They revealed the dark side of TikTok!

*Warning: This report contains disturbing content.

T24 interviewed TikTok content moderators working at the Telus Digital İzmir office. Here is that interview:

The man on the screen was crying. He was saying he wanted to die and was cutting his arms with a razor blade. Zeynep says, “I saw that moment of cutting clearly. I didn't want to look, but I had to.”

Because that was her job; to moderate objectionable content on TikTok and remove it from the platform if necessary. Zeynep cried a little while watching this man who had started a live stream and was cutting himself with a razor. But she didn't have much time; there were dozens of other pieces of content waiting to be moderated. She checked the necessary box on the screen in front of her and moved on to the next video.

Zeynep is one of 1,100 people working in shifts, day and night, in a building with a frequently broken elevator in the Buca Organized Industrial Zone, on the outermost periphery of İzmir. During their 8-9 hour shifts, they put on their headphones, lock their eyes on the screen, and watch disturbing images on TikTok one after another. This content can range from scenes of brutality in the Middle East to child pornography. 

Zeynep says, “You can't even imagine the limits of the content.” A video of a man performing a bowel movement into another man's mouth is one of the examples the employees describe. A man being beheaded and then urinated on is another example. Not all content is like this, but Can, one of the employees, says, “Every day we see men exposing their penises, every day we watch masturbation.”

Employees don't just watch and remove content; they also have to specify the reason for removal. For example, in a murder case, they must also indicate whether torture was involved. Can says, “Where did the blood flow? Is the act shown there torture or an execution? How am I supposed to watch this so carefully!”

COMPANY IN CHINA, SUBCONTRACTOR IN CANADA, EMPLOYEES IN THE PHILIPPINES

In fact, these people do not work directly for Bytedance, the owner of TikTok. The contract they signed is with the Canada-based firm Telus Digital. Telus Digital provides outsourced content moderation services to the Chinese company Bytedance. The office in İzmir primarily moderates content in Turkish, Kurdish, and Azerbaijani.

Telus Digital also provides services to many other giant firms in areas such as call centers and data collection. It has 75,000 employees in 32 countries, from Morocco to the Philippines.

All four people I spoke to at the İzmir office in Turkey described being negatively affected psychologically by their work.

Mehmet says, “In one video, a father was pimping his daughter. His 6-7-year-old daughter... You fall into a very deep void.” He describes how the videos sometimes “chase him into his dreams.” Mehmet, who worked in a unit moderating profanity and insults, says these expressions have become normalized for him and slip out in daily life; “Unfortunately, I can use them very easily, involuntarily. Even in front of my wife's family...”

Zeynep also says that the videos that made her cry at the beginning have now become normalized: “Now there is no difference between a person eating in front of me and cutting their arms with a razor. If they are eating, I will watch and moderate it. If they are cutting themselves, I will watch and moderate it. I can't feel anything. And I think that is a very bad thing. We are losing our human faculties, we are becoming robots.”

Clinical psychologist Assoc. Prof. Dr. Ayten Zara says, “When you are exposed to content created with the most horrific, bullying, ugly, and murderous aspects of humanity, it can turn you off from everything.” She says that employees in such a job are likely to experience symptoms of trauma, accompanying depression, and as a result, alienation from everyone and everything.

TOILET OR PSYCHOLOGIST DURING THE BREAK?

There is support called “wellness” provided to employees at the Telus Digital İzmir office. However, employees have to give up two of their 15-minute breaks to meet with the wellness consultant.

Employees can only leave their desks during a 45-minute lunch break and four 15-minute breaks throughout the day. They have to squeeze all their business, such as using the toilet, smoking, clearing their heads, or grabbing a snack, into these breaks. When they go to the wellness consultant, the number of breaks drops to two. By the way, this wellness support is not psychological therapy; it has limited effect and no continuity.

According to psychologist Zara, protective measures for the mental health of employees should be taken in such a workplace, but Zara says this wellness service is “not nearly enough.” The company needs to establish a psychological counseling center or make an agreement with an outside center. Among the conditions Zara lists as necessary for a safe and healthy environment are a protective organizational culture, reasonable working hours, sufficient free time, and “paying the deserved wage.”

A LITTLE MORE THAN MINIMUM WAGE

The salary Telus Digital employees receive is slightly above the minimum wage, approximately 17,300 TL.  All of these employees know at least one foreign language; among them are engineers and teachers who could not be appointed...  They work day and night in 4 shifts that change every week. They say the shift system is physically exhausting and negatively affects their social lives. With the night shift premium and the 98 percent accuracy bonus, the salary rises to an average of 22,000-23,000 TL. However, even being two minutes late from a break can lead to the threat of losing the night bonus.

Telus Digital employees joined the Çağrı-İş union in early 2024 to improve their working conditions. In July, the Ministry of Labor confirmed that the union had reached the sufficient number of members and granted it the authority to conduct collective bargaining. However, even before the first collective bargaining negotiations began, the employer objected to the membership numbers and applied to the court. One of the reasons presented was that reaching this many members in a short period of 6 months was “unusual.” The first hearing of the court process, which will take months, was held on October 1. While the court process continues, active unionized employees in the workplace are being fired for various reasons, while new hires are being made, thus lowering the unionization rate.

UNION PROCESS BACK TO SQUARE ONE

Moreover, as a result of an objection made to the Council of State by the employers' association, the business line where Telus Digital is located was changed from “communication” to “office workers business line.” This means all unionization efforts must start over.

Hakan Şimşek, a consultant from the Çağrı-İş union, says that companies like Telus Digital shift their operations to underdeveloped countries like Turkey. One of the reasons for this is the availability of young, educated, and cheap labor there. The second is the low number of unionized workers. Şimşek says, “Why is it low? That's why it's low! Actually, people are unionizing. But they prolong the process with ridiculous objections.”

Telus Digital responded to our questions by stating that the processes are in accordance with the law: “We make great efforts to continuously improve the working environment and conditions. (...) According to security audits, the conditions we offer in our workplaces meet all needs.”

Employees who moderate content for TikTok in the US filed lawsuits against TikTok in 2021 and 2022 due to the psychological damage they experienced. Facebook, in a lawsuit filed by content moderators, agreed to pay 52 million dollars in compensation to employees in 2020.

* Due to the confidentiality agreement they signed with the employer, the employees did not want their own names to be used. Pseudonyms have been used in the report.