I hate when a book is hard to read. Unfortunately, We Had to Remove This Post by Hanna Bervoets was not my kind of book. I really thought it would get better but it didn’t. It is set in a dark world of people watching the internet and deciding if a post should be taken down or left online. Kayleigh is at this terrible job because she needs the money. Her colleagues are there for the same reason. They are all misfits in their own ways and watching endless horrors and depravities all day long, takes a toll on a person. They all happen to be a little broken. Kayleigh, embarks on a lesbian relationship, not her first. She tries to make fiends with her colleagues, they all try to get new jobs. This was just such a dark book. I did finish it but I probably should’ve stopped. The writing, the characters and the story were all off for me. I want to thank Netgalley and the author for my copy for an honest review. It is always a pleasure to read and review a book. Even if it wasn’t a fit for me, I am sure it was for someone else.

This was a fascinating premise. I was intrigued by the idea of a novel about internet content monitors and the impact the job had on their lives and mental health. It just fell short for me and was not at all what I was hoping for.

I had high hopes for this Dutch translation. The premise is something similar to The Circle by Dave Eggers. An examination of working in the social media field and the resulting mental effects of being bombarded with traumatic videos on a regular basis. It's an interesting psychological exploration delivered in a tight clip that does result in a lot of thought provocation and has some incredibly smart ideas. This short novella had some interesting observations and some good psychological analysis, but in the end it ended up not really going much of anywhere.

Things start off well, with an introduction to the company and the requirements of the job. There is plenty of discussion of nondisclosure and privacy requirements along with the guidelines by which Kayleigh and her coworkers must decide what is allowed to be posted and what must be removed. This was thoroughly completed and really set a great tone for the story. However, it somewhat stalled out after that and became just a repetition. The discussion of the relationships between the coworkers was touched on lightly, with no real getting to know the characters. There was a lot of telling rather than showing and so the entire narrative felt a little less revealing and intense than it otherwise could have been. Though there were psychological effects of their employment that definitely intensified over time, they weren't demonstrated in a highly impactful way and I feel like they could have been written more intensely.

This is meant to be a shocking novel, but it just didn't meet that bar for me. Yes, there were mentions of violent issues and things that maybe didn't sit quite right, but it was done in a way that made it feel somewhat removed. Being a novella, I think there just wasn't enough exploration of the topic and development of the characters. The secondary characters were more extranneous and they really needed to be drawn more tightly into the plot.

The ending also did not help. I understand what it was meant to demonstrate, but it kind of came out of left field and didn't seem to give enough closure to the story. Instead, it felt like the tale just stopped right in the middle of a chapter.

The story does give a lot of information that stimulates thought and the writing was decent, so the concept itself was good. The execution just needed more fleshing out.

This is a story about moderation.

I really didn’t enjoy reading this book… BUT I do appreciate that it made me think about how necessary mental health care is for tech employees who are steeped in some of the worst elements of humanity while attempting to moderate content. I also think there’s value to the discussion around how and when content should be moderated. Who decides? Should anyone? What would uniquely qualify them to do so? Unfortunately the protagonist & the writing style didn’t fit for me personally, but ymmv so pick it up if you’re interested in the topic!

Also this cover is an absolute nightmare, which I assume was purposeful.

⭐️ ⭐️. 💫 rounded to 3.

Thank you so much @netgalley & @marinerbooks for the eArc!

Though not an easy read, Hanna Bervoets' "We Had To Remove This Post" is certainly a timely one.

In it, a cohort of social media content moderators devolve on the job in a manner reminiscent of "Lord of the Flies". The onslaught of horrors they read about - and view in videos - on the job drives them to drink, and much worse behaviors as they normalize what they see and hear.

Not an easy read, but worth the effort.

