3.5 stars. This novella gets labeled horror, but it's not quite that, more a character-driven study of secondary trauma. Bervoets writes in second-person, casting the reader in the position of a lawyer handling a class-action suit against Hexa, a company that employs quality assurance workers whose job it is to review social media content that users have flagged as objectionable--hate speech, beheadings, pornography, animal abuse, that sort of thing--and either remove the content, or leave it up. The narrator is also a former Hexa employee, and although she wishes not to be included in the lawsuit, she tells the lawyer--us--her account of the events. The longer she speaks, the less she focuses on poor working conditions or instances of violence at the company, and more on her unraveling relationship with her coworker Sigrid.

I imagine that a lot of readers go into this book expecting the content the characters review to be the most disturbing element of the story, and for the most part I shared this expectation. However, what's most jarring about We Had to Remove This Post is the way that the characters absorb what they're paid to view. Their adoption of Hexa moderation guidelines in how they view everything around them. The edgy jokes that they make to distance themselves from their feelings. The ways that the content--antisemitism, flat earth conspiracy theories--worms its way into their thoughts and beliefs. And of course, the fact that they have to do this, all while being micromanaged and held to ruthless standards. Ah, capitalism.

All of this is unnerving because in a lot of ways, we are the characters. Even those of us who aren't content moderators absorb some of the worst of humanity through the internet, anyway. We've all seen something we really didn't want to online, something we know we can never unsee, and those of us who have been online for years have seen a lot of shit. We've all been through some version of what the characters experience, trying to mitigate the distress of absorbing all this disturbing content by downplaying it or seeking absolution, telling ourselves that we did all we could do.

The irony of a book this thoughtful about online content apparently being passed around BookTok (judging from reviews I've scanned here) is not lost on me.

We Had to Remove This Post has its weak points. I found that the tension wasn't sustained consistently through the narrative, partially due to the shift in focus from Hexa to the proagonist's relationship. I also thought that the way Bervoets introduces the conflicting accounts towards the end was a bit confusing. But I do think this is a much better book than the "one star, incel vibes" reviews would have you believe.