We Had To Remove This Post

Hanna Bervoets

Translated by Emma Rault
26 May 2022
9781529087222
144 pages

Synopsis

'The dank underside of social media, its cruelty and delusions . . . superbly poised, psychologically astute and subtle' - Ian McEwan, author of Atonement
'A glimpse of the foetid underbelly of the internet' - The Times

We Had To Remove This Post by Hanna Bervoets is a chilling, powerful and gripping story about who or what determines our world view.

To be a content moderator is to see humanity at its worst — but Kayleigh needs money. That’s why she takes a job working for a social media platform whose name she isn’t allowed to mention. Her job: reviewing offensive videos and pictures, rants and conspiracy theories, and deciding which need to be removed.

Kayleigh and her colleagues spend all day watching horrors and hate on their screens. Yet Kayleigh is good at her job, and in her colleagues she finds a group of friends, even a new girlfriend — and for the first time in her life, Kayleigh’s future seems bright.

But soon the job seems to change them all, shifting their worlds in alarming ways. How long before the moderators own morals bend and flex under the weight of what they see?

Examining the toxic world of content moderation, the novel forces us to ask: what is right? What is normal? And who gets to decide?

Translated from the original Dutch by Emma Rault.

'Taut as a thriller, sharp as a slug of ice-cold vodka' - Irish Times
'Fast paced and thrilling, violent and nightmarish' - Kristen Arnett, author of Mostly Dead Things
'An acid glimpse into a new form of labor existing today' - Ling Ma, author of Severance

Acid-dipped novella . . . a glimpse of the foetid underbelly of the internet and a sobering consideration of who is deciding what we see, and at what cost.
A chilling page-turner . . . the unreliable narrator gives it a strong literary heartbeat — and it’s richly suspenseful too. With a few deft strokes [Bervoets] manages to incorporate all of the ills of social media into one concise story . . . utterly haunting.
The setting alone is compelling and has always been in need of an accomplished novelist’s attention . . . The dreamlike climax of the final pages is beautifully wrought. Men might usefully confront in Bervoets a writerly intelligence at once so tender and so willing to look into the abyss.

Books by Hanna Bervoets