The Working Conditions of Digital Workers in Amazon Mechanical Turk
Reading Response 2
The digital world requires different kinds of jobs, in which many humans sit behind computer screens for low pay such as, crowdwork, microwork, and commercial content moderation. The purpose of the work that is done by humans is to improve the detection of algorithms to information, to add artificial intelligence to machines, and to improve websites. In the three articles and one short film below, it is shown how and why humans work in the different kinds of digital jobs.
Companies that ask for small tasks to be completed by a large amount of people are a scam. In his article “How Crowdworkers Became the Ghosts in the Digital Machine”, Moshe Z. Marvit discusses how crowd work is a scam, since the company can fire its workers whenever it wants and it pays very low wages. There is free registration for anyone who is interested in completing the tasks that are offered by the company. Computers are limited in the tasks that they can perform, so this is where comes the need of humans to perform the tasks that computers can’t do.The problem is that workers have the conception that they are going to be paid a decent amount of money and work as long as they want, because it was stated in one of the articles called, “how to make extra money online”, that crowdworkers make a lot of money. There are many sites that crowdworkers work for, “As many as 500,000 “crowdworkers” power the Mechanical Turk machine”(Marvit, 2014, February 5, paragraph 2). The work is all done to train algorithms to do a better job in detecting information.Workers can have their work rejected or accepted by the employers without any explanation as to why employers made a certain choice about their work.
Companies like Google, Facebook, and Amazon have workers that do microwork to improve the recognition of algorithm to information and provide artificial intelligence to machines. In her article “Justice For ‘Data Janitors’’’, Lilly Irani discusses the process of how Amazon Mechanical Turk workers do the microwork that is required of them. For example, “ AMT workers choose among tasks like transcription, content moderation, and image classification, getting paid per piece of data processed. They might work for 10 employers in the span of a day. Amazon sends the data work to the employer, structures the market that enables the microcontracts, and, should the employer choose to pay, transmits payment to the worker”(Irani, 2015, January 15, paragraph 14). There are varying jobs within Amazon Mechanical Turk for workers to do microwork. There could be many employers that are responsible for receiving the workers’ work. The unfair practice about the process is in the way that workers get paid. Workers can get paid very low wages or not even get paid at all, depending on what the employer decides. This practice does not admit or appreciate the efforts or integrity of workers, because working could be like not working, which is dehumanizing to workers.
Content moderators do tough work to improve websites. In her article “Social Media’s Silent Filter”, Sarah T. Roberts discusses how commercial content moderators for social media websites have very little time to decide what should be removed or stay on sites, based on the company’s rules regarding content moderation. Most of the content moderators are found in many parts of the world and “online on Amazon Mechanical Turk, or at the headquarters of major Silicon Valley firms — typically without full-time employment and all it entails, such as access to quality health care.”(Roberts, 2017, March 8, paragraph 7). There are lots of content moderators that work part-time in Amazon Mechanical Turk. Their work conditions are tough because they see sensitive content that is graphically explicit. They have to sit down and watch many videos a day to judge their validity, which causes them a high rate of stress and psychological issues. Since content moderators are independent contractors, they are not subject to a high pay. They do not have job benefits such as health insurance, so they can’t take care of their psychological health. Many of them end up quitting the job quickly before their term ends, because they can not endure the amount of stress they experience.
Amazon Mechanical Turk workers complain about the working conditions of the company. In a short film called “Turking For A Living”, by Bassam Tariq, it is discussed how “Turkers” are not happy with the work that they do and the pay they get. The pay is so low that workers would be happy with just making ten or twenty dollars a day. The workers are asked “Do you like being a Turker?”, one of the workers answered as “If I had my choice, I wouldn’t need to be here” (Tariq, 2015, March 20), and another worker answered “We’re doing the work no one else wants to do” (Tariq, 2015, March 20). These answers show how disappointed the workers are with the job. Most of them do these jobs for so many reasons that has to do with their situation in life, such as: illness, termination from work, and having a hard time finding a job. Turking is the main source of income for most of the workers. It takes them a lot of energy to do the boring work that most people do not want to do, and are paid so little that it barely pays their bills.
All three articles that were mentioned and the short film share the effects of the different kinds of jobs that workers do for Amazon Mechanical Turk. Workers are tricked into believing that their pay is going to be high, when in reality they are dehumanized and get very low pay or nothing. The working conditions for crowdworkers, microworkers, and content moderators are tough, because there is a high level of stress from sitting behind the screen for hours and doing a lot of work for strengthening algorithms, artificial intelligence, and websites. They should have rights that ensure their pay and health.
Citations:
Irani, L. (2015, January 15). Justice for “data janitors.” Public Books. Retrieved from https://www.publicbooks.org/justice-for-data-janitors/
Marvit, M. Z. (2014, February 5). How crowdworkers became the ghosts in the digital machine. The Nation. Retrieved from https://www.thenation.com/article/how-crowdworkers-became-ghosts-digital-machine/
Roberts, S. T. (2017, March 8). Social media’s silent filter. The Atlantic. Retrieved from https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2017/03/commercial-content-moderation/518796/
Tariq, B. (2015, March 20). Turking for a living[Video file]. The New Yorker. Retrieved from https://www.newyorker.com/culture/culture-desk/video-turking-for-respect
