On 19 January, 2024, news reports revealed that the mental well-being of a former content moderator, who had the job of reviewing disturbing material for Facebook, was seriously impacted. The content the employee had to check included beheadings.
In a positive turn, the Spanish Court supported the employee, and the Barcelona Court also agreed with the decision. The court acknowledged that the mental health of the worker was indeed affected due to their work that involved dealing with the graphic content. The court, therefore, ruled that the said worker should be given extra pay for the sick leave availed.
The said employee worked for a company called CCC Barcelona Digital Services, which supports another firm called Telus International. The latter handles the work of going through and assessing what people post on Meta (formerly known as Facebook).
The affected employee had to go through all sorts of content from 2018 to 2020, and these posts, some of them quite disturning, had an adverse effect on his mental health. The court also agreed that the videos that he had to view were responsible for his condition.
It is hoped that this decision will push other companies to give a thought to the way they are forcing their employees to deal with content on social media.
Meanwhile, Telus has yet to give an official comment though the decision is not likely to have been welcomed. It is pertinent to mention here that this is the first time in Spain that someone has been officially granted time off from work because of work stress.
