Posted on 01/13/2017 11:37:15 PM PST by Swordmaker
SEATTLE (CN) — Two Microsoft employees who had to watch “horrific images” of murder, child pornography and bestiality as part of their “online safety” job have sued the company after developing post-traumatic stress disorder.
Henry Soto and Greg Blauert say Microsoft failed to warn them about the dangers of the job and failed to provide psychological support. They sued the company in King County Court on Dec. 30, alleging negligence, disability discrimination and violations of the Consumer Protection Act.
The men were customer service workers assigned to Microsoft’s online safety program, responsible for deciding whether content should be removed or reported to law enforcement.
They say they never were told about dangerous psychological impacts of the job, which included viewing child pornography, and were not allowed to turn down the assignment.
“Plaintiffs Henry Soto and Greg Blauert were not warned about the likely dangerous impact of reviewing the depictions nor were they warned they may become so concerned with the welfare of the children, they would not appreciate the harm the toxic images would cause them and their families,” they say in the complaint.
Instead of providing trained therapists for the safety team, Microsoft developed a “Wellness Program” that advised employees who were disturbed by images to take “walks and smoking breaks” and redirect thoughts by playing video games, the men say.
Soto says he was involuntarily transferred to the online safety team in 2008 and under Microsoft policy had to remain in the position for 1½ years before he could request a transfer. The team had just been formed and Microsoft failed to warn him about potential psychological trauma, according to the complaint
“The new Online Safety team had just been created and Mr. Soto was one of the initial employees with the team and had limited information about the position. He did not understand the level of activity in the following areas: assisting law enforcement efforts to break up significant crime rings, the mob, the triad, and other violent groups, reviewing photos and video requiring him to witness horrible brutality, murder, indescribable sexual assaults, videos of humans dying and, in general, videos and photographs designed to entertain the most twisted and sick minded people in the world,” the complaint states.
Soto says the job “took a significant toll on him personally” and he began having nightmares and disturbing hallucinations after viewing a video of a girl being abused and killed.
Soto was transferred to a new position in 2014, but continued to suffer post-traumatic stress symptoms and took medical leave in 2015. Labor and Industries denied Soto’s claim for PTSD injuries, saying the condition is not an occupational disease and is excluded, according to the complaint.
Blauert started working on the safety team in 2011, and like Soto was required to view images of child pornography, bestiality and other disturbing content. He attended Wellness Program sessions to help with his increasing anger and nightmares, but was “criticized in his employment reviews for following his wellness plan” and reprimanded for spending too much time playing video games, he says.
He suffered a physical and mental breakdown in 2013 due to the job and is still in treatment for “acute and debilitating PTSD,” according to the complaint. Labor and Industries also denied Blauert’s claim for worker’s compensation.
Soto and Blauert want Microsoft to provide the online safety team with the same support and protections as the digital crimes unit, which has a larger budget.
“Plaintiffs have recommended many changes to Online Safety. The list includes mandatory rotations out of the program, for pre-vacation vacations, mandatory weekly meetings with a psychologist with specialized training and authority to remove employees when the content is becoming too toxic, a spousal wellness program, as well as changes designed to lessen the impact of continually viewing toxic images. Some of these items were also recommended to Microsoft in approximately 2007 and 2008,” according to the complaint.
A Microsoft representative said in a statement: “Microsoft applies industry-leading, cutting-edge technology to help detect and classify illegal images of child abuse and exploitation that are shared by users on Microsoft services. Once verified by a specially trained employee, the company removes the image, reports it to the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children, and bans the users who shared the images from our services. We have put in place robust wellness programs to ensure the employees who handle this material have the resources and support they need.”
Both plaintiffs and their wives seek damages for pain and suffering and economic damages and treble damages under the Consumer Protection Act and Washington Disability Discrimination Act.
They are represented by Ben Wells & Associates, of Arlington, Wash., and Rebecca Roe with Schroeter Goldmark & Bender.
There are a lot of sick people who do not enjoy Sadistic snuff flicks featuring children.
That portion of the training might have been given by visiting law enforcement officers.
YouTube had an office in the Philippines that employed people to do nothing but remove objectionable videos. Beheadings, rape, murder, child porn, that's all they watched all day, every day.
Those are the people you don’t want doing that job. At the least, they would be too distracted from their work. At the most, they’d end up being caught with some their own illegal material.
Your sarcasm detector needs new batteries.
You consider the Sadistic torture and murder of children a good topic for sarcasm?
Sorry; I take it seriously.
Administrators for all sorts of content hosting sites have to report/delete content.
How queer that this article didn’t include any references to Islamic jihadist snuff videos. Only “the mob/triad” and porn providers.
The employees allegation is that the job was forced on them for a 1.5 year time frame and they were instructed to play video games to divert their attention from the horrors of the interweb. Then when the job performance review came in they were playing too many video games.
