Ken Urban
To keep violent and disturbing content off their platforms, social media companies need humans to decide what stays and what goes. But what does what they see do to the watchers? On Monday, April 11 the 2022 EST/Sloan First Light Festival hosts the first public reading of THE MODERATE, the extensively researched and chilling new play by Ken Urban about the daily life of a social media content moderator and how what he sees and the decisions he makes affects his mental health, his family life, and his friendships. But let’s have the playwright tell us more.
(Interview by Rich Kelley)
How did THE MODERATE come to be?
I had been thinking about internet content moderators as an interesting story for a new play after reading Behind the Screen: Content Moderation in the Shadows of Social Media by Sarah T. Roberts and seeing the documentary The Cleaners. As the story of Frank started to come into focus, I applied for the EST/Sloan Project commission in 2020 and then in the midst of all the devastation, I got the good news that I got the commission, so I could immerse myself in writing something new and stop doomscrolling.
What kind of research did you do in order to write THE MODERATE? Did you interview any content moderators?
Sarah T. Roberts in her interview with Ken
I spent 2020 interviewing scholars of internet culture like Sarah, Andrew Marantz and Mary L. Gray, and from there I was able to get into touch with people working as moderators. All these interviews took place on Zoom or the phone, but I was able to get moderators to open up to me in surprising ways. All of that influenced the writing of my play. But there were things that were so upsetting that I really grappled with what to include. Ultimately, the play is fictional, but draws from those interviews.
Your play concerns the impact moderating content on an unnamed social media platform has on your main character, Frank. Your stage directions have the audience seeing descriptions of what he sees without actually showing what he sees. Will the audience hear what he sees? Did you ever consider actually showing what he sees?
The audience will hear what Frank hears, but never see what he sees. How that will work in production is something director Steve Cosson and I will explore in our next stage of development. You might read or hear a description of the content, or see a blurred out version of it, but never ever see the actual thing. I don’t think that would be ethical for an audience given some of the material in the play.
What do you think the responsibilities of a company should be for the people who do content moderation for them? Is there a way to do it differently?
This work is not going to go away. There will never be an AI intelligent enough to take the place of moderators. And as one of my interviewees told me, looking at naked pics or consensual porn isn’t necessarily a terrible way to earn a living. But many of these workers see things that would traumatize any of us. What they do is hard work, and they should be compensated fairly. They should have a union like EMS workers. They should have job stability and resources for when this work takes a toll, like access to free therapy, and never be penalized for taking mental health breaks when they are needed.
How active are you on social media? Which platforms?
I wish I could quit it, but I can’t. I don’t use Facebook anymore, but I use Instagram, so it’s not exactly like I’m taking any big stand against the Metaverse.
You went to Bucknell to study chemical engineering but left with a degree in English and a playwriting habit. You are currently Senior Lecturer and Head of Dramatic Writing in the Music and Theatre Arts Program at MIT. So you seem to have succeeded in bringing together what C. P. Snow called the “Two Cultures” – science and the humanities. Or you at least are engaged in straddling them. How is it going? And what are the most important things each culture needs to know about the other?
Teaching at MIT has been a real joy and I love the intellectual curiosity of my students. Compared to some places I’ve taught, I like how grounded the culture at MIT is. Lately, I keep thinking about how these “two cultures” possess such different ideas about what constitutes data. I tease my students that my feelings are my data. I’m only partially kidding.
You have developed plays at a number of other theaters around the country. How is the EST/Sloan play development process different?
I was fortunate that when I got the EST/Sloan Commission that Steve Cosson, who is the Artistic Director of The Civilians, put me in his company’s R&D Group so I could have deadlines and have help finishing the first draft of the play. This reading is really my first interaction with EST, other than some notes from Linsay Firman and Graeme Gillis. Like every playwright in my position, I am hoping they are intrigued enough by the play that they keep asking me back to work on the play.
In addition to being a playwright, you are a musician, the electronics wizard in Occurrence, a trio with four albums that Atwood Magazine has described as “a formidable electro-space post-punk beast.” So how has your music-making influence your playwriting – and vice versa.
Occurrence. From left, Cat Hollyer, Ken Urban, Johnny Hager.
I really care about how things sound, and that’s true when I am writing songs with my band or when I am writing plays or films. I hear a play before I see it on stage. I make playlists of music to listen to when writing, songs that gets me in the mood. I don’t typically listen to my own music though when I’m writing, because I start making mental notes about the music, listening too intently to pay attention to writing. I haven’t written a musical but we might be making a dance theater piece out of my band’s next album. I also have an insane idea for a vaporwave musical set in an abandoned mall. I’m sure it’s a horrible idea so of course, it is insanely attractive to me.
What’s next for Ken Urban?
At the end of the month, I’m going to Flint Rep to work on a new play about a throuple called Danger and Opportunity. Big news is coming about a narrative podcast that I wrote called Vapor Trail, but I can’t share that yet sadly. I have a commission that I need to finish this summer from Kane Rep; that play is set in the 1990s and follows two college students and how the decision by one of them to have an abortion impacts their friendship. There are discussions about doing workshops of The Moderate and this new neurotechnology play The Conquered coming up next season potentially. I finished a new screenplay and the band just finished a new double album. I always feel like I’m not doing enough, but answering this question made me realize I guess I am working.
The 2022 EST/Sloan First Light Festival runs from April 7 through May 24 and features in-person readings of five new plays. Most of the readings are open to the public for free but reservations are required. You can learn more about our current Covid policies and protocols here. The festival is made possible through the alliance between The Ensemble Studio Theatre and The Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, now in its twenty-fourth year.
