The Cleaners (2018)

Directed by: Hans Block, Moritz Riesewieck | 88 minutes | documentary

Who decides what can and cannot be posted on the internet? Everyone has experienced it, or knows someone who it has happened to: a Facebook message is removed because it ‘is against the rules of use’. It sometimes seems like this is done by an invisible algorithm like other Facebook features. But nothing could be further from the truth – this is human work. Any (possibly) offensive message on Facebook, Twitter or YouTube will be removed manually. The documentary ‘The Cleaners’ by Hans Block and Moritz Riesewieck introduces us to the mysterious world of ‘content moderators’.

A motley crew of characters is featured in ‘The Cleaners’: an activist whose satirical image of Donald Trump was removed, a far-right American activist, critical former Facebook employees and a fake news-spreading supporter of controversial Philippine President Duterte. With this, ‘The Cleaners’ delicately shows the major dilemmas in the discussion about online censorship and freedom of expression. What is offensive material and what is just opinion that is free to disseminate? What do fake news, filter bubbles and the enormous power over information of a few big companies mean for the health of our democracy? Without taking sides, the documentary lets all the different camps have their say.

However, the real main characters of ‘The Cleaners’ are the moderators themselves. Despite the strict duty of confidentiality, Block and Rieswieck managed to interview various moderators, even in the office where they did their work, so to speak. Here it quickly becomes clear how extreme the conditions are under which they have to work. They are shown an image, message or video and have to decide within a few seconds whether it can remain. The targets are unbelievably high and there are no limits to what they get to see. Beheadings, child pornography and live suicides are the order of the day. Although the documentary certainly considers what this does to these young, inexperienced people, the psychological side remains somewhat underexposed among all the political arguments that pass in review. That is also the weakest point of the documentary: Block and Rieswieck do not make a clear choice about which story they want to tell. All facets of the dark side of social media are discussed, which makes the whole thing somewhat fragmented.

However, the lack of focus does not alter the fact that ‘The Cleaners’ is a very topical and astute documentary. The documentary opens up a world that we did not know until recently. The debate about the consequences of social media for our society must be conducted, and Block and Riesewieck have made a valuable contribution to this with ‘The Cleaners’.