Psychological harm experienced by people moderating graphic online content should be considered a work-related injury, a Spanish judge has ruled in a case involving a subcontractor for Facebook parent company Meta.
Lawyers said it was the first time a court had recognized that sick leave taken by a content moderator was the result of his job monitoring disturbing content.
Content moderators examine images, videos and comments posted by users to decide whether to remove them in line with a company’s policy, in this case Meta.
Photo: Reuters
The case, which was first reported by La Vanguardia newspaper, concerns an employee working for CCC Barcelona Digital Services, which monitors disturbing content on Facebook and Instagram. He was identified by the paper as a 26-year-old Brazilian who was still under ongoing psychiatric care.
The ruling, which was released this week, said he monitored extreme content such as self-harm, torture, decapitations by extremist groups and suicide.
Eight months into the job, he called off sick due to psychological side effects, it said, citing medical reports of issues including panic attacks, nightmares, sleep problems and an overwhelming fear of death.
Despite CCC saying that his psychological problems were down to “common illness,” magistrate Jesus Fuentes said that “work-related issues were the sole, exclusive and unquestionable trigger.”
The Spanish Labor and Social Security Inspectorate had already published a damning report in 2022, imposing a fine and sanctions on CCC for its inaction “despite being aware of its workers’ psychological problems due to their work.”
The employee’s lawyer, Francesc Feliu, who also represents about 20 other CCC staff, said that his legal firm had separately filed a criminal complaint “against CCC and Facebook Spain” over the serious infractions cited in the report and the psychological harm sustained.
“The company is trying to avoid liability ... by saying the mental illness suffered by content moderators has no connection with their work, so this ruling is extremely important, because it rejects that argument,” he said.
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