An ex-Facebook employee has sued the social media giant for failing to protect moderators who view disturbing content. Exposure to images of child abuse and gruesome killings had caused PTSD, the former staffer said.
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Internet giant Facebook is facing a potential class-action lawsuit in the United States for allegedly failing to protect moderators who have to view disturbing content including beheadings and sexual abuse.
Selena Scola, a former content moderator and contract employee, suffered post-traumatic stress disorder after taking a job at Facebook in June 2017 for a nine-month period, said her law firm, Burns Charest, on Monday.
The lawsuit, filed in a California court on Friday, alleges that she and others were bombarded daily with thousands of "videos, images and livestreamed broadcasts of child sexual abuse, rape, torture, bestiality, beheadings, suicide and murder."
"Facebook is ignoring its duty to provide a safe workplace and instead creating a revolving door of contractors who are irreparably traumatized by what they witnessed on the job," Korey Nelson, Scola's lawyer, said.
"Our client is asking Facebook to set up a medical monitoring fund to provide testing and care to content moderators with PTSD," lawyer Steve Williams added.
In Germany, Facebook has outsourced the work to two companies, CCC (Competence Call Center) in Essen and Arvato in Berlin.
The law firm Burns Charest is seeking class-action status for the lawsuit. Facebook said that it was evaluating the claims and that it took the supporting of its employees extremely seriously.
"I remember the first decapitation video — that's when I went out and cried a little," a 28-year-old employee said. "Now I've gotten used to it so it's not so bad anymore."
Unverified image from a video of a beheading from a social media website Image: Reuters
One of the team leaders also said at the time that employees had to report themselves in order to receive psychological support. "As a team leader, I don't know whether someone needs care or not."
In a forum post from July, the social media giant said that it had a growing team of 7,500 content moderators and four clinical psychologists in three regions who designed "resiliency programs" for those who worked with disturbing content.
It added that all content reviewers, whether full-time employees or contractors, had access to mental health resources.
The companies and people unfriending Facebook
A number of companies have said they are either abandoning Facebook or pressing pause of their use of the social network. But the company said it hasn't seen a meaningful number of people ready to #deletefacebook.
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Playboy
Playboy Enterprises said it is closing its Facebook pages as the scandal surrounding the social network grows. Playboy said the privacy scandal was the final straw after long having had difficulty posting to the site due to Facebook's strict rules to keep nudity off the platform. Some 25 million people interacted with Playboy's Facebook pages.
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SpaceX and Tesla
Elon Musk, the billionaire entrepreneur behind electric car manufacturer Tesla and rocket producer SpaceX, wrote on Twitter he would delete both companies' Facebook accounts. The decision appeared to be spontaneous after Musk wrote he "didn't realize" a Facebook account for SpaceX even existed. The accounts of both companies each had around 2.6 million followers before they were deleted.
Image: Reuters/T. Baur
Mozilla
The company behind popular web browser Firefox said in a statement that it was "pressing pause" on its Facebook advertising. But it said it would not delete its Facebook account. Instead, the company would stop posting regular updates on the account. "When Facebook takes stronger action in how it shares customer data ... we'll consider returning," it said.
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Commerzbank
Commerzbank, one of Germany's largest banks, said it was pausing its Facebook advertising. The head of the company's brand management told German business newspaper "Handelsblatt:" "We're taking a break with our advertising on Facebook. Data protection and maintaining a good brand are important to us." He added that the company would wait and see before it made any further decisions.
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WhatsApp co-founder Brian Acton
The co-founder of messaging service WhatsApp, Brian Acton, wrote in a March 20 post on Twitter: "It is time. #deletefacebook." Acton became a billionaire after selling WhatsApp to Facebook in 2014. He recently invested in a rival messaging app, Signal, after leaving WhatsApp in 2017. Acton had a history with Facebook before 2014. He unsuccessfully interviewed for a job at the company in 2009.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/M. Gerten
Sonos
The US-based speaker manufacturer said it was pulling its advertising from Facebook and other social media platforms, including Facebook-owned Instagram. Sonos said recent revelations "raised questions" about whether Facebook had done enough to safeguard user privacy. But it said it would not completely "abandon" Facebook because it was an "incredibly effective" service.
Image: picture-alliance/AP Photo/Sonos
Dr. Oetker's out then back in
The German food corporation let its Twitter followers vote on whether it should delete its Facebook account. "We'll delete our Facebook page for 1,000 retweets," it wrote in a March 21 post. It was quickly retweeted over 1,000 times, leading the company to deactivate its Facebook page. But it reactivated the account a day later, writing on Twitter that it "couldn't be" without Facebook.
Image: Dr. Oetker
Facebook responds
Asked about the decision of some companies to leave the social network, Facebook said: "Most of the businesses we've spoken with this week are pleased with the steps we've outlined to better protect people's data, and they have confidence that we'll respond to these challenges and become a better partner and company as a result."
