I'm not aware of any studies, but there are several articles on the content moderators. Some effects mentioned were: - people develop severe anxiety while still in training, and continue to struggle with trauma symptoms long after they leave - conspiracy videos and memes that they see each day gradually lead them to embrace fringe views - Fired employees regularly threatened to return to work and harm their old colleagues - they coped with the stress of the job with sex, drugs, and offensive jokes, all in the workplace - self-harm were also common - turned people intensely paranoid

https://www.theverge.com/2019/2/25/18229714/cognizant-facebo...

https://www.wired.com/2014/10/content-moderation/

Not exactly what you’re looking for but I remember reading this when it was published and it was disturbing to say the least : https://www.theverge.com/2019/2/25/18229714/cognizant-facebo...

some news stories about various content moderator positions paint a picture that isnt great for the people working the job.

https://www.wired.com/2014/10/content-moderation/

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/may/04/facebook-...

https://www.npr.org/2019/07/01/737498507/for-facebook-conten...

There's a lot of first hand accounts of people explaining the logic behind seeking and watching such content. The WatchPeopleDie subreddit had a lot of that and you had many people detailing their experience, but iirc it turned into a neo-nazi hangout before it got banned.