Book Review: We Had to Remove This Post translated by Emma Rault

Books inspired by social media and the ways in which it changes ourselves and our relationships are my favorite. I will simply leave any other book and immerse into the virtual realities and real challenges because it helps to better understand the world we are living in, but equally are examples of creative inspiration from the everyday reality. 

We Had to Remove this Post by acclaimed Dutch writer Hanna Bervoets, translated into English by Emma Rault, is a novella following Kayleigh working for the social network Hexa - which rhymes with Meta, of course - as a content supervisor. Her duty is to check, based on an elaborated code of practices and standards elaborated by the company, which posts do not have an offensive content - violence, suicide, pornography ... you name it.  The final posts allowed online do articulate a world view in the same way those who are left behind are part of the contemporary narrative.

I had the chance to talk with few people working for the Facebook offices in charge with such content evaluation jobs and they hated their assignments, their work and the world. Stories of horrible videos and pictures humans like everyone of us recorded and wanted to post online are as real as the atrocities we, humans, inflict to one another. Only that the online world is just another tool to propagate them.

In the end, the decisions of simple humans - guided by a code of online conduct - shape our worldview: all those cats and funny animals may make us happier but it´s far from this. In fact, there is a never-ending discussion about social media as a source of harm or/and a blessing, and particularly German and French public opinion - that I am familiar with - is very vocal about the negative parts.

We Had to Remove this Post though does summarize and include some of those topics, from the perspective of a single individual, with her own needs and failures. Kayleigh fell in love with a colleague and the work is an intrusive part of their private life and eventual break-up.  

Somehow though, the pieces of life and the meditations about the social network are not always seamed together. May it be the short length of the story or the disbalance between the heavy philosophical background and the facts. Sometimes it is hard to include the line of thought into a story without sounding apologetic - for or against, doesn´t matter. The risk is to create just another book inspired by current events who is taken over by the events. 

It seems that I still have to wait a bit more until reading a book in real literary sync with the social media world we are living in - although Fake Accounts is not so bad either.

Rating: 2.5 stars