Content moderator traumatised by videos sues TikTok
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NEW YORK • TikTok's 10,000 content moderators are exposed to a regular diet of child pornography, rapes, beheadings and animal mutilation, according to a lawsuit filed against the video-sharing platform and its parent ByteDance.
It gets worse.
Content moderator Candie Frazier said in her proposed class-action lawsuit that she has screened videos involving freakish cannibalism, crushed heads, school shootings, suicides and a fatal fall from a building, complete with audio.
There was no escaping it, Ms Frazier said. TikTok requires moderators to work at a frantic pace, watching hundreds of videos per 12-hour shift with only an hour off for lunch and two 15-minute breaks, says the complaint filed in Los Angeles federal court.
"Due to the sheer volume of content, moderators are permitted no more than 25 seconds per video, and simultaneously view three to 10 videos at the same time," her lawyers said in her complaint.
TikTok was a member of a group of social media companies, including Facebook and YouTube, that developed guidelines for helping moderators cope with the images of child abuse their jobs required them to view. But TikTok failed to implement the guidelines, which include providing psychological support and limiting shifts to four hours, according to the suit.
Ms Frazier, who lives in Las Vegas, said she suffers from post traumatic stress disorder as a result of all the disturbing videos.
"Plaintiff has trouble sleeping and when she does sleep, she has horrific nightmares," according to the complaint on Thursday.
Ms Frazier, who seeks to represent other TikTok content screeners, is asking for compensation for psychological injuries and a court order requiring the company to set up a medical fund for moderators.
BLOOMBERG