There are many jobs that most people would rather not do, and someone has to do them.
I read (on Buzzfeed, of all places) where a 911 operator described his job and some of the daily horrors it brings. Few people make a career of being 911 operators. Then there are the people who pick up dead animals, people who have to go into houses and witness the aftermath of horrific animal and/or child abuse, etc.
I’m not sure these guys have a case, really. I’m sure that Microsoft told them what they would be doing, and only an extremely naive person does not recognize that some [sub]humans are capable of horrifying depravity. How do Microsoft’s support mechanisms for employees tasked with screening and removing objectionable content compare with those of other companies in a similar business? That is what the case will come down to.
There is a huge potential problem in that if these former employees win the case, that opens the door for all kinds of other employees in highly stressful jobs to start suing.
Having worked for many years in a big city ER I've seen more death...violent and otherwise...than I care to recall.Didn't see any porn,however...thankfully.Knowing what I know about death (I've seen autopsies as well) I say that that portion of the suit is entirely frivolous.The porn part of it...disgust and revulsion,not nightmares,are the worst things I can see resulting from doing *that*.
This,like most lawsuits filed against large corporations,is an attempt to strike it rich by some clown and his/her slimey lawyer.
Man-up, Sissies!
Maybe I'm just more cynical than you but IMO that *isn't* what this will boil down to.Johnny Cochrane won the OJ trial when he succeeded in getting the trial moved from whatever rich district it *should* have been held in (Brentwood,IIRC) to "da hood".He got a jury with a median IQ of 70.
IMO this case will come down to jury selection...the higher the median IQ the less likely the plaintiffs will prevail.
I was involved in an IT Security forensics case against a corporate executive years back. The things I saw are permanently seared into my memory. The bastard deserved every minute of incarceration he got.
I would say it's affected me adversely, but I wouldn't go so far as to say I have PTSD from it; and I'm sure not going to sue my former employer over it. It was my job. I was paid to deal with exactly that sort of stuff.
And, if I hadn't read the article, I'd have quipped "Carpal Tunnel Syndrome?"
...but the reality is lamentably worse.
I’ll bet Microsoft loses in court. Not that I agree with the plaintiffs
You are trained in medicine.....you chose to work in ER. You have adjusted to much that ordinary folks call traumaic.
These folks had no choice and no training. Watch, select, repeat.....they weren’t saving lives or helping families. I’d say you are comparing two very different settings
Lost my lunch, (and 24 beers).
Can I sue NASCAR?
I've been a court reporter/court stenographer since 1978 and have probably participated in over 6000 court-martials of all types, many dealing with far worse than just child pornography.
I guess I should probably hate to admit it, but I've grown quite a callous disregard towards that sort of stuff. As the court reporter, I have to maintain a neutral position, both attitude and physical reactions, to whatever occurs during the court-martial. While on the job, I've grown quite immune to whatever evidence or testimony comes out in the courtroom. I've seen panel members (jury members, in civilian parlance) ask for recesses to recover from some of what has been put on before them. A lot of the stuff that is talked about or shown in court is not something that I can even talk to my wife about when I get home, because I don't want her to be exposed to it.
I would say, "Man up, snowflake" or "Go ahead and quit then" to most other people whining about what they are exposed to in their jobs, but I know what I have gone through over the years and I wouldn't wish it on anyone else ... well, maybe bits and pieces of it to those SJWs who believe that people are inherently good.
When I became a court reporter after being an infantry machinegunner for three years, personally, I believed that the worse that I would see in court would be some assaults resulting from fights between soldiers, some AWOLs or desertions, some disrespect offenses towards NCOs or officers. My first case out of court reporter school was a pretty vicious rape. My second was a rape/murder/maiming case. My third was a murder involving children under five years old. And, to be honest, it hasn't gotten any better over the years. But, after a start such as that, I started to see what I was getting into and had to make a decision as to whether I wanted to continue or not. I enjoy the work .. as far as the technical ends of it goes .. and the fact that, overall, nobody bothers me while I'm doing it; as long as I put out the transcription in a timely manner, I'm happy being the elf in the hollow tree (or the mushroom, as it sometimes applies).
So these individuals need to get out of this job if they can't handle it and Microsoft to find appropriate people to perform it.
Yeah, I saw this a day or so ago in The Register, thought about posting/pinging it, and then decided against it because it's not only not Windows related, it's only incidentally Microsoft related. IMO the real underlying story is about the difficulty of moderating (for both legal and moral purposes) a facility that anybody can post anything to. It's a very difficult position for the company and the employees, and it touches on 1stA issues as well.
Thank you for posting the thread; I think I'll defer on pinging the Windows list, though.
Hope you're feeling better and recovering. Prayers up.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.