China.- The sudden death of a young employee of a Chinese internet giant relaunched the debate on exhausting work rhythms and the culture of overtime with 72 hours per week.
The young man, 25 years old, died of a cerebral hemorrhage on Friday night after seeking treatment and not showing up for his position as a content moderator for the Bilibili video site.
In a statement Tuesday night, the company confirmed the death. “The death of this fine worker represents a huge loss for the company, but it also serves as a warning to us,” Bilibili writes.
“We must make improvements to monitor the health of our employees and prevent similar tragedies from happening again,” the statement added.
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The death comes after several cases of sudden deaths in the technology sectorsparking debate about the “996” culture – working six days a week, from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. – championed by bosses like Alibaba founder Jack Ma.
After a blogger announced the young man’s death – citing anonymous co-workers who say he had been forced to work overtime – the case went viral on Weibo, the Chinese social network equivalent to Twitter.
Other Weibo users, who claim to be Bilibili employees, they accuse the company of having forced content moderators to work twelve hours straight without a break during the Chinese New Year holidays.
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Bilibili denies the overtime allegations, saying the employee was assigned to his job eight hours a day, with two days off after five days of work, as part of the rotation during the Chinese New Year holidays.
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