Two former TikTok moderators filed their lawsuit against Bytedance as TikTok's parent company. The two plaintiffs, Ashley Velez and Reece Young, worked at TikTok as moderators last year.
To fulfill their role as moderators, they must witness many acts of extreme and graphic violence, including murder, bestiality, necrophilia, and other disturbing images.
In their lawsuit, TikTok is accused of being negligent and violating labor laws in California where TikTok operates.
Both plaintiffs said they were assigned to watch disturbing footage for hours on end, often working 12 hours a day. They even have to pay their own consultation fees to relieve the psychological burden caused by the work they are doing.
The lawsuit also accuses TikTok of imposing high productivity standards on moderators forcing them to watch large amounts of distracting content without lag.
The two employees were also forced to sign a non-disclosure agreement as a condition of their employment.
"We would see death and graphics, graphic pornography. I would see minors naked every day," Velez told NPR as quoted by The Verge.
"I would see people being shot in the face, and another video of a child being beaten made me cry for two hours straight."
This is not the first lawsuit with similar issues for TikTok, which currently has a base of 10,000 content moderators worldwide.
Last December, another content moderator for TikTok also sued the platform for negligence and violating workplace safety standards. According to NPR, the lawsuit was dropped last month after the plaintiffs were dismissed.
Not only TikTok, moderators on Facebook and other platforms also spoke about the severe psychological burden of their work.
Employees said they were given only a few seconds to determine whether or not the video violated platform policies.
This job is often called the worst job in the technology world and as a result, workers suffer from depression, PTSD-like symptoms, and suicidal thoughts.
In a 2020 settlement, Facebook paid more than USD 52 million to a group of former moderators who said they developed PTSD from the work.