Digital labor platforms: new forms of labor organization and regulation

The monograph presents an extensive study of new forms of labor organization in the context of the development of technical, technological, financial, economic and socio-cultural factors. The distinctive features of digital labor platforms, their classification, as well as the strategies of key players in the global and Russian-speaking distance labor markets are given. Based on the analysis of current international analytical reviews, foreign and domestic scientific publications, current legislation and court decisions, the author gives approaches and methods of regulatory regulation of platform labor. The author does not ignore such controversial issues as: direct and indirect methods of state influence on the activities of digital labor platforms, problems of social responsibility, as well as prospects for the development of platform cooperativism in the world and Russia as an alternative to labor platforms focused on the global level. It is of interest to researchers, government authorities, teachers of higher educational institutions, graduate students and students studying these problems.

Professionals, purpose-seekers, and passers-through: How microworkers reconcile alienation and platform commitment through identity work

Digital microwork consists of remote and highly decontextualized labor that is increasingly governed by algorithms. The anonymity and granularity of such work is likely to cause alienation among workers. To date, we know little about how workers reconcile such potential feelings of alienation with their simultaneous commitment to the platform. Based on a longitudinal survey of 460 workers on a large microworking platform and a combination of quantitative and qualitative analyses, we show that (1) alienation is present in digital microwork. However, our study also finds that (2) workers’ commitment to the platform over time may alter their subjective perceptions of alienation. Drawing from qualitative statements, we show (3) how workers perform identity work that might help reconcile feelings of alienation with simultaneous platform commitment. Our findings contribute to solving the paradox of worker commitment to precarious platform labor, which is an issue frequently raised in the digital labor literature.

Beyond Mechanical Turk: The Work of Brazilians on Global AI Platforms

The aim of this chapter is to analyse the micro-work of Brazilians on global artificial intelligence platforms. In context of platformisation of labour, we show that artificial intelligence still requires a lot of human work, leading to global value chains and a global gig economy. In a digital economy, there are inequalities involving local workers and global platforms. At present, however, most research on micro-work focuses on the Global North. Latin America remains a blindspot. This research investigates the micro-work of Brazilians on two specific platforms, Appen and Lionbridge. This research reveal that micro-work is closely intertwined with the historical informality of labour in the country, a gig economy that existed prior to digital labor itself. There is no ‘digital labour universalism’. Rather, there is an AI colonialism reinforcing North–South inequalities from a platform labour perspective.

Platformizing family production: The contradictions of rural digital labor in China

How is the rise of platform capitalism reinventing the traditional regime of familial production, while at the same time being energized by it? How do the historically informed, lived experiences of rural e-commerce entrepreneurs or workers in China help reconceptualize digital labor and platform studies? Deploying the analytic of platformized family production, this article addresses these questions through a deep description of the experiences of variously positioned platform-based and mediated laborers in an e-commerce village in East China. I argue that the ongoing process of platformizing family production is profoundly contradictory. As an alternative to a model of development based on unevenness and the rural-urban divide, village e-commerce has created opportunities for peasants and marginalized urban youth to achieve social mobility. However, it also shapes a new regime of value that privileges the individualized e-commerce entrepreneur as an ideal subject, and fetishizes and instrumentalizes innovation and creativity in conformity with the global intellectual property regime. These tendencies not only contradict the reality of collective labor organization both on e-commerce platforms and in villages, but also conflict with the indispensable role of manual labor in the production process—reinforcing rather than overcoming existing inequalities and stratification in rural China. JEL Codes: J16, J61, L86, Q55, R12