Facebook to Pay $52 Million Compensation for Trauma to Content Reviewers

The social media giant Facebook has agreed to a $52 million court settlement to compensate the content moderators who experienced mental trauma from the violent images and graphics they were required to review. The affidavit presented to a California state court will involve payments to more than 10,000 incumbent and former content moderators who served for firms contracted by Facebook.

The class-action lawsuit registered back in 2018 claimed that the content reviewers were subjected to psychological trauma from recurring exposure to graphic content like child sexual abuse, beheadings, terrorism, animal cruelty, rape,murder and other inhuman violent activities.

Facebook to Pay $52 Million Compensation for Trauma to Contact Reviewers

Each and every plaintiffs in the class action will get a minimum of $1,000 and those diagnosed with particular mental health conditions like post-traumatic stress disorder will get extra compensation up to $50,000. Facebook has also agreed to take steps to render content moderators employed by its contractors in the US with mental health support and counseling.

The Plaintiff attorney Steve Williams of the Joseph Saveri Law Firm stated that “We are so pleased that Facebook worked with us to create an unprecedented programme to assist people performing work that was unimaginable even a few years ago,”.

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The case arose from reports in The Guardian and The Verge highlighting the stress and tough conditions of moderators appointed by Facebook contractors. According to the lawsuit, lead plaintiff Selena Scola told The Guardian: “You’d go into work at 9am every morning, turn on your computer and watch someone have their head cut off. Every day, every minute, that’s what you see. Heads being cut off.” Therefore, such kind of dreadful visuals can lead many to Post-traumatic stress disorder. However, Facebook has taken a great step in form of paying compensation to victims.