We had to remove this post by Hanna Bervoets

Dutch fiction

Original title – Was wij Zagen

Translator – Emma Rault

Source – Personal copy

Sometimes you see a book and then forget about it and then see it again and go I should got that book that was the case with this I went through a lot of the books that were in Waterstones post Christmas sale this book is one I had nearly got at the time it came out the middle of last year. As the subject matter had appealed it appealed as there aren’t many novels yet about social media that have been translated. The job of content moderator has to be a hard one this is the seventh novel from the Dutch writer Hanna Bervoets she has a wonderful website with lots of info about the awards including one for the body of work she has written so far. she has only this book translated so lets hope she has some more books translated. She lives with her girlfriends in Amsterdam.

were given two manuals that first day, one with the terms and conditions of the platform and one with the guidelines for moderators. We didn’t know at the time that those guidelines changed constantly and that the tome we received was already outdated when it was put into our hands. We weren’t allowed to take the manuals home with us, so we learned by doing. On the first day of training, a series of text-only posts appeared on our screens, and then, from day three, photos, videos, and livestreams. Each time, the question was: Is it okay to leave this up on the platform? And if not, why not? That last part was the trickiest. The platform doesn’t allow people to post things like “All Muslims are terrorists,” because Muslims are a PC, a “protected category,” just like women, gay people, and, believe it or not, Mr. Stitic, heterosexuals. “All terrorists are Muslims,” on the other hand, is allowed, because terrorists are not pc besides, Muslim isn’t an offensive term

The first day and what makes the cut and what is unacceptable according to the company

Kayleigh has taken a job at a social media company called Hexa part of a larger company she joins a team of content moderators, that view any content flagged as inappropriate or unsuitable(in the time of Musk taking over Twitter these people’s jobs are so important or else we go down a dark path) she likes her co-workers she even falls for one of them but this book is about the group here and the drip drip effect of the content and the constant pressure of what is acceptable and not and does you over time become use top this content so you let through the content you’d not thought about letting through at the start. Alongside this is a new relationship with  Babara then she falls for Yena a mismatched relationship. The coworkers take legal action with the pressure and sheer mental health issues this job causes them and also we see how each person has their own axe to grind from. Jewish coworker that gets into arguments and another coworker who is flat earth believer all add to a book that feels far more than its 130 pages.

That night we ended up kissing for the first time. After work Robert passed around another rollie, and at the bus stop we all took a swig from Souhaim’s stylish horn hip flask, so when we walked into the sports bar around seven we were still in high spirits- in fact, we were whooping as if we’d all won in the Olympics. Inside, some people were dancing. That was a rare sight in the sports bar, but Michelle must have picked up on her clientele’s mood and had cranked up the volume on the playlist all the way.One girl from our cohort was making out with a huge guy. It took me a moment to recognize him it was John, who always wore blue gingham button-downs in the office, but who was now swaying his hips in a soaking wet T-shirt, the fabric drenched with sweat even though it wasn’t very warm inside or outside.

They go out and that shared experience that leads to them falling off each other and being friends.

This captures what it is like to be on the knife edge of what makes the cut to be ok and what is demanded unacceptable to be seen this also shows how doing that as a job can be heartbreaking and heartwrenching and also cause those doing it to feel numb to the content they are viewing. There is a part she describes a sex scene and you sense how she has seen this content so often she even knows what will happen next. This is a book that did the rounds on social media given not social media content but for me, it is an age-old job of the moderator who viewed the video nasties and checked books for content. the police that watches videos. All these people have mental health from doing this job. It also shows relationships and comradeship in these jobs and how easy it is to have relationships with co-workers from the shared experience =but then there is also the side of that yes the shared experience but there is also the person as a whole that is outside that and that is what is shown in the two relationships of Kayleigh in the book. A book that captures a hard job and the outfacing of that on one person and the group she works with! Have you read any books about social Media?

Winstons score -B A great attempt to capture the social media world and its employees.