We Had to Remove This Post by Hanna Bervoets
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
A quick read, but not a light one.
This novella tells the story of a group of young content moderators working for a Meta-type social media platform called “Hexa”, and how they become human casualties of the work they do to protect the platform’s users from disturbing, violent, or offensive content. The narrator, Kayleigh, describes how the stress (and distress) caused by the job creeps its way into their life off the clock; and at the same time how Kayleigh’s coworkers become desensitized to the horrors of what they see, and how the guidelines between what is acceptable and what isn’t become blurred.
The author points out that, while this is a work of fiction, it’s based on several real accounts of content moderators (with a references section, if you really want to read them). That, for me, was the most disturbing part.
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