Text | New Entropy, author | Matsuba and Kae wing, editor| Tsukimi
"In the busiest month of November, a total of 21,930 work discussions were participated, and the latest day was November 12, 4:42 a.m. What are you up to this month? ”
This is the enterprise WeChat record of the "Twilight Wood Heart" of the Graphic And Text Review Department of the Content Security Center of the Wuhan Branch of Station B. In 2021, Twilight Wood Heart processed a total of 199,240 work sessions and spent 73,024 minutes. Even if it is done 245 times a year, it takes 545 sessions a day.
On February 7, Weibo workplace blogger "Wang Luobei" exposed that the acting leader of the Wuhan AI audit team of Station B, "Twilight Wood Heart", was asked to work overtime during the New Year, and under the intensity of work from 9 p.m. to 9 a.m., unfortunately died of cerebral hemorrhage in the early morning of the fifth day of the first month, due to overtime.
Once exposed, the incident fermented rapidly. Before yesterday, Station B has been delayed in officially replying, and only one "Notice of the Content Security Center" circulated, in which Station B said that the deceased did not work overtime in the week before the incident.
The video in Station B is also calm. An insider revealed to "New Entropy" that "recently the content about this incident that almost all accounts have sent to Station B has been intercepted." After the official response of Station B, several related videos were released on the platform one after another.
An internal email screenshot response plus an external response, five days after the incident, went to Wuhan to meet with the family of the deceased, all acts let the outside world not pay, known for "positive energy" B station this time let many users "take off the powder".
In the twelfth anniversary speech, Chen Rui, chairman and CEO of Station B, repeatedly mentioned the health of the community, "The reason why we attach so much importance to content and so much attention to UP owners is because we know that good content is the fundamental reason for users to stay in the community for a long time, which is a prerequisite." ”
Perhaps Station B can be called a healthy content community, but this incident has exposed that Station B may not be a "loving" enterprise. Can a content community that cares about the health of the community and cares about the users of the platform, but ignores the employees, be called "healthy"?
In the official response, Station B said that it will carry out the following work: First, it will use the greatest efforts to expand the recruitment of auditors, and increase the recruitment of 1,000 people this year; second, strengthen employee physical examinations and increase the number of all-weather health consultation rooms.
Is that enough? With love can not continue to generate electricity, how will Station B find the optimal solution?
01 Cumbersome manual review
Many people in the industry have pointed out that the machine-assisted audit of Station B is weak, so it relies more on manual review.
In its prospectus, B said that the staff of the content screening team is responsible for reviewing and monitoring the content uploaded to the platform 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, "all other content (mainly for user-posted bullet screens) will also be automatically screened by our screening system." It can be seen that the machine audit of Station B only plays an auxiliary role, and the manual is the main audit force.
Even with algorithmic review, due to complex content and the pass rate of AI can not reach 100%, manual review post can not be relaxed for a moment.
"As a capital screw is so sad", Li Lei is a video reviewer in a city south of Station B.
In the era of short video dividends, many people rush to enter the game, and the content explosion also follows. In the third quarter of 2021, the number of bloggers on B stations increased by 61% year-on-year, and the number of videos uploaded to the background every month exceeded 10 million, an increase of 80% year-on-year.
This also means that the workload of back-office audits has doubled, but at the same time, the number of audits has not increased proportionally. The audit post of the first B station said that the post was frequently flowing, "Every day someone leaves, Bilibili recruits people every day." Li Lei told "New Entropy": "The audit post has been recruiting and engaging in the tactics of the sea of people, because it requires a large number of people to deal with information garbage." There are also many people who leave, after all, the treatment of garbage and the intensity of work are high. Those who can stay are either at the doorstep, or they feel that they can still climb up and have cakes to eat, or they are already looking for a home. ”
Behind the need for people but can't keep people is the salary and unreasonable functional system that are inconsistent with the workload of Station B.
The system of audit working hours of Station B is divided into two types: "administrative class" and "12-hour shift". The executive class lasts for 9 hours on five consecutive days, and the 12-hour shift takes one break and one break. If you choose the latter, Li Lei's salary is converted into an hourly wage of less than 24 yuan, if the former, counting the cost of commuting time for a few more days, the hourly wage is only about 20 yuan, or even less than the minimum wage of part-time workers announced by Nanjing 22 yuan.
Although the official response of Station B said that the company's colleagues on duty during the Spring Festival were given three times the statutory salary, according to Li Lei, "Regarding overtime pay, station B only has three times the overtime pay on the first, second and third days of the first year, the second day of the first year, and the third day of the first year, and there is no overtime pay for Chinese New Year's Eve and other times, and there are only 123 days of statutory holidays during the National Day period. It is said that because of the 'integrated working hour system', the average holiday has never been doubled. ”
And even if they only get this salary that hovers around the local part-time minimum hour wage, these auditors need to face an "unbearable weight". In addition to the sheer number of tasks, watching non-compliant and problematic content that cannot be opened to the outside world is also the norm for them.
