[Asia Economy Reporter Donghoon Jung] Employees who filtered harmful content on the video-sharing service TikTok have filed a lawsuit against TikTok and its parent company ByteDance, demanding compensation for mental damages.
According to major foreign media on the 23rd (local time), Candy Fraser, a TikTok content moderator, filed a lawsuit at the Los Angeles Federal Court, stating that 10,000 content moderators are continuously exposed to harmful content such as child pornography, sexual assault, beheadings, and animal limb amputations, demanding compensation for damages.
In the complaint, Fraser claimed that while working 12 hours a day, she has been constantly exposed to disturbing content including bizarre cannibalism, school shootings, suicide-related videos, and scenes of people falling to their deaths from buildings, suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). She also revealed that the amount of content employees must review is so large that they cannot spend more than 25 seconds per video and have to process 3 to 10 videos simultaneously under harsh conditions.
She further alleged that although the company created guidelines to provide psychological support to employees and limit shift work to 4 hours, these were not properly followed. Fraser demanded mental damage compensation and the establishment of a medical fund for content moderators from the company.
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