Nudity, semi-nudity, photos of porn stars. Also, bikinis in bedrooms (possible revenge porn)

In India, job interviews for web content moderators typically include questions about social media experience, to ensure that the exposure they are set to face won’t come as a complete shock.

“We look for good observation skills. Being intuitive is a major plus point. Then they have a two- to three-week training session where we brief them about what the job entails,” says Suresh Reddy, founder and managing director of InfoEsearch, a Hyderabad-based digital services company that began content moderation five years ago.

“We have counselling sessions twice a month and if someone is uncomfortable with a particular type of moderation, we transfer them to a different department.”

The content moderation business in India is growing in metropolises like Bengaluru, Delhi, Hyderabad and Kolkata.

“This part of the industry is something that was non-existent ten years ago and is all set to pick up, because of the huge and growing demand,” says Aravind Rao, chief operations officer at InfoEsearch.

Howlader adds that almost 80% of his company’s revenue now comes from commercial content moderation. The sevenyear-old company also offers software testing and IT consultation services.

Squadrun, which provides app-based commercial content moderation in San Francisco and Delhi, has a workforce of 75,000 freelancers and moderates for e-commerce websites.

Siddharth Pillai, co-director of Aarambh India, the country’s first Internet hotline to report online child sexual abuse imagery in partnership with the UK-based watchdog Internet Watch Foundation, cautions that moderators must take frequent breaks and get periodic counselling.

However, all’s not dull and dreary in the world of moderation.

“Recently, while moderating a website I came across that hilarious video of US President Donald Trump appearing to push the Montenegro prime minister at the NATO summit in Paris. I showed it to my colleagues and there were ripples of laughter across the room. We’re often among the first to see such viral content,” says Santosh Kumar, 29, a content moderation team leader at InfoEsearch. “We get to have our share of fun.”