We had to remove this post is a Dutch novella about a woman working at a content moderation agency reviewing social media posts with explicit content.

Given it’s topic, this is dark and sometimes grim story (there are a few descriptions which made me feel queasy) and I found it really fascinating to understand the world of the agency and the work they were doing, as well as the rules they were to follow for whether content was allowed or banned.

I didn’t find the plot and the characters quite as engaging though and it felt a bit rushed towards the end, though I did like the ending. I would have liked a bit more from this as the topic was so fascinating.

4 stars

3.5 ⭐ rating (marked as 4)

This was a good short read telling a story of people behind social media. It gives an honest insight into how moderators lives can be effected by this job. However, it didn't necessarily keep me hooked with what was going on which is why I gave it a 3.5 ⭐ but it was still a good read.

As soon as I read the title I had to read this book. I absolutely had no idea what this book was going to be about I hadn't read the blurb and really it didn't matter to me really what it was about at all. I just absolutely had to read it.

Social media is a really interesting subject for me. Something that I'm not personally into. I have one social media platform that I use. I don't spend too much time on it and I only engage in the things that really interest me. But I know how dark and disturbing social media can be. It is damaging and can really be used as a force for bad. It spreads fake information, makes you constantly compare yourselves to others, can make you feel really bad about yourself and can be really damaging to lives.

This book show the dark and dank underside to social media. It highlights it's cruelty, delusions and afflictions. Hanna bervoets really does an amazing job showcasing just how damaging social media can be. A really well written book.

I found the concept of this book really interesting and it’s what initially drew me to the book. Content moderators are a real thing but I’d never read into or given much thought about the actual people doing this job & the effect it must have on them.

I really enjoyed how the book explored the different ways in which people were effected. Rather than focusing on the main characters deterioration, the book subtly touched upon the issues her colleagues begin to experience (PTSD, depression, violent outbursts).

I think what I most enjoyed was the how the book showed certain characters views on the world changing due to the content they were watching. Whilst mental health issues feels like the obvious issue that comes with this job, the idea that moderators could have their real-world views altered because of viewing conspiracy theory content is something I hadn’t really considered.

My only issue with this book was the extremely abrupt ending. I actually found myself googling ‘We had to remove this post ending’ because I was afraid my download had failed!

Overall I really enjoyed this book and would definitely recommend to grab yourself a copy when it comes out on the 26th May 2022 (UK).

We Had To Remove This Post is a novella centred around a group of colleagues who work as content moderators. Before reading this book it wasn't a job I'd given any thought to, and by the time I'd finished I felt engrossed in this line of work and what it means for people.

The style of writing made this a pleasant read. I enjoyed it beginning with a covering letter (or sorts) before the narrative. The ending then left me with more questions than answers!

This novella is a subtle yet fast-paced window into the demands and imapct of exposure to traumatic content, and the different impacts this can have of people. If more of Bervoets' work is translated, I'll be quick to buy!

Absolutely loved this book. I went into it thinking it would follow more of the protagonist's day to day work life, focusing mostly on the gruesome content she sees on a daily basis, but I was pleasantly surprised to find a much more nuanced and thought provoking examination of how this type of work can affect the human psyche. For such a short novel, it really packs a punch! I felt invested in the protagonist's story and particularly in her relationship with Sigrid, although I would have preferred the book to be slightly longer to really delve into their character more, including the wider friendship group!

The ending felt a little lackluster and underwhelming for me-but overall, this book was incredibly thought provoking and forced me to interrogate my own relationships with social media, online and offline realities, 'fake news' /conspiracies and censorship in this current day.

Would recommend, and I'm excited to read more of Hannah Bervoets work!

This is a short snappy read. It is quite unique in its style and I rather enjoyed it. It’s definitely quite reflective of the current times. I especially loved the twist at the end!

A short and quick book that packs a lot of punch. It delves into a world that we as regular people know exist but don't really think about. Kayleigh works as a moderator for an unnamed social media site. It begins with her talking to a lawyer about her training and experience during this job. She talks about this in regards to her relationship with a colleague Sigrid, which is the main focus for her.
This book completely fascinated me. How numb they became to certain things and how warped their minds became when they see something innocent and misconstrue it to be something bad. As well as the slow dissent of Kayleigh's colleagues into their conspiracy theories. It was amazingly gradual how people changed the longer they were working at the job, for a book that is 144 pages that's even more amazing.
I consumed this book in one sitting and I cannot wait to see what else is to come from this author.

