Event Review:Who Watches on Our Behalf? — The Cleaners Screening & Discussion
On the afternoon of August 23, SIXI Museum, in collaboration with the Goethe Institut China, hosted a screening of the documentary The Cleaners, followed by a post-screening discussion. The film took the audience beyond bright screens to the digital labor sites working behind the scenes.
The clean order of our screens is not taken for granted. While everyday users enjoy seamless online experiences, content moderators bear immense sensory and psychological strain. Positioned as internet filters in the global digital labor chain, they process vast streams of images daily, making rapid judgments to maintain order in digital space.
After the screening, scholar Zhu Shan led a discussion on labor rights, social psychology, and cybersecurity. He noted that content moderation is not a myth of independent algorithms, but carries real ethical costs. Governing cyberspace requires a delicate balance between mitigating harm, protecting moderators‘ mental health, and ensuring public safety.
This screening served as a collective reflection on digital ethics. In an era of big data and AI, algorithm-driven intervention poses new challenges to authentic perception and expression—a dilemma worth questioning by every user behind a screen.
SIXI SCREENING | WHO WATCHES ON OUR BEHALF: THE CLEANERS SCREENING & DISCUSSION
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