I was so into this book, excited to have an original take on a topi front and center in our lives, the mysterious moderators who remove the posts from social media pursuant to an incomprehensible set of rules. Kayleigh takes this job to deal with huge debt she incurred over a period of excessive spending. Now she gets to decide which of the violent videos stay up and which go. I was really getting into this novella, not knowing it was so short because I read on a Kindle. But she is the only fully formed character in the book, everyone else-- even her lover-- being very two dimensional. Maybe she sees them with the same detachment as people killing kittens? They all go through life drunk or stoned and experience varying responses to the horrors they watch all day. Because doing this job leaves a mark on every single moderator. So, it's full of trigger content -- in what they watch, in what they do to blot it out, in how they are influenced in their thinking by what they watch and in how they are debauched by what they watch. I agree with the people that say this should have been a full novel with characters developed more and that the abrupt ending was so odd I thought I missed a few pages and kept going back. It DOES work as is and I was so engaged. But I'd have liked a lot more from it, so this felt more like a promise than a story. 3.5 stars rounded up. Some folks will love it.

Kayleigh slowly admits to all the problems she's dealing with as the result of working as a content moderator in this novella that will make you think about your own social media feed. It's not an in-depth portrait of her or anyone else but it is thought provoking. How do these over worked people decide what complies and what is beyond the pale even with the guidelines? Thanks to netgalley for the ARC. This felt a bit unfinished, as though it's part of a larger novel.

I was interested in reading this book because I once worked at a similar job doing content moderation. It's not a job that most people know much about and I really liked how the author presented the work, the effects it had on employees and what their lives were like. It's very original and a unique story with lots of tempting details. The ending was rather abrupt and I almost thought I might have missed something or had an ARC with missing pages. But for a book like this, perhaps that is appropriate.
There is a lot to absorb and that makes for a good read.

Thank you to NetGalley for an advance copy of this book. I hope it finds a solid readership.

3 stars

Thank you NetGalley for the eARC in exchange for an honest review! I was surprised at the abrupt ending of the novel, and wondered if I missed anything. I have to admit I was hoping to learn more about the character’s job rather than her relationship with one of her coworkers, but it still intrigued me nonetheless. It was a captivating story, just felt like it lacked in certain places and I wish it was longer.

This is a story about the role of social media in the modern age.  Kayleigh needs a job, so she takes a position working as a content moderator for an unnamed social media company (in fact, she is not permitted to let anyone know the name of the company).  In her role, she reviews offensive videos and pictures to determine if they should be removed pursuant to the company's byzantine and often contradictory policies.  Not only is what she has to view all day long brutal, but the company imposes strict targets that Kayleigh and her fellow content moderators must meet.

Despite the challenging circumstances, Kayleigh finds a small group of friends and even a girlfriend that make the days bearable.  But as they each spend so much time viewing the dark side of humanity, Kayleigh and her co-workers can't escape the pernicious impact that the very content they are charged with removing has on their own worldviews -- and the impact of those shifts on their relationships.

This was quite an interesting read in two respects.  First, it was a compelling study of the impact of social media on those who do the work behind the scenes of managing objectionable content.  In this respect, the novel was an interesting meditation on the nature of work in the modern age and social media's role in shaping our personal interactions.  Second, it was an insightful examination of the dimensions of a romantic relationship, especially as to the challenge of either member having perspective on the role they are playing in the relationship or how they are perceived by their partner.  

Strongly recommended!

Dark, quick, and super compelling. I'm sure we'll see a lot of comparisons to American "millennial novelists" like Ling Ma, Ottessa Moshfegh, and Catherine Lacey, which are apt but don't quite capture how original this book feels. Another reviewer said the book felt like what No One is Talking About This wanted to be -- to me it felt more like what Fake Accounts wanted to be! But again, comparisons don't do justice to how interesting and well-done this novella was. I agree that the ending felt abrupt, and I would have liked to see the framing (the narrative is the narrator's explanation to a lawyer who wants her to join a class-action lawsuit) fleshed out a little more, but these are really minor complaints. I hope we'll see more work from Hanna Berovets for the English-language market, especially if it's translated by Emma Rault. Well worth reading!

This had a LOT of what I'm hoping for when I read a novella. A little bit of mystery, a little disturbing, a little (lot) queer, and some other things I won't mention for spoiler purposes.

The only thing I found off-putting was the extremely sudden ending (even more so because of the formatting of the e-galley I was reading).

I really wanted to love this book. The premise hooked me immediately, and I love the queer rep. The ideas in it are worth exploring and I think will resonate with a lot of readers - workplace trauma, desensitization, content moderation, radicalization, misinformation - there's a lot to unpack there if only there were a bit more depth. The story ended a bit too abruptly for my taste - just when it was starting to get somewhere. It felt like a slow burn that wasn't able to ignite.

