Reviews with content warning for Drug abuse - We Had to Remove This Post

This is a fascinating topic but the execution is just okay. The author ends the book by stating clearly that while the novel is entirely fictional, the similarities to actual happenings is on purpose and goes on to list many, many sources about real life content moderators and legal action taken against Facebook. Unfortunately, I feel that those articles would be more interesting. The entire premise revolves around the idea that our main protagonist does not want any involvement in legal action against her former employer and promises the reader we will come to understand why. Well, I don’t. I think you just wrote 100 pages about getting dumped while you worked a shitty job.

If this is supposed to be horror, it didn’t go far enough. If this is supposed to be social commentary, it’s too weird and the focus is placed on the wrong parts of the story. In my humble opinion this could’ve used another 100 or so pages and have one of the characters really, truly fall off their rocker.

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rionstorm's review

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challenging dark sad medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.75

Definitely check the trigger warnings for this one. Parts of it are predictably difficult to read, especially some of the descriptions of gore (although they are brief).

The most interesting part of this book to me is the insight it gives into how content moderation affects the people who do it - both in terms of the impact on their mental health, and in terms of some of the material they are viewing

having the intended radicalizing or desensitizing effect, even if they're not someone who is coming across the material organically.

I thought it was also quite interesting to see how the material being viewed affected each person,

for example how the others' antisemetic radicalization was incomprehensible to Kayleigh, even as she was herself being desensitized to sexual violence to the point of possibly re-enacting it, seemingly without any self awareness.

If you're interested in the consequences of the growing volume and consumption of difficult material on the internet, online radicalization, or the way trauma is increasingly built into the experience of someone who uses the internet, you might like this book. Be warned though, it's pretty grim the whole way through.

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