“We had to remove this post” depicts the narrators Kayleigh’s life at Hexa, a content moderation company for unnamed social media company.

The novella acts almost as a commentary on modern day social media usage and the damages it can cause. The author, Hanna Bervoets bases the story on real life events and briefly touching upon conspiracy theories that loom on the internet.

The book was overall an engaging read, well translated and flowed well, and as a result I read it in one sitting. However, the ending was a let down and the cliffhanger (I felt) detracted from the overall story.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publishers for an ARC in return for an honest review.

Kayleigh needs to earn more money and so takes a job as content moderator for a social media platform. Kayleigh and her colleagues spend their days watching horror on screen - violence, death, harm, hate and must decide what is allowed to remain online and what needs to be removed. Despite the harrowing job, Kayleigh makes friends with her colleagues who she trained with and falls in love with one of them and her life is brighter. Their job and all they bear witness to starts to take its toll on the group of friends though and they all deal with this in different ways.

I enjoyed this dark, succinct novel , translated flawlessly by Emma Rault. The short blunt sentences and fast pace made it a compelling read. The underbelly of social media is dragged to the surface and its a fascinating if slightly terrifying subject. I thought the book was going in one direction and I was wrong and it keep me enthralled to the end.

I would have liked it to be a little bit longer and to find out more about some of the characters , I wanted to read more. A though provoking read.

3.5-4****

I really enjoyed this book, it was fascinating with a good level of character development, well written narration and a dark and gripping storyline. It was fast paced, unpredictable and I couldnt put it down. I didnt know what was going to happen or what to expect next and I loved it.

Before starting this book, I did not know it was a novella. When I found this out, I was worried whether or not such a complex story could have been told within about 160 pages.

This novel follows a group of young people whose job is to view, evaluate and removed, if necessary, inappropriate content on social media - videos of a sexual, suicidal, racist etc. manner.

However in immersing themselves in such a horrific works, they become susceptible to the very content they are paid to remove in an ever changing landscape of rules.

However, the writer here tackles the issues very well and I think they done a really good job in outlining the impact this must have had on the characters.

A really, impressive book and one which may have benefited from being a bit longer.

Thanks to Netgalley and Pan Macmillan, Picador for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I was interested in We Had To Remove This Post as it reminded me of a film that I recently watched in the sense that the main character had to moderate what people were and were not allowed to see. While this book held a good concept, I'm still not sure how I felt about two things, the bare minimum dialogue, and the very open ending. I sometimes find it hard to focus on a book that has very little dialogue, and I feel that it is important to a story to include conversations between characters, and while this book did have some, it was only ever really when the main character was talking to someone else about her past. I still have no idea who this Mr. Stitic is.

The ending was very abrupt, and I was confused as to how we actually got there, and why we ended there. Does it leave it open for a continuation one day? Or is that it? I'm not sure.

I maybe would have liked more content of what the main character's job was, as that was what attracted me to the book, but overall, it is not a bad piece of work, and I could see myself reading more like it in the future.

(Will update with blog and social posts when they are live)

I loved the premise of this book and was completely gripped by this that I read it in one sitting. The ending was a plot twist I was not expecting, but it was very well executed. I would recommend it.

Kayleigh works for a company that removes explicit content from the internet. There are strict rules about what is unsuitable and people are always keen to hear about the things she has seen. She enters into a relationship with her colleague, Sigrid and this book is mostly about them. It's a novella so just a short read but I found it to be really enjoyable.

3.5 stars

A short, sharp shock, driving home the reality of what those social media moderators must look at on a daily basis.
Then, how it affects them in their own lives.
A proper page turner, with some wince inducing moments.
Quite the thought provoker.

