We Had To Remove This Post

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

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.

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!

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.

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.

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****

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.

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.

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.

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!

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.

Thank you to the publisher, net galley & the author for this arc. this was a wildly unique book and I haven’t read anything like this before, I really enjoyed the plot and was a short but snappy read

What a stunning novella! I was relieved to find it didn't lean heavily on shock value, or detailing too much of the content of the posts these moderators are having to see each and every day. I think anyone that spends time on the internet can imagine, but for people who's job isn't to look at this stuff at least you can just report and click away from it. But this shows the mental toll, and rough working conditions for those who then have to look through all the horrible stuff. It's thought provoking and intelligent, a well crafted narrative with characters that could be any of us. A truly worthwhile read.

To be a content moderator is to see humanity at its worst - but Kayleigh needs money.

It’s Ironic really, as I'm posting this review on social media, but for the most part I don’t like social media.
We can all agree that it has brought lots of good things into our lives and helped us make new friends, but also there is a solid toxic and scary part to it that looms over everything.

Now imagine that we only see a snippet of that. There are people who’s entire job is take in ALL OF IT. The content moderators who are the first line of defence when this stuff tries to hit the internet. Day in day out they watch the worst humanity has to offer and filter as appropriate. This book is a peek into the toll that must take on a person.

I will begin by saying my biggest gripe about this novella is that there isn’t more of it. I would have liked more to work with and I think it would have allowed for a much fuller story.

That being said, what we do have is fantastic. It’s well written and while bleak and uncomfortable at times, it doesn’t just use the shock factor element to hit you over the head with terrible things. Oh they are there, but they are the punctuation to the narrative of the story. Sprinkled uses to convey the weight as opposed to needless torture porn.

This is a sad book, but it’s a realistic book. I found myself for the first time thinking about the people who do this job and how damaging it must be.

I have ordered a copy of this short, impactful novel for my college library. The effects of disinformation and disturbing content on internet users are becoming harder to ignore, especially post-Covid, and this novel helps to humanise the dehumanised- extremists who hold views that no sane person would entertain. The fact the narrator is unreliable (and unlikeable!) did little to lessen the horror I felt as they felt victim to addiction, toxic friendships, abusive relationships and unsafe working conditions. The stark prose and minimal setting emphasise the feeling that 1. this is happening everywhere and 2. this can happen anywhere.

Content moderation is the job we all know is done by somebody but can never imagine doing ourselves, forced as we would be to wade through the worst dregs of social media. One such person, Kayleigh, finds her life changed, for good and bad, in Hanna Bervoets’ shocking and surprising book “We Had To Remove This Post”.
This is a short book but it is incredibly pacy, powerful and prescient, with an unexpected twist ending. Kayleigh is a strong, believable protagonist who gradually becomes more and more affected by the things she sees. The supporting characters are all distinct and solid, and Bervoets writes lucidly and concisely throughout.
Bervoets breathes life into a world that will be all too recognisable to anyone who frequents social media. “We Had To Remove This Post” is the book that the world doesn’t necessarily need, but must have, right now.

Really enjoyed this novella about Kayleigh and her job in the grimy world of content moderation. After a relationship leaves her needing more money, Kayleigh takes a job moderating posts that are flagged as offensive. The poor work conditions and the way they become desensitised to the content begins to have a damaging effect on Kayleigh and her relationship. A short, immersive read that leaves you with questions about the detrimental impact of the internet.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publishers for this advanced copy.

This is the book Things Have Gotten Worse Since We Last Spoke wishes it was. It's messed up and done so well, the shock just kept coming and coming. So creepy - definitely check trigger warnings! thanks for the ARC!

We had to remove this post // Hanna Bervoets // trans. from Dutch by Emma Rault

A decisive look behind the curtain at the toxicity of internet communities. Hannah Bervoet manages to incite the anxiety of doomscrolling through a feverish story of moderation.

We had to remove this post straddles reality and a very near future, it is set at a non de script office building where bus loads of shift workers clock in to witness the horror of unchecked social media, doing the leg work for big tech that has yet to automate the process to decipher what a human can both create and tolerate.

