Description
Book Synopsis'The dank underside of social media, its cruelty and delusions . . . superbly poised, psychologically astute and subtle' - Ian McEwan, author of Atonement
'A glimpse of the foetid underbelly of the internet' - The Times
We Had To Remove This Post by Hanna Bervoets is a chilling, powerful and gripping story about who or what determines our world view.
To be a content moderator is to see humanity at its worst — but Kayleigh needs money. That’s why she takes a job working for a social media platform whose name she isn’t allowed to mention. Her job: reviewing offensive videos and pictures, rants and conspiracy theories, and deciding which need to be removed.
Kayleigh and her colleagues spend all day watching horrors and hate on their screens. Yet Kayleigh is good at her job, and in her colleagues she finds a group of friends, even a new girlfriend — and for the first time in her life, Kayleigh’s future seems bright.
But soon the job seems to change them all, shifting their worlds in alarming ways. How long before the moderators own morals bend and flex under the weight of what they see?
Examining the toxic world of content moderation, the novel forces us to ask: what is right? What is normal? And who gets to decide?
Translated from the original Dutch by Emma Rault.
'Taut as a thriller, sharp as a slug of ice-cold vodka' - Irish Times
'Fast paced and thrilling, violent and nightmarish' - Kristen Arnett, author of Mostly Dead Things
'An acid glimpse into a new form of labor existing today' - Ling Ma, author of Severance
Trade ReviewAcid-dipped novella . . . a glimpse of the foetid underbelly of the internet and a sobering consideration of who is deciding what we see, and at what cost. -- Siobhan Murphy * The Times *
A chilling page-turner . . . the unreliable narrator gives it a strong literary heartbeat — and it’s richly suspenseful too. With a few deft strokes
[Bervoets] manages to incorporate all of the ills of social media into one concise story . . . utterly haunting. -- Johanna Thomas-Corr * The Sunday Times *
The setting alone is compelling and has always been in need of an accomplished novelist’s attention . . . The dreamlike climax of the final pages is beautifully wrought. Men might usefully confront in Bervoets
a writerly intelligence at once so tender and so willing to look into the abyss. -- Ian McEwan * The Guardian *
Bervoets' neat dissection of morality is as
taut as a thriller, sharp as a slug of ice-cold vodka. -- Catherine Taylor * Irish Times *
Surprising and enigmatic . . . intriguing and frustrating . . . As we spend more and more time in the trickmirror of the internet, how can we know what or whom to believe? -- Laura van den Berg * The New York Times *
A very modern tale about the dark side of the internet. * The Times 'Best Books of Summer' *
Hanna Bervoet's slim, compelling novel We Had to Remove This Post addresses the foetid morass of social media . . . Bevoets is
often acidly funny, especially when demonstraring the workers' mordant, jockish humour. * TLS *
The dank underside of social media, its cruelty and delusions . . . Hanna Bervoets has richly obliged in this
superbly poised, psychologically astute and subtle novel of mental unravelling. --
Ian McEwan, author of AtonementExtremely gripping and intense
edgy queer novel -- Andrea Lawlor, author of
Paul Takes The Form Of A Mortal GirlThis novel gives us an acid glimpse into a new form of labor existing today, a job that extracts an immeasurable psychic toll.
Fascinating and disturbing. -- Ling Ma, author of
SeveranceAn astonishing and compelling cast of characters, drawn together through circumstance, separated by the same. The novel is
fast paced and thrilling, violent and nightmarish and grief-stricken, but also tender and wildly moving. -- Kristen Arnett, author of
Mostly Dead Things and
With TeethI thought it was incredible and has real
cult potential. -- Alice Slater * Tik Tok *
Powerful, discussable, and a harbinger of
a voice-in-translation to watch. * Booklist Starred Review *
Scathing, darkly humorous exploration of the impact of VR, IR . . . Bervoets just gets it. This is, unironically,
a novel for our time. * Kirkus Starred Review *
Magnetic . . . Bervoets frames the story like a mystery, slowly revealing the fractured relationships and circumstances that drove Kayleigh away from her job. * Publishers Weekly *
