A lawsuit against Facebook's* parent company Meta* and Samasource Kenya, which outsourced content moderation for Meta using African workers, alleges that 144 Facebook content moderators in Kenya developed post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), generalized anxiety disorder (GAD), and major depressive disorder (MDD) from exposure to graphic content, including murders, suicides, and child sexual abuse, said a UK newspaper, citing the head of mental health services at Kenyatta National hospital.
According to the report, the moderators, working in a demanding environment and paid significantly less than their US counterparts, experienced intense trauma leading to alcohol and drug abuse, relationship breakdowns, and fears for their safety.
"The evidence is indisputable: moderating Facebook is dangerous work that inflicts lifelong PTSD on almost everyone who moderates it," head of a UK-based non-profit organization that supported the court case Martha Dark was quoted as saying in the report.
*Meta, Facebook are banned in Russia over extremist activities