Low-paid workers in Turkey tasked with reviewing deeply disturbing videos on TikTok are suing the company that fired them after they tried to unionise...

The workers in question were employed as content moderators by Telus Digital, a Canadian company that provides outsourcing services for TikTok. Moderators have described the toll on their mental health caused by the graphic nature of the videos they were required to watch. Their jobs paid, on average, close to the Turkish minimum wage.

Its parent company, Telus Corporation, is one of Canada’s largest companies. As well as providing telecoms services, it runs call centres and outsourcing work around the world, including content moderation for social media firms such as TikTok and Meta, Facebook’s parent company.

TBIJ interviewed 13 current and former moderators based in Turkey, where Telus is thought to employ about 1,000 workers to review TikTok content, mainly in Turkish, Kurdish, Arabic and Azerbaijani.

Almost all said they had been affected by their work, which involves removing videos of terrorism, extreme violence, child abuse, genital mutilation, self-harm and animal abuse. Several reported mental health issues, including depression, stress and sleeping problems.

Moderators are also subject to strict accuracy targets and earn between 19,000 and 35,000 Turkish lira (£400-£738) per month, according to interviews and payslips seen by TBIJ. The Turkish minimum wage is 22,000 lira (£464).

A group of 15 workers has now filed claims against Telus in the courts after being fired in retaliation for attempts to unionise their workplace, according to the Çağrı-İş union.

Telus disputes this, saying all of the workers were dismissed after “documented misconduct, performance issues, or workforce reductions”, including one case of vandalism and another where a worker made threatening statements...

Telus’s moderators are part of the global tech industry’s low-paid, precariously employed workforce...

TikTok told TBIJ that its agreements with outsourcing companies required well-being support for workers. The company said it strives to promote a caring working environment for its employees and contractor workforce...

Telus workers began holding protests calling on the company to recognise Çağrı-İş and later to reinstate fired union members...

Çağrı-İş held another protest at the Telus offices last month, and is fighting in the Turkish courts for its right to legally represent TikTok workers...