We Had To Remove This Post

Author Hanna Bervoets
Narrator Khristine Hvam
Publisher Pan Macmillan
Run Time 2 hours and 44 minutes
Format Audio
Genre Digital and information technologies: social and ethical aspects, Fiction in translation, Impact of science and technology on society, Modern and contemporary fiction, Narrative theme: Interior life, Narrative theme: Social issues, Violence and abuse in society.

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What to expect

'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

Critics Review

Acid-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.
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.
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.
The Guardian
Bervoets’ neat dissection of morality is as taut as a thriller, sharp as a slug of ice-cold vodka.
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?
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 Atonement
Extremely gripping and intense edgy queer novel
Andrea Lawlor, author of Paul Takes The Form Of A Mortal Girl
This 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 Severance
An 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 Teeth
I thought it was incredible and has real cult potential.
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

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