An almost deceptively on trend premise that could easily fallen prey to gimmick, however Bervoet captures the humanity behind the screens and gives us much more than a tech horror story.

It attempts to understand the psychological impact of the underbelly of the internet, the very real trauma acquired in toxic work environment. It is an analogy for the current condition of labour; what we sacrifice of ourselves to pay the bills .

A controversial ending that I wished pushed a little further but still, a lot to digest in under 200 pages.

This is a great book, and well translated. The narrator works in content moderation for a social media firm and spends her day deciding whether content should be taken down or not. There is a team of people inducted at the same time and we learn a little about a few of these as well. It is a novella, so could easily have had more story about each of the characters. It definitely makes you think about the work these people do, and I suspect we’ll read more books in this setting in future. The novella brings you at a fast pace through the end, but have to admit to being a little disappointed in the ending - I couldn’t quite understand what the ending was or means. Also don’t get the impact of the video. I understand this is the authors first book translated into English. It’s a great introduction to the author of whom I’d like to read more.

A unique and very well done book that I loved and will be recommending further - I will also definitely be reading more from Hanna Bervoets!

As someone with experience working in social media management, this was a little close to the bone at times! The protagonist works moderating social media for a tech giant (loosely disguised Facebook/Meta, I think) and We Had To Remove This Post explores the ethics and impact of such a job. Though I did not moderate the worst the internet has to offer, the insight into the feelings associated with moderating content for a living felt spot on to me. It's a really interesting and unique novel and I would definitely recommend it.

This book was definitely a winner for me, thoroughly enjoyed it and would recommend to all. Thank you to Netgalley, the author and publisher for providing me the opportunity to read this book in exchange for an honest review.

Thank you NetGalley and Picador for the e-arc! “We Had To Remove This Post” comes out May 26th, 2022.

“We Had To Remove This Post” by Hanna Bervoets (transl. Emma Rault) is a novella about Kayleigh, a woman who works as a content moderator for a major social media site. Her job is to watch content flagged as inappropriate, spam, or abusive, and to decide whether it should be removed. “We Had To Remove This Post” awakens in the reader a morbid curiosity to see more of the shocking content the character sees, in a clever way mirroring the way social media algorithms work.

The best thing about this book is its exploration of how this job impacts Kayleigh, her relationship with her girlfriend, and her co-workers - how one of them begins to believe the conspiracy theories he has to interact with every day, how hypervigilant they are because of the trauma of their jobs. I found this insanely well-done and love the way Bervoets explores the impact such straining jobs can have on the workers’ personal life.

I also really loved how this novella forces you to reconnect in your mind the process through which you access social media to the labour that allows that access - often underpaid, traumatising, and conducted under extremely poor conditions.

My one complaint about this book is that it felt too short to fully explore its themes - I especially would have liked to see more on the conspiracy theory radicalisation of Kayleigh’s co-workers. Most importantly, I would have liked the ending to be less abrupt - the last few pages make the book feel really unfinished.

If you’re compelled by the idea of a sobering, fast-paced look at social media and the labour behind it, I highly recommend you pick up “We Had To Remove This Post”! some of the scenes in it are quite graphic, so do check out content warnings before reading.

I've been hearing about this book for a while and it's been on my tbr so when I saw this on netgalley I knew I had to request it. Definitely a book I would recommend. I loved the story and how it led. Thank you so much

I am sure we have all reported something on social media that hasn't been removed for breaking guidelines and thought - why the hell not?! This book takes you on a disturbing tour of what life as an internet moderator is really like.

I have to be honest - it isn't something I really thought about. That a real person has to sit there and look through all this awful content of which I am sure everyone who is on social media has come across at one time or another. But there are people out there who for them, this is how they pay their bills. And the rules are actually shockingly strict.

This is a short book that packs a dark punch. What happens to Kayleigh and her colleagues as they are exposed to more and more of this brutal content is deeply disturbing and you have to wonder how anyone can keep doing the job for long. The ending was sudden but unexpected and leaves you with a lot to think about. I can't say I enjoyed the book as that seems strange but it was an insightful, haunting and timely read for sure.

