A series of video installations based on interviews with internet content moderators. The interviews were conducted in collaboration with journalist Adrian Chen during a year-long investigation. Watch the videos on DIS.
Several actors reenacted the interviews from home, filming themselves using their phones.
Each video is installed on the back of a customized office desk of the same brand used at Facebook’s Berlin moderation center, where the interviewees worked.
To tell their stories we have borrowed the aesthetics of fake make up tutorials used on social media to bypass censorship.
Serious discourse – addressing topics such as violence, sexual abuse, hate speech and terrorism – is constantly interrupted by makeup tips. Makeup is a way of concealing imperfections on our faces, in a way not so different from content moderation, which beautifies the surface of the internet by removing unwanted content.
Screenshot from “Greek Market”, featuring Bobbi Salvör Menuez
Screenshot from “Italian Market”, featuring Ruby McCollister
Screenshot from “Arab Market”, featuring Jake Levy
Screenshot from “Turkish Market”, featuring Irina Cocimarov
Screenshot from “English Market”, featuring Jesse Hoffman
Screenshot from “Greek Market”, featuring Alexandra Marzella
Commissioned by KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin