How much better would the world be without internet? Despite the extra convenience and direct access to all kinds of information and products, it has changed the world, changed people and what’s important to us. Suddenly many try to show themselves from their best side and everything is about being seen, likes and number of followers. An artificial form of popularity that has earned many people money, but despite the fact that this is supposed to be social, it is anything but. And there are also plenty of people who try to share terrible videos, photos and texts via social media. And although large platforms try to take action against this automatically, it hasn’t gotten so good that people are no longer needed to make choices about them. Companies such as Facebook and Twitter have a true “army” of unknown editors, who are presented with horrible images every day (around 25,000) and have to make a choice whether this should be removed or seen. The documentary The Cleaners tries to get those people, who are trying to make the various platforms safe for us, to tell their story.
It quickly becomes clear how tough the work is. What does it do to you as a person when you see what others are capable of? Decapitation, abuse and more terrible things that you can hardly imagine. Is that slowly becoming your worldview, where, for example, violence feels normal? With this film, directors Hans Block and Moritz Riesewieck give a face to a number of these people and shine light in a world that you as a user are not even aware of. They are the “secret” internet police officers who try to keep the environment in which billions of people are safe. These people are trained to do heavy emotional work and follow strict guidelines. However, that can also mean that images are removed that could possibly make a difference when it comes to public opinion. Everyone can still remember the photo of the dead Syrian boy who was washed up on the beach. An image that is removed under the guidelines, just like photos in certain countries, such as Turkey, because it means that a company like Twitter is not allowed there. Choices to which these “cleaners” often unknowingly contribute. The documentary shows a number of examples, which are probably still relatively “tame”, but you can’t imagine being really overloaded with it all day and being allowed to make only 3 mistakes per month. After seeing The Cleaners, you wonder to what extent these people need help to process it all, but also whether we would be better off if all the computers in the world were to switch off immediately.
[score8]