General Discussion

DetlefK

(16,423 posts) Wed Jan 11, 2017, 12:35 PM Jan 2017

Microsoft-employees get PTSD, being forced to watch torture-videos and child-porn

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2017/01/11/microsoft-anti-porn-workers-sue-over-ptsd.html

Soto, one of the Online Safety Team’s first members, claimed he did not ask to join the seedy department. Already a Microsoft employee, he was “involuntarily transferred” to the Online Safety Team in 2008, he alleged in his lawsuit. Soto “was not informed prior to the transfer as to the full nature” of his work, and was allegedly told that he would be reviewing “terms of use” violations. A Microsoft employee policy mandated that he and all other Online Safety Team members remain in their new posts for at least a year and a half before transferring again, he claims.

...

When Soto began working with the newly created team, he says he learned he’d actually be sharing information on crime rings and child pornography with police. The job required him to view photos and video showing “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,” his suit alleges.

...

“He had trouble with sleep disturbance, nightmares,” his suit alleges. “He suffered from an internal video screen in his head and could see disturbing images, he suffered from irritability, increased startle, anticipatory anxiety, and was easily distractible.”

After viewing one “indescribable” video depicting the abuse and murder of a child, Soto began suffering auditory hallucinations.

...

Microsoft’s compassion fatigue counselor allegedly “lacked sufficient knowledge and training regarding vicarious trauma or PTSD and lack the authority to take employees off content or rotate them entirely out of the department.”

...

If he or a co-worker broke down at work, their employers allegedly encouraged them to merely “leave work early” as part of the department’s “Wellness Plan.”

A half-day is not the same as a comprehensive mental health plan. When Blauert approached superiors for help with his trauma, they allegedly told him that “limiting exposure to depictions, taking walks and smoking breaks, and redirection of his thoughts by playing video games would be sufficient to manage his symptoms,” his suit alleges. He was later penalized on a performance review for playing video games at work, he claimed.

Both Blauert and Soto say they tried to improve their department’s mental-health program. They allegedly went to superiors with suggestions, including weekly meetings with a qualified psychologist, time off from viewing toxic images, and a wellness program for spouses, who experienced the team’s trauma second-hand. But the recommendations, some made as early as 2007, went ignored, the employees allege.

...

Both men applied for worker’s compensation for their leaves, but were allegedly denied coverage. “The worker’s condition is not an occupational disease,” denial letters from a worker’s compensation agency read, according to the lawsuit.

Reply to this discussion