This book follows the narrator, Kayleigh, who is a moderator of internet content, so as I’m sure you could assume, there is some graphic descriptions throughout the story and I would tell anyone to look up content warnings before picking this up.
That being said though, I enjoyed this a lot more than I expected to. Kayleigh feels like a comforting presence at the start, levelheaded but realistic about the graphic nature of the things she is about to recount for us. She is ready to guide us through it, but there will be no sugarcoating. However, as the story progresses, you can see just how Kayleigh’s job is affecting her and those around her.
The only two gripes I had with this book were the ending and the depth. The ending felt abrupt, and whilst I didn’t like that, it felt like an appropriate conclusion to what really is only a brief glimpse into Kayleigh’s life, leaving you with room to give further thought to the characters and events once the story is over. In terms of depth, the side characters didn’t feel particularly fleshed out. If the book was longer - a novel rather than a novella - there would have been more space to explore these other people, but ultimately this story is about Kayleigh and the things she experienced, and the book did brilliantly at making that work.

Overall, this story is a fascinating study into how the things we are exposed to online and the things we become accustomed to seeing can affect us in more ways than we realise. A short but thought provoking read, this is one of the very few books I could see myself picking up and re-reading and I would highly recommend it to anyone who is comfortable with descriptions of the darker sort of stuff that is available is online.

This was a really shocking and real look at social media and what goes.on. its a terryfing read but you have to read this. Brilliant and not like any other book I've read xx

I really enjoyed this novella. It's a short book but covers a relatively deep topic in current discourse. Content moderators are needed more and more as our lives spill onto social media, and they're a group of people that I haven't read anything about. This book planted a few really interesting seeds and then gave the reader space for us to come up with our own ideas about what happened. I loved the narrator, I felt like I connected with her, and then things switched - a reflection of what I imagine happens when content moderators realise they have become de-sensitised to the horrendous content they watch day-in, day-out. I would love to read more on this topic, and I'm looking forward to seeing what the author writes next.

‘We had to remove this post’ has been on my tbr for a while and it did not disappoint! It was a short read, however I believe it was the perfect length, as it being any longer would have spoiled it!
The task of content moderation is a highly debated topic, content needs to be moderated - but what about those who sacrifice themselves to such brutal content in order to protect the wider public online?
It was interesting to watch it the gradual decline into radicalisation by the employees after their exposure to conspiracy theory material, leading them to be unable to separate online hate speech from real life.

Thank you to Netgalley for the arc!

I really liked this compelling novella about a group of content moderators and the perils of looking, looking, looking at the things people will post online. Reading this felt like doomscrolling Twitter: everything is familiar and inevitable and terrible and yet you can't look away. I wish the ending wasn't so abrupt, but it felt in keeping with the jolting, uncomfortable sensation of the entire reading experience. I thought this was very good!

Thank you to NetGalley and PanMacmillan for this advance copy in exchange for an honest review.

It's a bit ironic to say I enjoyed this whenever it's about such dark content (please check TW in this one!), but I did! As someone who spends a lot of time on social media, it was chilling to read. A fantastic look into the psyche of people spending such a large amount of time on darker areas of social media (as Kayleigh does). Gripping but dark!

An unsettling, page-turning, weird little novel following a group of colleagues who work as social media content reviewers - seeing the worst of the worst.

Honestly I'd recommend going in blind to this, its very horrible and compelling - but obviously it has CWs out the wazoo.

Would def recommend it if weird n unsettling n just kinda grim is your thing.

Big big big thanks to netgalley, Pan Macmillan, and the author for this e-ARC. Available on the 26-5-22.

A dark, intriguing little novel about the disturbing side of social media we often don’t even think about. In this we follow Kayleigh as she tells her story of her time working Hexa, a company that hires employees to moderate posts for a social media platform. She is sent hundreds of flagged posts a day and has to decide if and why they should be taken down.

The story is a lot to do with plot in the surface: Kayleigh’s job, her friends, her relationship. But it is really about how this affects her psychologically and permeates each part of her life.

