moderators to screen out the content that is harmful. Many moderators spend their days looking at graphic imagery, including footage of killings, war zones, torture and self-harm. We hear many stories about what happens when this content falls through the net, but we don’t hear much about the people trying to contain it. This is their story. The battle against harmful online content is hitting the headlines more every day, even as AI moderation gathers pace. Ironically it needs moderation itself. In this final episode of the series, Zoe explores what the future of moderation looks like. Demand from many consumers and internet users for greater regulation and accountability is growing. But will government regulation be enough to solve the moderation crisis? Zoe speaks with former moderators, academics and Silicon Valley insiders to get a sense of how big tech, AI and algorithms are all evolving. She hears how the field of moderation needs to change to cope with the challenges of an online world that seems to be moving at the speed of light. Presenter: Zoe Kleinman Producer: Tom Woolfenden Assistant Producer: Reuben Huxtable Sound Designer: Dan King Editor: Kirsten Lass A Loftus Media production for BBC Radio 4