This wasn’t supposed to happen. In 2020, in a house surrounded by fields in the Irish countryside, Liam, 19, sat at his laptop, an energy drink fizzing at his elbow. He leaned in for a better look at the profile photo and, sure enough, saw the face of an old rugby friend looking back at him.

Just weeks earlier, Liam, whose name has been changed to protect his privacy, had been living in Waterford, in Southeast Ireland, about to start his second year at university. Then Covid-19 shut down the city and his university’s campus. On any Saturday on the main street, there were now more pigeons than people. Pubs and cafés shut their doors, and job opportunities dried up. “Money-wise it was worrying,” he says.

Increasingly concerned, Liam responded to a Facebook ad for a “freelance customer support representative,” working remotely for vDesk, a company based in Cyprus. He was invited to an online interview. At the end of the call, the interviewer asked how he would feel about moderating dating websites.