Genuinely one of the most interesting and engrossing books I have read recently. Thank you to NetGalley, Pan Macmillan and Hanna Bervoets for allowing me to read an e-arc.

We Had to remove this post is my first 5 star read of the year - I keep thinking about it! Written in the form of a letter to a lawyer that is prosecuting her former employer, Kayleigh is an ex content moderator for an unnamed social media platform. Daily Kayleigh and her colleagues see the worst of humanity and this sharp novella explores the effects of seeing this kind of content. I loved the way the story unfolded and seeing our main character join the dots in real time. I was absolutely hooked from start to finish, reading this in one sitting. Thanks so much Pan Macmillan for sending me an early copy to review - it publishes on 26th May in the UK.

I picked this up one morning and literally couldn't stop reading - and when I wasn't reading it, I was thinking about it. The story follows Kayleigh, who works in content moderation, and the difficulties that abound with that line of work. I work in social media generally - though mercifully not content moderation - and so much of my own experiences online were refracted back to me through this novel; it's a horror-mirror of my own work, and it is impossible to overstate how compelling I found it.
Kayleigh works for Hexa, who employ people to moderate content on definitely-not-Facebook. The novel is told in flashback, in the form of a letter - Kayleigh is refusing to become involved in a lawsuit against Hexa, for her own mysterious reasons.
What follows is a thrill-ride through the ghastly world of the dark heart of the internet - kids injure themselves, men injure animals, terrorism videos abound. Kayleigh and her fellow employees lives begin to bend and twist around the work, and the consequences begin to mount up.
As you can probably tell, I adored this book. It's so dark, a must-read for anyone who spends too much time online, but it never tips into a cautionary or lecture-y tale. Kayleigh is mysterious, compelling and very cool, and spending time with her is a pleasure despite the grim circumstances.
Bervoets has created a masterful indictment of our lives online, of late-stage capitalism (the number of characters who "need this job" despite the toll on their mental health is serious) and the power and influence of these social media mega-companies. A hard read, but it's short, brutal and unputdownable.

A short yet mighty exploration of the dark side of the internet, of social media and of humanity itself.

We Had To Remove This Post by Hanna Bervoets (and translated by Emma Rault) is told from protagonist Kayleigh’s perspective as she explains her previous job to a lawyer who is representing some of her former colleagues. The job was for a social media platform reviewing content users had reported as offensive.

Content warning here! Whilst nothing is graphically described (usually only a brief sentence is used to say what the content is) I still found some of the content quite disturbing. Mentions of violence, abuse, animal cruelty, suicide and self harm.

What makes this narrative even more affecting is the way Kayleigh and her colleagues are trained to filter the offensive content. It is mostly based on finding loopholes in the law, rather than showing any empathy or humanity to those at the centre of the offensive content.

Kayleigh and her co workers are bombarded with this content day after day, and with targets to hit they skip breaks and stay late, all the time having the darkest depths of the internet forced into their minds.

Bervoets explores the toll this constant exposure to life’s cruelties can have on people, with shifting morals and changing behaviours.

Despite being a chilling and disturbing read, I found this book both fascinating and addictive. It raises interesting questions about right and wrong, who gets to decide what those things are, and who controls what we can see online. Do those who curate online content determine our world view? What if the ones who are meant to protect us lose their way?

Despite its dark subjext matter, there are tender moments within. I also liked the diverse cast of characters that didn’t seem at all tokenistic. LGBT+ characters are the norm instead of a novelty; Kayleigh is a lesbian and has girlfriends, yet no ‘big deal’ is made of it.

It is shocking, memorable and powerful. Being 144 pages works in its favour; not a single page is wasted, yet it is subtle in its delivery. The gentle unraveling of the protagonist is done with such care that the compelling finale had me stunned.

This one will stay with me a long time.

Kayleigh needs money and takes a job as a content moderator for a social media company, reviewing offensive and disturbing content to decide what needs to be taken down. This book looks at how this effects Kayleigh and her colleagues in their everyday life as well as at work.

