PRAISE FOR WE HAD TO REMOVE THIS POST The dank underside of social media, its cruelty and delusions, have become, our shared affliction. The story is brief, but it packs a wallop. We Had To Remove This Post by Hanna Bervoets is a chilling, powerful and urgent story about what - or who - determines how we see the world. Two executives at Anheuser-Busch, the beer’s maker, are taking a leave of absence.

Whether carefully dissecting ever-evolving corporate rules or chronicling a night at the bar with her workmates (“we pour our leftovers into each other’s half-empty glasses”), Kayleigh is an engaging narrator. After Dylan Mulvaney promoted the beer on Instagram, well-known conservatives called for a boycott. After Kayleigh quits, a lawyer hounds her to join a lawsuit against the platform along with other former employees, and Bervoets frames the story like a mystery, slowly revealing the fractured relationships and circumstances that drove Kayleigh away from her job. While adjusting to the job, she meets Sigrid, a fellow moderator, and the pair start dating, but as weeks pass, exposure to thousands of horrifying videos-among them graphically described clips of self-harm, animal abuse, and praise of the Holocaust-takes its toll, pushing some moderators to their mental edges and inspiring others to subscribe to “flat Earther” conspiracy theories. Along with a ragtag team, she spends her days watching disturbing videos and flagging those that break the platform’s guidelines. Kayleigh, in need of cash to pay off credit card debt, takes a job at Hexa, a subcontractor for an unnamed video platform. Bervoet’s fleeting yet magnetic English-language debut offers a glimpse into the world of social media content moderators.

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