October / November 2022

Hanna Bervoets is an acclaimed Dutch writer who has written novels, plays and essays. In this novella, she explores the world of social media content moderators – those who are responsible for reviewing user-generated content to remove offensive and harmful content. There have been numerous stories in the news about the psychological impact on the content moderators and this story takes us into that world.

The book focuses on the experiences of Kayleigh who takes the job just because she is desperate for money. She spends all day watching horrific videos and pictures and evaluating them with the platforms ever evolving moderation rules. We see how her job starts to change her and her colleagues in disturbing ways.

The book forces the reader to ask: What is right? What is real? Who gets to decide?

This is a work of fiction but as Bervoets says herself (at the back of the book where she references sources) “This novella is a work of fiction. The characters portrayed are drawn from my imagination. However, any resemblance to reality is not accidental”