Meet the Virtual Clean-Up Crew

Meet the guys whose job it is to scrub websites of illicit, explicit and undesirable content. Online content moderation is a growing business in India. The techies who work at these companies – we've identified three in India, one each in Bangalore, Ghaziabad and Delhi, set up over the past seven years – are responsible for weeding out explicitly sexual or violent posts and images, identify possible scam accounts and cases of solicitation and racism. Each moderator goes through about 5,000 posts a day. Pictures typically deleted include images of beheadings, murder scenes, and profiles featuring images of porn stars, babies, mansions or movie stars, most of which indicate fake or spam accounts. Bikini photos get conditional approval: “If that person is in swimming pool or sea-beach that's allowed because they're taking a bath. But if they're in the bedroom, that becomes private.” Potential scamsters are identified by the number of people they send the same message to, the number of IP addresses they use and their use of trigger phrases like: “I will send you the money I promise”, “if you need my sex service” and “do you mind helping me out dear”. Also “I am now living in Ghana.