In terms of performance, Li Lei revealed that Station B has set the "VPN support" system more strictly in recent months. "In the past, if the support was not online, the performance was deducted one or two points, and the average performance was calculated by about 70 or 80 points. The new rule was directly changed to performance downgrade without working overtime on the line, which not only deducted bonuses, but also affected annual performance and affected the future. As the substitute team leader, the team members do not want to go online to support, and the team leader can only go online in order not to deduct his performance. Human effectiveness must be to the minimum amount of audit to go offline also means that overtime can not grind foreign workers, must work according to the efficiency of the company, almost all have a system punishment. ”
In order to ensure the quality of work, a video needs to be watched back and forth several times, one is reviewed, and countless videos lie in the background. In addition to mental stress, the auditors of Station B have almost all found their own external changes in the naked eye in the process of work - vision loss, weight surge, heart pain, poor physical fitness and mental deterioration... These have become commonalities in the auditors of Station B.
"It feels like not only the light sensitivity of the eyes has become weaker, but also the brain seems to have a vacuum somewhere, a little movement, and the blood flow is faster, and there is a kind of pain of pumping and twitching." And this is less than a year since Li Lei joined the B station.
Station B reviews the relevant requirements for post recruitment
Station B seems to be accustomed to this, and even bluntly asked for "a strong ability to resist pressure and adapt to the night shift" in its recruitment advertisement. In the latest response, Station B said that it will expand enrollment and strengthen physical examinations this year. However, if the existing work system and the corresponding salary system are not improved, Station B will still be bulky.
02 When the little broken station becomes the "big brother"
In the field of video, Station B has long become a thriving existence.
At the "9th China Network Audiovisual Conference" on June 3, 2021, Youku President Fan Luyuan spat bitterly: "Now, we call Station B 'Big Brother', because the market value of Big Brother B is our iQiyi Big Brother + Tencent (Video) Big Brother + I (Youku) to get a 30% discount, which adds up to a higher than us." ”
Immediately after, Fan Lu pointed to Station B and said, "We hope that Station B can always take original short videos as its main development goal." Coincidentally, gong Yu, the founder of iQIYI, then emphasized the infringement issues such as erchuang and once again aimed the spearhead at station B.
The fundamental reason for the success of Station B is that it is fundamentally different from the business model of Youaiteng. When Youaiteng frantically invested money in film and television dramas, variety shows, drafts, etc., Station B survived by relying on the unique mode of PUGC (professional user self-made content).
When you aiteng launch a high-quality drama, the B station UP masters will make two cuts for the favorite actors or CP to call. In this case, the second creation of station B plays a positive role in publicizing the film and television works themselves. When you aiteng launch a thunder drama, the B station UP masters will spit out the clip to detonate the audience's pain points. For example, in the public opinion crusade against the phenomenon of "ugly men in ancient costumes" in the second half of 2021, a large number of secondary editing videos of Station B have played a role in fueling the waves.
Videos related to ugly men in costumes are generally highly played
In general, although youaiteng continue to burn money and lose money for many years, it is difficult to avoid becoming the video feed of station B at some times. Under this situation, youaiteng naturally complained about the B station. However, as a unique long video website in China, the creation of Station B is complex and the content is complicated, so it has the most potential problems and the greatest external pressure.
Only before the Spring Festival, Station B was plagued by two huge public opinion controversies. On January 15, some netizens broke the news that there were many surveillance videos on station B that cracked hospitals, schools and other public places, which made the public shudder. On January 18, the doctor's live broadcast of the patient's gynecological surgery on station B once again triggered a huge public opinion response. At that time, the review mechanism of Station B has become the focus of public opinion, and many netizens have questioned the review mechanism and platform values of Station B by the rapid interruption of the live broadcast of several political and legal experts such as Hong Fan and the repeated warnings of gynecological surgery.
On the left is the B station account that uploads cracked monitoring content; on the right is the live broadcast room of station B where gynecological surgery is broadcast illegally
Based on these two incidents, many users and UP owners said that Station B has always been quite proud of "manual review". In terms of video, if a blacklisted person appears in the video uploaded by the main UP, even if it is covered up, the auditor will hit the video back. As for the live broadcast, the live broadcast of political and legal experts is almost cut off in seconds, and there is no phenomenon of multiple warnings.
Although Station B also has AI review as an aid to manual review, the occurrence of surveillance video uploads in public places and live broadcast events of gynecological surgery shows that there are huge loopholes in the audit mechanism that Station B is proud of, and both manual investment and AI intelligence need to be improved. Unfortunately, just twenty days later, there was a sudden death of a B-station auditor overwork, which made people can't help but associate several things and angrily scold the greed and cold-bloodedness of capital.
Since embarking on the fast track of capital in 2015, Station B has become more and more cautious and cautious, gradually breaking with pirated resources. In July 2017, Station B began the largest piracy rectification operation, and a large number of pirated film and television resources were removed from the shelves, caught users off guard. At the same time, the review speed of Station B is also declining.
Some UP owners told "New Entropy" that in 2018, the videos uploaded by themselves needed to be reviewed for 12-24 hours before they passed. This speed is quite unfriendly to UP owners with effective content. Since then, the audit speed of Station B has soared to within a few hours, but in 2020, the review speed of Station B has fallen to the bottom again.
