Facebook is facing a potential class-action lawsuit in the United States for allegedly failing to protect moderators who have to view disturbing content including beheadings and sexual abuse.
Former content moderator and contract employee Selena Scola suffered post-traumatic stress disorder after taking on the job at Facebook in June 2017 for a nine-month period, her law firm Burns Charest said Monday.
The lawsuit filed in a California court on Friday alleged that she and others were bombarded daily with thousands of “videos, images and live streamed broadcasts of child sexual abuse, rape, torture, bestiality, beheadings, suicide and murder.”
“Facebook is ignoring its duty to provide a safe workplace and instead of creating a revolving door of contractors who are irreparably traumatized by what they witnessed on the job,” Korey Nelson, Scola’s lawyer, said.
“Our client is asking Facebook to set up a medical monitoring fund to provide testing and care to content moderators with PTSD,” lawyer Steve Williams added.
Burns Charest is seeking class-action status for the lawsuit.
Facebook said Monday it was evaluating the claims and took the supporting of its employees extremely seriously.
In a forum post from July, the social media giant said it had a growing team of 7,500 content moderators and four clinical psychologists in three regions who designed “resiliency programmes” for those who worked with disturbing content.
It also said all content reviewers, whether full-time employees or contractors, had access to mental health resources.
Dpa
