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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
World
Deepa Parent and Katie McQue

‘I log into a torture chamber each day’: the strain of moderating social media

Man's head in silhouette with blurry laptop screen in background
Workers in the IT hub of Hyderabad in India said moderating sexual and abusive content had left them depressed, distressed and struggling to sleep. Photograph: Bloomberg/Getty Images

‘I had to watch every frame of a recent stabbing video … It will never leave me,” says Harun*, one of many moderators reviewing harmful online content in India, as social media companies increasingly move the challenging work offshore.

Moderators working in Hyderabad, a major IT hub in south Asia, have spoken of the strain on their mental health of reviewing images and videos of sexual and violent content, sometimes including trafficked children.

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