Calls to hatred, murders, rapes, child pornography: these subjects are the subject of videos posted on the Web at all hours of the day and night. Although the algorithms try to preserve the eyes of the most innocent, some content nevertheless falls through the cracks. Humans then take over and watch hours of violence every week. Director Mélanie Charbonneau took an interest in this growing issue in the new webseries I am not a robot, signed by Sandrine Viger-Beaulieu and Charles-Alex Durand.
“The writers first approached me with a premise that contained an influencer character. I had just finished Fabulous and I thought I had taken the tour, ”confides the director in an interview with The duty. However, the project had a content moderation center. “There was a vein there, there was something that intrigued me. The authors then reworked the idea, which immediately charmed Mélanie Charbonneau.
From then on, the fiction of less than an hour took on the appearance of a psychological thriller on the tone of black comedy with the aim of exposing the execrable conditions in which the moderators of content work around the planet: low wages, lack of psychological help, post-traumatic stress, high suicide rate, to name a few.
“Seeing violence from 9 to 5 and being paid a salary [miséreux]… How far can your mind become insensitive to all this? “Asks Geneviève Schmidt, who plays Marie-Chantal in the series. “Can you become insensitive to so many images like that?” I don’t think so, ”she continues, noting that 5-10% of the content moderators listen to each day has traumatic potential.
Alienating immersion
Supervisor at Soulshine, Marie-Chantal is what the director describes as “woman-child.” Although she is 38, she possesses the innocence of a preteen. Its role is to ensure the quality control of videos which are blocked – or not – by the moderators. “My character feels like she’s saving humanity from the worst of the internet. But it’s a bit of a sword in the water, ”explains Geneviève Schmidt, known in particular for her roles in the series. Unit 9, The beautiful discomforts and District 31. The fairly naive young woman will multiply the traumatic events, which will lead her to a rather insidious madness.
The strong point of the series is undoubtedly in the immersion that it entails. “It was really one of the objectives, to immerse viewers in the world of content moderators, but also to make them experience what these people live every day, explains Mélanie Charbonneau. I wanted people to understand it squarely. “
Successful bet for the series which connects, at the same rate as the madness of Marie-Chantal grows, the raw and strange images, leaving a nauseating feeling in the mouth. The burst of videos, shot half by production and bought on some sites for the other half, remains digestible despite everything and should allow the series to be classified 13+, although some warnings are made at the start of viewings.
“We did not want to fall into [contenu] 18 years and over, but it was important to find a way not to censor yourself, ”explains the director, without which the very essence of the project would fall apart. “In the media, we always talk about censored content, but we never talk about what that content is. I could have put things a little less trash, but in the end, it would have been like I didn’t really portray what was going on in those offices. But it’s important to understand it. “The format of the web series has also allowed more freedom than a television format could have done, adds Mélanie Charbonneau.
Period and current
The series is coming off the top of the head, as some media are starting to take an interest in the phenomenon of content moderation centers. Reports on the subject – as well as on the Facebook Papers – show that this is indeed a problematic phenomenon that is growing. The contemporaneity of the subject does not, however, prevent some echoes with the past century.
From the first seconds of the webseries, we see Soulshine employees arriving at the office, one after the other, like automatons. It is reminiscent of “the sequence where workers return to the factory through the stairs in the film Modern times by Charlie Chaplin ”, illustrates the director, who certainly drew part of her inspiration from this cult work. “The people who have to filter the content on the Internet is the new factory. This is what modern times are now, ”she continues.
In the media, we always talk about censored content, but we never talk about what that content is. I could have put things a little less trash, but in the end, it would have been like I didn’t really portray what was going on in those offices.
The title of the work is also not insignificant. In addition to being named explicitly a few times during the fiction, “I am not a robot” reflects the general message that the webseries emit. “We do not understand that in reality, these are not just algorithms, just computers. There are people who spend their days watching the most dark of what there is on the Internet, ”recalls the director. And these people are not insensitive and infallible.
“Governments are shoveling the problem into the social media court. They hire subcontractors. Then they hire employees. This system loses responsibility, ”adds the director to the heart of the issue which motivated her to work on the project.
Geneviève Schmidt, for her part, has only one wish regarding the series: “I hope that it will make people think about the use of social networks, but especially on the impact that they have on human beings. humans, ”she concludes.