‘It scars you for life’: Workers sue Meta claiming viewing brutal videos caused psychological trauma::More than 20% of the staff Meta hired to check the violent content of Facebook and Instagram are on sick leave due to psychological trauma.

  • dreadedsemi@lemmy.world
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    11 months ago

    Couldn’t they hire from watchpeopledie or nothingtoxic or ebaum. Those users probably would do overtime for free.

  • kayrae_42@lemmy.world
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    11 months ago

    Secondary trauma is very real. I’ve done freelance work around focus groups for some traumatic things and the person I worked with on it made sure that I had proper support for it. That I took time to process the disturbing things. I don’t understand why when they obviously found a video that violated guidelines that they had to watch the entire thing if they weren’t going to give them proper psychological supports or processing time.

    Jobs that involve this type of imagery are traumatic and should be treated as such. Extra vacation time, proper psychological support not just “your doing import work” but actual trauma processing work. But when has a large company like Meta cared about its employees?

    • SoleInvictus@lemmy.world
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      11 months ago

      But when has a large company like Meta cared about its employees?

      You pretty much nailed it. A company like Meta would never fail to maximize their profit, even if the result is detrimental to employees and/or users. Facebook is demonstrably detrimental to society in general, yet they don’t care - gotta profit more and more for the stockholders, consequences be damned.

  • ijeff@lemdro.id
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    11 months ago

    I’ve heard this is also the case for civilians and officers working for police departments who are responsible for handling evidence related to child abuse. Takes a lot of psychological support, which I’m not sure can ever be enough.

    • The Snark Urge@lemmy.world
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      11 months ago

      Not every job is something humans are cut out for. This is a job AI should be taking off our plates.

        • The Snark Urge@lemmy.world
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          11 months ago

          That’s the beauty of it. Each new instance of the AI has no prior memories, so the sorry devil gets to relive its first day on the job forever.

        • webghost0101@sopuli.xyz
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          11 months ago

          We get an dedicated ai to monitor the wellbeing of the first ai. The moment it does something unexpected we pull the plug.

          Though we dont know what effect that may have on ai 2 so we should probably get a third ai to…

    • gregorum@lemm.ee
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      11 months ago

      Many places like that have protocols for how long your shifts can be and how long you can do it, with constant psych support while you do it in order to reduce and mitigate the impact of the material. Meta may have been pushing their workers too hard and cutting corners.

  • AutoTL;DR@lemmings.worldB
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    11 months ago

    This is the best summary I could come up with:


    More than 20% of the staff Meta hired to check the violent content of Facebook and Instagram are on sick leave due to psychological trauma.

    More than 20% of the staff of CCC Barcelona Digital Services - owned by Telsus, the company that Meta hired to check the content of Facebook and Instagram, are on sick leave due to psychological trauma.

    The images posted on the social networks they were supposed to check showed the worst of humanity: videos of murders, dismemberments, rapes and live suicides.

    He sticks a knife in its chest, rips out its heart and eats it," Francesc Feliu, lawyer for more than a dozen workers who decided to sue the company, told Euronews.

    The psychologist would listen to them and then tell them that what they were doing was extremely important for society, that they had to imagine that what they were seeing was not real but a film, and that they should go back to work," says the Spanish lawyer.

    Both lawyers agree that Meta’s policy of forcing employees to watch the entire video in order to explain all the reasons for censorship aggravates the trauma.


    The original article contains 986 words, the summary contains 191 words. Saved 81%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!

  • wildcardology@lemmy.world
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    11 months ago

    Should there be a disclaimer before hiring? I mean don’t apply for the job if it’s going to bother you. I sure hope they were not forced by the boss to suck it up.

    I admit I’m a bit desensitized to gore but I don’t know if I can handle truly brutal videos.

    • braxy29@lemmy.world
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      11 months ago

      probably there is a disclaimer of some sort, and people think they can handle it. but also, even people who worry they can’t may be desperate for a job.

      i work with people who have experienced terrible things, but it’s a little easier to manage because i am hearing about it (only to the extent that people want to talk) and not seeing it, so i get a little psychological distance. my environment is very supportive and i’m hearing things sometimes, not watching it hundreds of times in a day. even then, people in my role are at decent risk of burnout.

      like, you never know when you’re going to hear a thing that just gets to you.

      doing what these mods do for hours and hours a week without support seems like a recipe for secondary trauma and burnout. edit - and yes, i’m pretty sure their environment amounts to “suck it up and keep going.”

      • wildcardology@lemmy.world
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        11 months ago

        I guess it’s the same when joining the military, no amount of video games or war movies will prepare you for the horrors of war.