The 2018 documentary Cleaners exposed how social networking giants outsource the removal of violent and abusive content to third-party firms, mostly in the Philippines. Thousands of young Filipinos are employed to review an enormous volume of images and videos a day, including beheadings, violent attacks, child abuse, hate speech and terrorist propaganda. The work is relentless. There’s little to no psychological support, and suicide rates among workers are reported to be high.
In her new novel, Moderation, Filipino American writer Elaine Castillo puts a human face on this work. “As for why so many of them were Filipino,” she writes, “well, what was there to say that hadn’t been said in 1765; in 1899; in 1946; in 1965? ... because they spoke and read good English, because they respected chains of command, because they kept a positive attitude, because they would take a fifth of an American worker’s pay.”
They also knew Americans. “They knew the shift of air around a man before his fist hit flesh, the hours of night when God was least visible.”
Thirtysomething Girlie Delmundo has spent 10 years at Reeden, a social media company’s Las Vegas hub. Most moderators burn out quickly, but Girlie has outlasted almost everyone. She prides herself on being detailed, claiming “around 99.5 percent” accuracy, and has trained herself to remain emotionally detached from the content she comes across. “No one was better than a content moderator at dissociation,” Castillo writes.
In one example, Girlie picks up evidence of child exploitation: “the socks feature an illustration of a main character from the animated Disney film Frozen. Judging from the scale of the TV remote control next to her leg, I would estimate a girl’s size three or four.”
Girlie has no choice but to stay in the job. After the 2008 housing crash, her family lost their home, and her mother was left “a million dollars in debt”. Girlie’s wages go towards covering mortgages and her mother’s expensive tastes. Unsurprisingly, she’s become hardened by life. On having children: “She had absolutely zero plans to subject a new human soul to the vinegar-dipped calamity of this family.”
When Reeden acquires the virtual reality company Playground, William Cheung — its global head of content moderation — enlists Girlie to oversee behaviour within its meticulously reconstructed historical and cultural simulations. At a virtual Trevi Fountain, she gazes at “the sky, pink as a lip; the creamy marble body of Oceanus upon his chariot”, the beauty of the scene starkly at odds with the disturbing conduct she’s tasked with policing.
The novel moves between Girlie’s demanding job and the rhythms of her family life, anchored by her cousin Maribel, a vibrant, talkative and often overwhelming presence. Their dynamic captures both the intimacy and tension of extended Filipino-American households, where shared income and collective survival blur the lines between personal and communal responsibility. Castillo focuses on everyday pressures: family gatherings where the talk is always about money, financial stress, shared obligations and looming expectations. With Maribel’s wedding approaching, Girlie faces added pressure.
These domestic moments keep the story grounded in reality and illustrate how her personal and professional lives constantly overlap. She manages her feelings, her desires, her frustrations and her relationships with the same discipline she applies at work.
Girlie and William’s relationship deepens as they work together, though both remain guarded. He’s withdrawn and still mourning a close friend; she’s self-reliant and resistant to emotional entanglement. During a conversation about Playground’s potential, William playfully asks if she sees herself as the story’s heroine, likening her to Elizabeth Bennet. Girlie brushes it off with a retort: “Virtual reality? Please. Old news. Clunky tech.” The exchange captures their intellectual, drily humorous dynamic.
Throughout, Castillo’s prose is sharp and satirical, shot through with an energy that mirrors the pace and pressure of online work. She’s unsparing in her depiction of corporate life. One executive is “shamelessly deploying the material fact of his brownness to obscure the equally material fact of his bossness”. Her assessment of gender dynamics is equally acerbic: “If anyone remotely femme was in the room, someone was going to find a creative way to assault her.”
Moderation’s publication is well timed. Meta’s January rollback of third-party fact-checkers and safeguards against misinformation and hate on Facebook, Threads and Instagram has raised serious doubts about its commitment to online safety.
Under Elon Musk’s ownership, X has significantly scaled back its professional content moderation, opting instead for “Community Notes”. The move, framed as a push for transparency and free speech, has drawn sharp criticism from researchers and civil society groups who warn that misinformation and harmful content are now spreading unchecked. This raises serious concerns about X’s role in shaping public discourse.
That’s why Girlie’s story should matter to us all. Without people like her to protect us, the platforms we use daily are being flooded by a constant tide of toxic content.
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