Deeply disturbing take of the traumatic nature of content moderation and the toll it takes on the psyche. Sharp and powerful.

We Had to Remove This Post by Hanna Bervoets follows a group of young colleagues working as social media content monitors—reviewing violent or illegal videos for an unnamed mega corporation—who convince themselves they’re in control until the violence strikes closer to home.

I loved reading about people working as social media content monitors. Bervoets' does a great job describing the truly horrifying images and videos that these people are forced to watch I really enjoyed reading how Kayleigh and her colleagues were slowly affected by the grotesque visuals they were constantly subjected to. However I do wish there was a little bit more discussion on Kayleigh's relationship. I think this book is the perfect read for people who enjoyed Things Have Gotten Worse Since We Last Spoke by Eric LaRocca.

I received this book free from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

In this new world of social media where everything is monitored we now need a new group of people to monitor and make sure what we see is “ok” to view. This psychological thriller follows the lives of what this world would look like. A quick read but very well written. I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.

This ARC was provided to me via Kindle by Mariner Books and #NetGalley for my honest opinion. Opinions expressed are completely my own.

A dark, deep dive into the other side of social media. It’s not pretty but seems pretty honest.

This book came with an interesting premise - showing what the job as content moderator entails. And not just any content - our protagonist has to review videos of shootings, violence, murder, and the like. What could be a highly engaging read just falls flat - the effects of that job for the whole team aren't shown enough, for my liking. The focus lies instead on the protagonist and her relationship to another teammate, and how this works out with the job going on in parallel. It was a short read and quickly finished, but I wished for more depth.

Ha, finally: The novel that is everything No One Is Talking About This wanted, but failed to be. Our protagonist is Kayleigh, a former content moderator for Facebook (the customer her direct employer Hexa provides services for is never named, but there is a remark in the text that makes it pretty clear). The text we read is a letter she sends to a certain Mr. Stitic, a guy who files a class action lawsuit on behalf of other former Hexa employees regarding the working conditions and their mental health issues. Stitic has been pushing Kayleigh to join the lawsuit, but she tells him that she will reveal her story to him only in exchange for him to stop contacting her - so the letter is not a report to a lawyer; rather, it reads like a revelation to a therapist, or even a confession to a priest.

Bervoets has done a lot of research on the psychological strain put on social media content moderators, and the short novel will put some images in your head that are hard to endure. The guidelines Kayleigh and her colleagues have to follow are often absurd, and the pressure to perform while constantly facing disturbing and violent content seems unbearable for almost anyone. Mental health issues, drugs and alcohol become normal for Kayleigh and her friends at Hexa, and when it turns out that some agree with anti-scientific or (at least in Germany) anti-constitutional ideas ventilated on FB, the question arises whether these people have always been like that, or whether they are affected by their work.

On social media, we curate a version of ourselves - but who is the content moderator in real life? Coping mechanisms - some rather sad, like indulging in provocative jokes and thus blurring the lines between mocking offensive content and being offensive - start to fail, the concept of reality becomes muddy. Kayleigh enters a relationship with her co-worker Sigrid, and Bervoets cleverly uses it to question the relation between (self)-image and reality, the importance of frame and perspective, the collapse of private life and work for the whole group of moderators.

Now this is a smart book about the digital age. I hope it will garner some serious attention.

This was a very short, dark, and grim novella. It follows workers at a media company's quality control center whose job it is to sort out offensive/hateful/misleading content from the content that can stay. They are constantly exposed to horrible things at work and begin to experience severe symptoms as a side effect. There's not so much of a plot, more just a glimpse into what this type of work does to each person's mental health and stability. Tension rises throughout the book- it's pretty stressful and I finished it in one sitting so I could be done!
I understand the intention behind this novella was to expose problems with companies like this one and workers rights, which is definitely important, but I'm not sure I was the right audience for this one. It was a little too dark and gritty for my usual taste and I probably would have been unable to finish it as a full length novel because it made me feel pretty uncomfortable.
I think readers who enjoy dark and hard-hitting short stories about real world topics may enjoy this, but there are many many triggers so sensitive readers please use caution!
Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for this free copy to review!