A Facebook employee reportedly died by suicide after leaping off the company’s headquarters building in Menlo Park, California, on Thursday.
The Menlo Park Police Department said the unidentified man jumped from the fourth floor of the building at 162 Jefferson Drive and was pronounced dead at the scene.
“Menlo Park Police Officers and Menlo Park Fire Protection District personnel responded, and when they arrived, found the victim unresponsive,” Menlo Park Police Department said in a statement Thursday. “Firefighters and paramedics administered medical aid but were unable to revive the victim.”
A preliminary investigation found that there was no foul play involved in the apparent suicide.
Facebook released a statement following the incident on Thursday:
We were saddened to learn that one of our employees passed away at our Menlo Park headquarters earlier today. We’re cooperating with police in their investigation and providing support to employees. While the family is being notified, we have no information to share. We hope to provide an update when we learn additional information from law enforcement.
In June, Breitbart News reported that content moderators working at Cognizant, a company contracted by Facebook to monitor its content, recently revealed what it was like working for the social media platform.
The report said that employees claimed they suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) “as a result of moderating disgusting content on the social media platform” and said that the workplace itself was dirty.
The report continued:
In addition to working in an allegedly filthy environment, current and former content moderators at the Tampa, Florida, site have also reported instances of death threats, sexual harassment, fear of being fired over taking time off work, as well as aloof and inattentive managers, who had initially misled applicants regarding their job descriptions.
“They said Facebook is basically shoving all of their graphic violence content to us, that they didn’t want it anymore. So they had to move more people to cover it. And that’s all that we saw, every single day,” said Facebook moderator Shawn Speagle.
In February, Breitbart News reported that many of the content moderators had resorted to using drugs to escape the “misery” of watching traumatizing images all day on the social media platform.
“Moderators are routinely high at work,” an article by The Verge claimed, according to the report. “Employees are developing PTSD-like symptoms after they leave the company, but are no longer eligible for any support from Facebook or Cognizant.”
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