This is a short but very clever little book looking at the effects on the internet and social media age on our lives. It explores the idea that our content online is curated but who is going to moderate us in real life through Kayleigh and her colleagues. When her colleagues start believing in conspiracy theories Kayleigh is forced to confront whether they always believed this or whether they have been affected by the content they are there to moderate.

I thought that Kayleigh and her colleagues struggles with drugs, alcohol and mental health was really well written and explored as a reaction to what they were dealing with at work. It is portrayed as a highly stressful job and not just due to the content they are expected to view.

I really enjoyed this. It was a sharp little book full of fantastic writing and smart observations about the online world.

AD - This copy was provided by the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review

Well, this was a blistering, disturbing read, not for the faint-hearted.

We Had to Remove This Post is a novella about a group of content moderators for an unnamed tech company (I took it to be Facebook), and the fallout when they begin to suffer the consequences of the psychological warfare they are unrelentingly exposed to as part of their job.

Kayleigh takes up a job as a content moderator and soon strikes up a kinship with her cohort of workers, finding comfort in each other amidst the horrors of their job, and even finding love. But what happens when some of the group begin to go down the very rabbit-holes they are there to moderate?

Hannah Bervoets is an acclaimed, bestselling Dutch author and this is her first book translated into English. It’s a seamless, clever translation by Emma Rault, with many quoteable sentences. Here’s just one that stood out:

“ 'That video reminded me of something'. 'Of what, baby?' I said it reluctantly. Asking that question was like closing your eyes and running into a field full of dogshit, because what was she going to say?"

A gripping read that is thought-provoking, horrifying, and will leave you wanting to abandon social media and live off the fat of the land! It hit me right between the eyes. 4/5

This was a pretty disturbing, yet enjoyable read.

The book follows Kayleigh, a former content moderator for a big social media platform, and shows us how what must be an extremely difficult job, impacts her and her colleagues mental wellbeing. This is written as a letter to the lawyer who is representing her former colleagues as she takes him through the fallout that affected their lives.

Being mainly focused on the trauma inflicted on the characters, it was hard to get through some chapters, with me grimacing quite a few times. With social media being so prevalent in our everyday lives, it is easy to become desensitised to certain things online that we stumble across. Knowing that this book was inspired by true stories and real people's jobs makes it all the more shocking as you continue reading.

It has left me with a lot of curiosity and questions about social media, the internet and how it impact its users (and workers) and the ending of the book is filled with source material and articles for a bit of extra reading.

There are trigger warnings for pretty much everything but I would still recommend this as a very eye-opening and thought provoking read.

This is a short book when you look at it but it really packs a hefty punch, its hardhitting and graphic in its content.

'We had to remove this post' is an insight into a seedy corner of the world that I'd never even thought about before, the people who are responsible for moderating the content on an unnamed huge social media platform (I know which one I was assuming it related to though!)

The content moderators quickly become immune to the horrors that they see, seeing them instead as tasks to be assessed and categorised as 'needing to be removed' or 'able to stay on'; the lists of categories and subcategories is shocking and a terrible indictment of what people will post and consume. The moderators have high targets to achieve, aiming to view and categorise 500+ per shift. Can you imagine what they would have to look at day after day, and the impact this would have on anyone?

The story is told through the medium of an interview to a lawyer preparing for a class action suit against the social media company; our narrator says that they will share their story but with conditions attached. Its also the story of our narrator's relationship with her girlfriend Sigrid and how the horrors of their job affects both of them

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for the chance to read it

This is such a chilling book, which is so intelligently written and piercingly sharp in its concise form. What is most sobering is not so much the references to shocking internet content, although readers should heed trigger warnings for this book, but what it says about the insidious effects of social media on humanity. This books says so many profound things, asking questions about truth, perspective and human connection. This is a thought-provoking read that will stay with me.
With thanks to NetGalley and PanMacmillan for this digital ARC in exchange for this honest review.

A witty and sharp tale about modernity with a refreshingly unique take.

Delving into the chilling world of content moderation and the sheer flexibility our morals when have when put under too much pressure, this is definitely one to make you step back from the screen and look around you.