Finished this in one feverish sitting and it exceeded my expectations in the fact it’s a much more complex story with the characters at the centre of it than I expected. We follow the main character who works for a social media firm reviewing online content for the extreme, disturbing content people post including animal abuse, sexual abuse, self harm etc and has to decide which posts to flag and take down. This concept is what originally drew me to this book, but it ends up exploring a lot of other relevant issues in todays world including bad work environments, friendship, love, queer relationships and the use and perhaps overuse of social media and how that effects us and desensitises us over time. My only issue with the book was the kind of abrupt ending, but I kind of feel like it was intentional to make us reflect on the fact that we as readers wanted more and to see a shocking ending, making us reflect on the ways we ourselves have become used to violent media and the voyeuristic ways we want to read more of it. I also ‘enjoyed’ (feels like a weird way to describe this book) the way we slowly see the main character’s mental state and choices go downhill throughout the book as she’s exposed to these violent posts and they kind of skew her way of thinking/behaving. I really hope more of this authors work gets translated into english because I’ll be the first to pick it up!

We Had To Remove This Post is the story of a content moderator and how she came to leave her job, looking into the dark realities of what lives under our social media. The novel opens with Kayleigh explaining to a lawyer that she'll recount what happened when she worked as a content moderator for a social media platform she cannot name, and that's what she does: explains why she needed money, how she trained and became a moderator, made new friends and a girlfriend there, and then how things started to go downhill, with her colleagues' newfound interests in conspiracy theories. The question is, did the content affect Kayleigh too?

This is a short, sharp novel that can easily be read in one sitting, a book that doesn't waste space with extra detail but focuses in on Kayleigh's job and her relationship with Sigrid, building towards her leaving. I assumed it would have a dramatic end to her being a content moderator, but actually it's a little more ambiguous, not quite offering up all the details and ending on a slight cliffhanger. In this way, I felt like it reflected the content Kayleigh moderated: she talks of context, of captions and of not caring about other videos from the same account, not knowing what happens to people after the content is or isn't taken down.

Some people might find the offhand dark and traumatic content—or the conspiracy theories that the workers start to pick up from the content they have to moderate—too much to handle, but the chilling way that this content becomes part of their everyday, their jokes, is an important part of the book. I've read about content moderation and I think this novel sits quite nicely alongside factual accounts (there's a list of further reading at the end) as something that uses shock value a little differently, and really utilises the first person narration to make you think about perspective, just as online content is governed by perspective. The focus isn't really on the content itself most of the time, so if you've read anything about content moderation, nothing in the book is likely to be very shocking, but what hits harder is the reactions of the people behind the moderation.

As someone very interested in internet culture and evaluating the ethics and hidden elements of tech and social media, I knew when I kept hearing about this book that I needed to read it, and I wasn't disappointed by it, as it delivered a sharp jab about the impact and complexities of content moderation whilst using its narrative style and structure to reflect the fast-paced nightmare of said moderation. It doesn't offer answers, or give you the closure that the content moderators also don't get with each post, but instead will make people talk and gives a chilling look at whether exposure to content will make people change.

In my opinion "We Had To Remove This Post" should come with a big fat content warning re: violence, death, self-harm, animal abuse, substance abuse, sexual violence and couple of -isms. Creating a cycle of trauma, in which the readers need to go through the same experiences as the characters in the novella whose storylines were rooted in the experiences actual, real-life people who work(ed) as content moderators for an unnamed social media platform, is not an answer.

Hanna Bervoets' book is inspired by real events and the author explores, with a lot of intricacies, the ways working as a content moderator can inform an individual: from desensitising them to violent imagery to radicalising them to becoming flat-earthers and/or Holocaust-deniers.

The novella is written from the point of view of Kayleigh, who started working as a content moderator out of economic necessity. It is apparent that her previous life also influenced the way she perceives herself, also in the relationship to others. Bervoets stays on-trend, creating a multidimensional protagonist, who is an anti-hero. As readers, we also get a glimpse of how Kayleigh's actions are perceived by others, especially her girlfriend who offers completely different interpretation of their interactions than Kayleigh, causing a lot of doubt regarding protagonist's morality and personality.

It was an interesting read, based on a very current and hot topic that leaves readers with a lot of questions.

This was AMAZING - so dark, so perfectly paced, and such a fascinating exploration of content moderation. Loved it.