A content-moderating simulation game.
Jianhao Ma
Description
Masses is a single-player web-based simulation game. The game simulates the job of inspecting and censoring contents on a fictional social media platform. Players play as the content moderator of a giant tech company in a fictional world. And throughout the gaming experience, Masses will give players a moderate taste of the conflict trauma of being content moderators. Masses is an opportunity for people to rethink the role of censorship in the Internet Age, which can be untraditional and counter-intuitive. Furthermore, the game aims at delivering several thought-provoking questions to the players: Is there a perfect moral standard that works for all scenarios when censoring contents? If not, how does the moral conflict impact someone who makes thousands of decisions everyday? Instead of selling developer’s ideology, Masses is going to leave the questions to the players. And with the design of procedurally generated contents and sources from real-life datasets, I hope players can discover their own answers in this fake yet familiar experience I fabricated for them.