This is a landmark court decision. Psychological disorders experienced by content moderators responsible for viewing shocking images must be considered an “occupational illness,” a Spanish judge has ruled in a case involving a subcontractor of Facebook’s parent company, Meta.
According to the lawyers of the employee who initiated this procedure, this is the first time that a Spanish court has recognized that a moderator’s mental health problems are the result of his work monitoring violent content.
Anxiety attacks, nightmares, sleep problems, panic fear…
Revealed by the Catalan daily La Vanguardiathe case concerns a 26-year-old Brazilian who started working in September 2018 for CCC Barcelona Digital Services, a company belonging to Canadian Telus International and responsible for moderating content on Facebook and Instagram.
According to the ruling published this week, its role was to examine extremely violent content, showing cases of torture, beheadings of civilians, self-harm and suicide. This work, which allows the deletion of content (images, videos and comments) when they are deemed not to comply with the platform rules, led to a work stoppage eight months after his hiring, due to serious problems.
The judgment, which cites medical reports, mentions a multitude of problems, such as anxiety attacks, nightmares, sleep problems and panic fear. The young man, according to La Vanguardiais always followed psychologically.
A criminal complaint against CCC and Facebook Spain
The judge found that the functions performed by this employee were “the unique, exclusive and incontestable trigger” of his psychological problems. The magistrate thus followed the analysis of the Spanish labor inspectorate, which published a damning report in May 2022 and imposed a fine on CCC for its inaction “while it was aware of the psychological problems of its workers”.
The employee’s lawyer, Francesc Feliu, who also represents around twenty other CCC employees, specified that he had filed in October, in parallel with this procedure, a criminal complaint “against CCC and Facebook Spain” due to the serious offenses cited in the report and the harm suffered by the employees. “The company is trying to avoid liability […] by claiming that the mental illness suffered by content moderators has nothing to do with their work. This decision is therefore extremely important because it rejects this argument,” he stressed.
The Telus International group, which bought CCC in 2020, said it was “disappointed” by the decision of the Spanish courts and announced its decision to appeal, ensuring that the “well-being” of its employees was its priority. Spanish law “clearly states that for these types of illnesses to be considered occupational illnesses, they must result exclusively […] of this work,” continued the company, which believes that this was not the case in this case.