Online Image Annotation Jobs (NOW HIRING)

Research Annotator

AddressHate · Part-time · US-based (Eastern Time preferred; NYC-based ideal)

About AddressHate

Hate speech online is growing faster than any organization can track by hand. AddressHate is building the tools to change that.

We are a public interest technology company at the intersection of research, AI, and policy. We build detection infrastructure and intelligence tools that help platforms, policymakers, educators, civil society organizations, and real people understand and counter digital hate in real time.

There is no good solution in the for-profit world for this problem, so we are building it. Our mission and the business are the same thing: the better we get at detecting hate, the more valuable our tools become to the world.

The Opportunity

AddressHate is hiring Research Annotators to support our core mission: building detection infrastructure that identifies how hate circulates, adapts, and normalizes in digital environments. This is a direct hire position with AddressHate. All work product — including annotated datasets, analytical memos, and contributions to coding schemes — is owned by AddressHate.

We're looking for annotators with high sensitivity to the layered, implicit, and multimodal forms hate takes online — particularly where meaning is carried through irony, coding, visual reference, intertextual play, and shifting register across platforms. Rather than mechanical tagging, the position requires theory-informed interpretive work that feeds directly into AddressHate's annotation pipeline and classifier development.

Our work demonstrates that a large portion of hate content in mainstream digital spaces operates through implicit, coded, or multimodal forms — spread through irony, political framing, and shared references that are largely undetectable by automated systems. Understanding this requires human expertise grounded in linguistics, multimodal analysis, and discourse studies.

The role is US-based (Eastern Time preferred; NYC-based ideal) and reports into AddressHate's research and technology teams.

Core Responsibilities

• Conduct continuous, systematic annotation of social media content across platforms including TikTok, X, Instagram, and Reddit
• Analyze textual, visual, and multimodal content, including memes, image–text combinations, and visual rhetoric
• Identify implicit meanings, indirect references, metaphors, narrative frames, and visual-symbolic cues
• Identify shared rhetorical and discursive mechanisms across hate domains — including dehumanization, conspiracy narratives, victim–perpetrator reversal, moral inversion, and normalization strategies
• Analyze intersecting and overlapping hate discourses, including cases where antisemitism, misogyny, and racism co-occur or mutually reinforce one another
• Distinguish between legitimate political expression and harmful discourse, with close attention to context, pragmatics, and discursive positioning
• Participate in regular team meetings and inter-annotator calibration sessions
• Contribute to the iterative refinement of AddressHate's coding schemes, category definitions, and annotation guidelines
• Work closely with AddressHate's data science team, translating qualitative insights into structured input for computational analysis
• Produce analytical memos and structured documentation that make interpretive decisions transparent and reproducible

What We're Looking For

• MA or PhD student (or completed degree) in Linguistics, Discourse Studies, Semiotics, Visual Studies, Media Studies, Hate Studies, History, Political Science, or related field. Candidates with a background in linguistics and multimodal/visual analysis are particularly valued.
• Demonstrated experience with qualitative content analysis, discourse-analytical methods, and mixed methods research
• High awareness of the different layers of hate speech and digital hate — including implicit, coded, ambiguous, and context-dependent forms in both text and imagery
• Native or near-native English proficiency with strong language sensitivity
• Fluency with contemporary social media platforms, particularly TikTok, X, Instagram, and Reddit
• Openness and resilience to engage with hate speech content, including antisemitism, different forms of racism, and misogyny
• High motivation and capacity for autonomous work. The role involves sustained, continuous engagement with difficult online content. Strong candidates structure their time independently and maintain rigor and momentum across long annotation cycles.
• Curiosity and flexibility. AddressHate's annotation work is a collaborative environment where coding schemes evolve, new platforms enter the pipeline, and analytical questions sharpen over time.

Strongly Preferred

• Research experience across more than one hate ideology — antisemitism, misogyny and gender-based hate, anti-Black racism, anti-Asian racism, or intersectional hate research. We particularly value candidates who can think comparatively across domains rather than specialists in only one.
• Experience with multimodal analysis (memes, visual rhetoric, image–text relations)
• Experience with MAXQDA or comparable qualitative analysis software
• Strong written documentation skills
• Based in or near New York City

Why Now

By the time hate's effects are visible in the world, the discourse that produced it has long since moved on. AddressHate is building the infrastructure to see it as it happens — and to understand what it means. The analytical tools we develop inform education, policy, and platform governance. This role sits at the center of that work.

Terms

20–30 hours per week · $25 USD per hour · Hired directly by AddressHate

To Apply

Send your CV, a short statement of interest, and one writing sample (academic or analytical) to careers@addresshate.org