One year of sparks, countless stories of change

Hey there,

The first ever issue of the Spark landed in inboxes just over a year ago – since then, it’s been eye-opening and exhilarating to discover all the different ways stories have sparked positive change across the world. I hope you’ve found it enlightening, too!

In that first edition, I wrote about the outcome from TBIJ’s October 2022 investigation Behind TikTok's boom: A legion of traumatised, $10-a-day content moderators. (If you want to check out this or any of the other past editions, you can find them here.)

We had uncovered that TikTok content moderators working in Colombia – and contracted through the French multinational company Teleperformance – were expected to watch gruesome images of child sexual abuse, murder, pornography and cannibalism. They told us about widespread occupational trauma and inadequate psychological support, impossible performance targets, punitive salary deductions and extensive surveillance.

After we published, a lawsuit was filed against Teleperformance alleging that the company’s growth was in part dependent on its abusive treatment of its employees (the lawsuit even cited our reporting).

The Colombian labour vice-minister also announced a government inquiry into Teleperformance. The company’s share price fell by a third in a day. Teleperformance swiftly committed to improving the rights for its 440,000 employees worldwide. It also signed a “historic agreement” allowing its employees in Colombia the right to form a union.

So far, so good, right? But there’s a reason we stay on the story at TBIJ.

Teleperformance featured again in an investigation we published a couple of weeks ago about moderation of Facebook and Instagram – owned by tech giant Meta.

We knew Meta’s content moderation had been moved away from Kenya, where the company is facing lawsuits over working conditions and human rights. But it hadn’t made public any details of the new contract. We revealed that it had been won by Teleperformance, which employed some 150 people in an office building in Accra, Ghana, to trawl through the millions of images uploaded to these platforms.

Speaking to some of the moderators for Facebook and Instagram, we revealed a suicide attempt, depression, substance abuse, insomnia, surveillance and threats. Accounts were corroborated by lawyers from Foxglove Legal, a non-profit supporting the cases brought in Kenya. It visited the Accra-based moderators in March and is investigating their allegations.

Teleperformance told TBIJ: “We have robust people management systems and workplace practices, including a robust wellbeing program staffed by fully licensed psychologists to support our content moderators throughout their content moderation journey” (read its full responses here).

As my colleague Clare Wilmot wrote: “Cases against Meta and its contractors may yet deliver justice to workers in Kenya and Ghana, but they won’t necessarily improve conditions elsewhere. Part of the issue is that content moderation is highly mobile and African governments see digital outsourcing as a pathway to development.” 

We know that we have to stay on the story to keep holding companies and governments to account. So, a year on from the first edition of The Spark I’m here again, telling you that we won’t rest in revealing wrongdoing and helping journalism have a real, positive change in the world.

Their stories brought freedom – literally - 05 June 2024

This issue featured an interview with the founders of Ear Hustle, the first podcast to be created and produced inside a prison. And we also heard how the founder of investigative outfit Bellingcat helped reunite Roz with Coco, her five-year-old chocolate Sprocker spaniel.

Shedding shame by naming their abuser - 19 March 2025

In this edition, I spoke to a journalist who opened the floodgates on the revelations that hundreds of young footballers were exploited by people they trusted. One of these survivors, Gary Cliffe, told me how, after a career in the police and testifying against his abuser, he has come full circle back to the game he loves.

Ending gendered brutality in India's sugar fields - 23 April 2025

I explored how The New York Times and the non-profit newsroom The Fuller Project came together to investigate the connection between cutting sugarcane and hysterectomies. What they found was an abusive system, where women were convinced a hysterectomy was their only option. The impacts of the investigation reached Wall Street, women farmer groups in India, and the global drinks companies buying the sugar.

While I don’t like to boast, I wanted to let you know that The Spark is up for “Best Individual-Led Newsletter” at the Publisher Newsletter Awards. And Frankie Goodway, our brilliant editor of both The Spark and Uncovered – our sister newsletter from TBIJ – has been shortlisted for “Newsletter Hero of the Year”. Wish us luck! 

As ever, let me know what you think of this edition, and what examples of journalism changing the world for the better you’d like us to cover. Thanks for being part of our first year. Here’s to many more impactful stories to come!

See you next week,