“Watching is the most powerful signal,” Hastings explains. Netflix has been using the tagging system since 2010 Tags, in addition to information garnered from user habits, allows the company to privilege what consumers would most likely like to see. While it might appear under the “family adventure” heading for one user, it may appear as an “animated kids movie” on another.
#NETFLIX KIDS CONTENT TAGGER MOVIE#
According to the company, no two profiles are alike, and that’s largely due to users’ viewing habits, the algorithm and those tags.įor instance, Hastings gave an example of the movie Tangled. This myriad of tags also allows the company to granularly personalise the service’s experience across all users. Hastings notes that “bullying” has recently been added to the phrase list, which now equates to some 50 000 individual tags. Taggers are also responsible for introducing new tags if a show introduces a new concept. Will a computer know if Stranger Things is a bildungsroman, or a critique of family structure, whether it involves supernatural forces or is set in the 1980s? Probably not. We need something to make sense of that, and tagging is how we do it,” he told Memeburn in an interview. People don’t choose shows that they love. “We could have algorithms without context, but we find that when we’ve done and tested that, people don’t make choices as quickly. Arguably, if this system didn’t exist, Netflix wouldn’t have 109-million users worldwide. This co-operation fuels the company’s recommendation engine. “The human voice to the algorithm, or the ghost in the machine, that’s basically providing the sense to what the algorithms is trying to determine,” notes Mike Hastings, Netflix’s director of enhanced content, former movie critic, and a key figure in Netflix’s tagging programme since 2008. ‘We could have algorithms without context, but… people don’t choose shows they love’ And it’s these small nuances that keep us coming back to particular shows and movies. While computers can recognise patterns and habits that form during spans of content binging, they can’t pick apart traits in works. Netflix’s algorithm works in conjunction with the tagger’s input. But as entertaining as it sounds, it’s probably one of the company’s most important roles. “I’m not going to complain because I have to watch My Little Pony.They then tag them with the corresponding metadata.Īt this point, you’re probably wondering why the company isn’t advertising these jobs (it does, but always receives an overwhelming response I’m told), because it sounds great. “I come from a blue collar family and watched both of my parents bust their humps every day,” he said. Times estimated that taggers make “several hundred dollars per week.”īut when watching gets bad, and we’re talking really bad, Harty says that it doesn’t hurt to remember his undisclosed paycheck. He saw all of Orange is the New Black season two in two days.Ī non-disclosure agreement prohibits Netflix taggers from disclosing their salary, although Sund did volunteer that the part-time work’s pay “makes up a percentage of his overall salary.” A 2012 story in the L.A. Luckily the hours of required watching has not limited Harty’s ability to binge watch. The weekly time commitment ranges from a couple of hours to eight movies a week, which - barring the world’s Titanics - runs between 16 and 20 hours. Taggers are given assignments on a weekly basis, and while there are some specialists in certain genres and taggers can request to tag a specific movie, Harty receives assignments at random. And in specific circumstances, like the film Irreversible - which features a graphic rape scene - a supervisor will personally tag it. Supervisors will, however, give taggers a heads up if there’s a particularly disturbing movie to watch and ask for volunteers rather than assigning it arbitrarily. “And my job right now is to get you all those horrible movies you want.”
“You might like what I consider to be horrible movies,” Harty said.
The whole point of the job is to provide users with suggestions that align with their watching preferences, whatever those preferences may be. “This is never about whether I like a movie, and if I like it, I can’t change the tagging to try to get you to watch it.” Harty says a common misconception of his job is he is a “Roman emperor for movies,” giving them a thumbs up or down. “If you know a movie is trying to get a laugh for every scene, that rates higher than whether it got the laugh or not.”ĭetachment, therefore, is a key ingredient for being a successful Netflix tagger. “For comedy it’s about comedic intent rather than if you thought it was funny or not,” Harty said. But 1 to 5 ratings abide by an “A for Effort” ideology.
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