Offical Selection: Sundance
Offical Selection: Hot Docs
Offical Selection: Rotterdam
The Cleaners follows the anonymous censors who sit, day after day, in an office in Manila, monitoring and censoring unsuitable social media posts. The titular cleaners watch clip after clip, and image after image making judgement calls on some 25,000 posts that are reported every day. These content moderators pay witness to anything from art, commentary, satire, brutal atrocities, self-harm videos, and pornography and everything in between making decisions on what should, and what shouldn’t, be deleted from the social network.
But, living in a devoutly Catholic country and immersed within an online world in which genuine horrors and journalism can be confused, how can these individuals make such decisions, and what happens when they do? What of their own experiences do they bring to their decision-making processes?
A fascinating and disturbing documentary, The Cleaners explores the nature and function of the modern internet, and the role of those who can choose what we post and see. More than this, it explores the very nature of social media and the way in which it is affecting the global community.
“Smart, stylish doc exposes must-discuss issues regarding the companies who dominate the internet.” The Hollywood Reporter
Screens with the short film Eye Contact.
BUY TICKETS:
Sun 8th, 4.30pm, Luna Leederville
SOCIAL NETWORKS