Former content moderator at Facebook sues the social media giant for failing to protect her

A former Facebook moderator is suing the social media giant for failing to protect her after she developed post-traumatic stress disorder from the graphic content she had to watch.

A lawsuit, filed in San Mateo County last week, alleges negligence and failure to maintain a safe workplace for the plaintiff Selena Scola.

Scola said she worked at Facebook for nine months under a contract through Pro Unlimited Inc, a staffing company that also is a named defendant in the suit.

As part of her job, she was supposedly subjected to ‘videos, images and livestreamed broadcasts of child sexual abuse, rape, torture, bestiality, beheadings, suicide and murder’, the suit states.

The lawsuit (pictured) alleges Facebook failed to adequately provide a safe workplace for Selena Scola and lawyers are seeking to have it changed to a class action status 

The lawsuit claims Facebook has drafted standards to protect workers (pictured) from graphic content they have to remove but the same standards do not apply to contract workers 

The lawsuit claims Facebook has drafted standards to protect workers (pictured) from graphic content they have to remove but the same standards do not apply to contract workers 

She was formally diagnosed with PTSD at an unspecified time, the suit says, and is asking Facebook to set up a medical monitoring fund to treat PTSD patients.

Scola stopped working for the company in March and the lawsuit is a class action, her lawyers confirmed.

Korey Nelson of the law firm Burns Charest said in an announcement: ‘Facebook is ignoring its duty to provide a safe workplace and instead creating a revolving door of contractors who are irreparably traumatized by what they witnessed on the job.

‘From her cubicle in Facebook’s Silicon Valley offices, Ms. Scola witnessed thousands of acts of extreme and graphic violence,’ the court documents read. 

 ‘As a result of constant and unmitigated exposure to highly toxic and extremely disturbing images at the workplace, Ms. Scola developed and suffers from significant psychological trauma and post -traumatic stress disorder (‘PTSD’).’

The lawsuit claims that Facebook has drafted work safety standards to protect content moderators from the graphic content they’re tasked with removing from the platform. 

However it added that it ignores those standards when it comes to its own contractors.

It added: ‘Instead, the multi-billion-dollar corporation affirmatively requires its content moderators to work under conditions known to cause and exacerbate psychological trauma, ’ the suit alleges. 

Facebook in the past has said in the past that all of its content reviewers have access to mental health resources, including trained professionals onsite for both individual and group counseling, and they receive full health care benefits.

Facebook chief Mark Zuckerberg (pictured) acknowledged that some people use the platform to hurt themselves and others but that the company is invested in keeping people safe 

Facebook chief Mark Zuckerberg (pictured) acknowledged that some people use the platform to hurt themselves and others but that the company is invested in keeping people safe 

Currently, more than 7,500 content reviewers work for Facebook, including full-time employees and contractors.

The social network has faced regulatory scrutiny over not doing enough to prevent content like fake news and hate speech on its platform, and CEO Mark Zuckerberg has vowed to step up efforts to counter it through mass hirings and use of artificial intelligence.

Nelson’s firm is seeking class-action status for the lawsuit. Facebook have not yet responded with a comment when contacted yesterday.

Scola worked at Facebook’s offices in Menlo Park and Mountain View, California, for nine months from June last year, under a contract through Pro Unlimited Inc, a Florida-based staffing company.

The case was filed as a class-action lawsuit, but at the moment Scola is the only named plaintiff; the lawsuit names a potential class of “thousands” of current and former moderators in California.

The lawsuit alleges that ‘Facebook does not provide its content moderators with sufficient training or implement the safety standards it helped develop’. 

Ms. Scola’s PTSD symptoms may be triggered when she touches a computer mouse, enters a cold building, watches violence on television, hears loud noises, or is startled. 

Her symptoms are also triggered when she recalls or describes graphic imagery she was exposed to as a content moderator. 

 

Read more at DailyMail.co.uk