One of the most enjoyable aspects of working as a journalist is being presented with opportunities to learn about something I previously knew nothing about. Last month, I was invited to cut together a short film to accompany an interview published in Red Pepper entitled Digital Labour: Wages for Crowdwork. The interviewee, Byron Peters, is an artist and labour organizer making pretty incredible work. It was an eye-opening privilege to research and edit together clips of interview, his own film projects and found footage to illustrate his ideas.
Though I’ve followed critiques of Amazon.com and Google’s business and labour practices, the terrifying MechanicalTurk was new to me, and I had no prior conception of the depth of exploitation occurring around the world as people are paid peanuts to scan documents, click links, produce animations and perform various tasks central to the maintenance of the internet as we know it. Click through to see the video interview I made – but I strongly encourage people to read the full interview with Byron as well. It will undoubtedly change the way you think about the digital world and labour practices in the contemporary moment.
Siobhán McGuirk 