Content moderation companies are responsible for the mental consequences suffered by their employees. Meta’s subcontractor in Barcelona has lost a lawsuit against a former worker who has been under psychiatric treatment for five years as a result of his work reviewing atrocious content on Facebook and Instagram.
The Social Court No. 28 of Barcelona has just ruled in favor of the worker and the National Institute of Social Security (INSS), which ruled that the consequences suffered by P.S., a Brazilian who is now 26 years old, are a work accident. and not a common disease, as CCC Barcelona Digital Services alleged. With offices in the Glòries tower, the company has been providing moderation services to Meta since 2018. CCC was acquired in 2020 by the Canadian group Telus International.
It is the first court ruling in Spain that recognizes that the dismissal of a content moderator is caused by his work, emphasizes lawyer Francesc Feliu, from the law firm Espacio Jurídico Feliu Fins. In addition to P.S., Feliu represents a dozen CCC employees who are also demanding that their illness be recognized as a work-related accident.
Moderators are in charge of reviewing photos, videos and comments that users post on social networks and, based on the company’s policies (in this case Meta), decide whether they should be removed or not. This exposes them to highly sensitive content, and often under great pressure because they must make these decisions quickly and without mistakes.
“The work stressor is the only, exclusive and undoubted trigger” of the disease, concludes in his resolution, dated January 12, magistrate Jesús Fuertes, based on a forceful report from the Work Inspection, which in May 2022 imposed an administrative sanction and a benefit surcharge to Meta’s subcontractor considering that “it did not take any type of measure being aware of the psychological problems of its workers in relation to their work activity.”
. He was an employee of CCC between 2018 and 2020. The resolution, which is appealable, describes the type of work carried out by the young Brazilian, assigned to the “high priority group”, the team in charge of sifting through the wildest content. He had to see “self-mutilations, beheadings of civilians murdered by terrorist groups, torture inflicted on people, suicides,” the sentence states, citing the Labor Inspection report.
He soon had to take sick leave because he began to suffer from psychiatric disorders from which he has no longer been cured.
Reports from the Sant Pere Claver Mental Health Center prove that the young man suffers from “severe anxiety symptoms with panic attacks, avoidance behaviors, isolation at home and hypochondriform ruminations, a feeling of dysphagia, nighttime awakenings and significant thanatophobia.” It is “a highly limiting current psychopathological state, even for daily activities,” the file adds.
The ruling highlights that the scientific literature indicates the “psychosocial risk” generated by exposure to sensitive content, as well as the risk assessments of the content moderator job prepared by the company itself, in February 2019 and December 2020.
In its arguments, the company responded that work was the exclusive cause of the illness (as required by law to consider it a work accident) and argued that there was a “previous preexistence” because the employee went to the psychologist when he was 16 years old, a circumstance that the sentence dismisses.
When he was hired, P.S. He took tests on English and Portuguese or knowledge of Portuguese politics, in addition to a questionnaire with personal questions, but there was no “documentation regarding health surveillance,” according to the resolution.
CCC lawyers also argued that of the 22 work accidents recorded in the company in 2019, none of them were linked to psychosocial damages. However, it is clear from the case of P.S. that any psychiatric pathology that an employee developed was considered a common illness and therefore was not included in the list of workplace accidents.
Last October, P.S. filed a criminal complaint, through criminal proceedings, for damages against the companies Telus and Meta, as the ultimate party responsible.