In 2020, affected by the epidemic, the number of UP masters and the number of content both surged, resulting in a significant decline in the speed of review by old UP owners, and many UP main videos needed to be reviewed in nearly a day. The emergence of this situation shows that Station B has not made a supporting response to the explosive growth of the number of content. Entering the second half of 2021, UP owners feel that the audit speed of Station B has increased significantly, and it can reach the level of review within 1 hour.
However, some UP owners found that the audit mechanism and audit speed of Station B seem to have been driven by external pressure. UP owner Li Ying said, "At the beginning of 2020, the editing video related to "Naruto" that I edited was returned as follows, marked as 'According to the requirements of the copyright party (Youku), this site withdrew the film'. I then reduced the length of the video to less than 3 minutes without alleged infringement before it was republished. ”
Li Ying's experience shows that if the copyright owner does not intervene, the B station will be in a laissez-faire state for the two-creation video; once the copyright party intervenes, the B station will remove the relevant video on a large scale, and the workload of the auditors will also surge. After the surveillance video in public places on Station B attracted attention, the platform cleared all relevant videos on the platform within two days. Always rely on external pressure to promote the audit, the audit speed of station B is naturally difficult to be in a stable state, and the pressure on the auditors will also fluctuate sharply.
03 Content moderation cannot bear the burden
After the sudden death of employees, Station B promised to expand the enrollment of 1,000 people this year. Li Lei said, "There are more than 1,000 video review personnel (including training personnel) in Station B, and there are at least more than 2,000 graphic review personnel." "The expansion of 1,000 people means that the audit efficiency of Station B can theoretically be greatly improved." However, it is worth noting that Station B has not made a commitment to improve the AI audit that is concerned by the outside world.
At present, PUGC content platforms such as Douyin and Kuaishou, like Station B, adopt a dual review mechanism of first machine review and then manual review, and videos that are difficult for machines to recognize will be submitted to manual review. However, the review speed of each platform is very different, and the review speed of Douyin and Kuaishou is very fast, generally transmitting videos in seconds, or reviewing within a few minutes. In contrast, the speed of audit at Station B dwarfs that of anything.
The slow review speed of Station B is not only affected by the lack of manpower, but also the complexity of content and the general length of videos are also important influencing factors. Li Lei said that because the manuscripts in the dance area, the game area and the living area are easily classified by AI, ai review is set up separately, that is, there is less manual review. The content of other partitions requires manual review and participation. UP owners also generally said that the longer the video content and the more sensitive the content, the review time will be correspondingly longer.
On the other hand, compared with other platforms, Station B has more underage users, so the audit standards are also more stringent. According to official data, since 2020, the national "anti-pornography and anti-illegality" office has received about 500 clues about the problem of Station B. The relevant departments of Shanghai Municipality have punished the administrative case of Station B 6 times and interviewed more than 10 times, mainly involving the publication of children's "cult codes" and vulgar content;
Some film and television editors UP mainly told "New Entropy" that kissing and other scenes in film and television dramas need to be coded before the video can be released successfully. Some employees in front of Station B also said that the manual review of Station B is not necessarily once, and it is also possible to audit many times to check the risk. All short-term videos with high data will also be reviewed by the operator.
The superposition of multiple factors makes it difficult for the review speed of Station B to match that of Douyin Kuaishou, and it is also difficult for AI audits to have greater achievements. Manual review has become a path that has to be heavily relied on in the PUGC content production mode of Station B.
Another important reason why Station B relies too much on manual review is that the community atmosphere also needs to be controlled invisibly through the audit mechanism.
Douyin and Kuaishou have produced a bad comment atmosphere in the sinking process, and Youaiteng has followed the example of B station to engage in bullet screens and communities, and has also been made into a miasma by star fans. In contrast, station B, although the user circle has been expanding in recent years and the users have gradually diversified, the overall community atmosphere has not deviated from the traditional tone of humor and humor.
In 2016, the old users of Station B felt that the community atmosphere began to change, and the voices of complaining and protesting were endless. At that time, the competitor of B station A was not yet in the ascendant, and B station must keep the community atmosphere and retain old users, so the bullet screen, comments, private messages, dynamics and other content of B station also entered the era of strong review. Some users said to "New Entropy" that when the B station is dynamically posted, the illustrations of cartoon characters dressed slightly exposed will be rejected.
The comprehensive review of the content sent by the user also creates a more hidden swear language culture, such as B station users will replace the swear word "garbage" with "crumbs", which is similar to the black talk of the B station content, can not be identified by the system, although it can be identified manually, but there is no relevant basis to determine it as a violation.
As Li Lei said, "Manual review of Internet content is like walking in a minefield that has swept through mines, most of the time it is safe, but when you are unlucky, you will step on the mine, and some mines are still nuclear mines, and the entire platform is shattered when triggered." At present, there is no AI that can review all the problematic content, and it is unlikely that it will not in the future. "So in view of the current problem, Station B can only choose to absorb more employees to clear mines."
(In the text, Li Lei and Li Ying are pseudonyms.) ）