PTSD Claims Brought by Facebook’s ‘Graphic Content’ Reviewers Goes to ADR, Putting Civil Action on Pause
By Tom Hagy Facebook can be great fun. How else would I have seen a video of an eight-year-old drummer-girl utterly thrashing Led Zeppelin’s Good Times Bad Times? Or a dog running away with a lit skyrocket as his human friends run, duck and ditch for their lives? Or what your cat looks like in a tuxedo? Facebook can also be a source of horror. Some of the most distressful commentary and images you wish you could un-see. And that’s just from my family. Imagine your entire job is to monitor Facebook discussions and remove its graphic content. Day in and day out. That’s literally all you did. A group of Facebook employees says that was their job, and their exposure to an “unmitigated barrage of horrifying content” and “toxic images” has caused them to suffer “debilitating trauma-related injuries.” In September 2018 they filed suit in California Superior Court in San Mateo seeking an order requiring Facebook to implement safety guidelines for content moderators which, they say, the company has admitted are “necessary and appropriate.” They also want the company to fund a medical monitoring program for the diagnosis and treatment of psychological injuries including post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD. The plaintiffs quote Chris Harrison, whom they characterize as a Facebook executive in charge of the company’s “global resiliency team” as [...]