Former Facebook Content Moderators Sue for PTSD, Missing Soul Parts, and Surprisingly Few Likes on their Personal Posts
In a headline that echoes the era when people used to blame sepia photos for stealing souls, Kenya’s former Facebook moderators are now launching a legal strike against the soul-crushing digital juggernaut itself. This group of over 140 brave and psychologically bruised individuals, once employed by outsourcing overlord Samasource, have decided they’ve had enough of vetting videos that one might generously describe as “suitable for a dystopian horror flick.”
High on their grievances is a workday mood lifted directly from Dante’s playbook. “Watching the horrid depths of humanity portrayed in a social media platform makes Dostoevsky seem like Dr. Seuss,” reported one ex-moderator who wished to remain anonymous, likely to avoid any friend requests from the snake-loving community they had to moderate content for. “I’d rather eat a box of poisoned cereal with unripe milk than watch someone fornicate with a reptile again,” lamented another.
Among the filed allegations, repeated mentions surface of bestiality, extreme violence, and a medley of what one psychiatrist on the case calls “the sort of video content that would surprisingly make a tax audit feel like a spa day.” The legal documents read like a Lovecraftian horror novel, only with a larger focus on the psychological trauma one experiences from a job description that includes “ensuring the digital parade of terror remains but a muffled whisper.”
“It was like sifting through the internet’s compost bin,” one moderator analogized. “I spent so many hours trying to verify whether a video featuring a vampire octopus and a disco ball massacre was genuine content or some meta-avant-garde film festival entry.”
Samasource, the outsourcing miracle that makes modern capitalism proud, had offered those brave souls what they generously described as “conditions of mild dehydration”. However, after acquiring PTSD typically reserved for war veterans or long-term customer service representatives, it seems only logical these ex-staffers would turn to the law for some sweet, sweet resolution—or at least a block feature on their recurring nightmares.
An insider at Samasource claimed, “We thought letting them listen to Post Malone albums on loop would suffice for mental health care, but apparently, that just made things worse. Who knew?”
As these warriors of the workforce take on their Goliath, Facebook has yet to comment beyond a hurried statement claiming the videos are part of a “pilot program studying high-stress resistance in an unknowing psychological experiment, entirely voluntary, of course.” Meta, Facebook’s parent company, remains too busy exploring metaverses to explain why they thought real horrors were the best way to prepare everyone for a virtual reality utopia.
With this story unraveling, employers everywhere are reminded that, while hiring temps for soul-crushing jobs can seem efficient, souls, much like houseplants and VHS collections, do best with a little tenderness and occasionally looking away.
