Meta goes to trial in Barcelona. The High Court of Justice of Catalonia holds the oral hearing starting this Tuesday for the dismissal of more than 2,000 workers who operated as content moderators for Mark Zuckerberg’s platforms from Barcelona.
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The plaintiffs were hired from 2018 by the company CCC, later absorbed by the Canadian multinational Telus, until April 2, 2025, when it decided to close the service.
The plaintiffs estimate that, if the court rules in their favor, Telus will have to face compensation exceeding 90 million euros.
La Vanguardia uncovered in October 2023 the epidemic of various mental illnesses affecting hundreds of workers due to the harshness of the content they had to remove from social networks before it became public.
The workers argue that the closure of the Torre Glòries office was illegal because the work was moved to Austria, Germany, or Slovakia
Many of those affected by these damages initiated legal proceedings, which were one of the factors for Telus deciding to close its Barcelona facilities.
The workers argue that the closure of the office located in Torre Glòries was an illegal measure, intended solely to relocate production to other European countries. Telus has offices in Austria, Germany, and Slovakia, where content is filtered as it was previously done in Barcelona.
The plaintiffs maintain that the redistribution to these countries “does not respond to a real extinguishing cause, but to a strategy to get rid of the workforce and avoid the existing litigation” in the Barcelona center.
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Sources from the workers explain that even before the collective dismissal there were more than 1,200 pending claims, both for the wage discrimination the company applied based on the working language – moderators who deleted content in Spanish were paid less than those who did so in languages with fewer speakers in Barcelona such as Dutch or Norwegian – as well as for the dozens of lawsuits and complaints filed for the mental health damage caused by content moderation. These litigations consider that rights regarding occupational risk prevention and mental health were violated.
The defendants are the various companies and executives involved in the closure and relocation of the service: Meta Platforms Ireland Inc; Telus International; its CEO, Roger Clancy, who was also CEO of CCC Barcelona; CCC Barcelona Digital Services, SLU; CCC Erste Beteiligungs GMBH; and CCC Holding GMBH.
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The plaintiffs estimate that the start of the trial could mark a before and after regarding the responsibility of companies that hire people to act as filters for extremely harsh content: terrorism, pedophilia, revenge among drug traffickers, sexual abuse, against minors, bullying…
The lawsuit is against both Mark Zuckerberg’s company and the subcontractors that operated for him from Barcelona. The work was initially handled by CCC, which was later absorbed by the Canadian company.
The establishment of this center in Barcelona in June 2018 was celebrated as proof that, even during the most tense moments of the procés, large companies were betting on Barcelona and Catalonia for their international investments.
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