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<p class="MsoNormal">In 2009, we started to discuss whether it makes sense to
continue the concept of exploitation when it comes to digital work. (<a href="http://tinyurl.com/kmhq2nm">http://tinyurl.com/kmhq2nm</a>). A few freeze
frames from that discussion and others since:</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Thinking about YouTube, Mark Andrejevic writes that "the
notion of exploitation is both a problematic and a crucial one for the
development of a critical approach to the productivity of interactive
community-driven sites." Ian Bogost echoes that in away:
"exploitation only partly explains today's anxiety with online
services."</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal">In the UnlikeUs Reader, Geert Lovink wrote that
"discussing the latest research trends we can see a growing tiredness of
the exploitation thesis of social media …" </p>
<p class="MsoNormal">I mean, sure, discussions do not tend to go toward the sexy
or cool; it’s thorny stuff.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal">For others, discussing digital work as exploitation
represents unforgivable Internet centrism, ignoring those billions of people
whose super-exploitation pays for our complicit lifestyles, here in the
overdeveloped world. </p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Douglas Davis shows how, globally, the informal sector
(people without a regular, formal job) is "most certainly a living museum
of human exploitation. There is nothing in the catalogue of Victorian misery,
as narrated by Dickens, Zola, or Gorky, that does not exist somewhere in a
Third World city today." </p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal">And then there is the plight of the miners in China and the
Republic of Congo who excavate rare earth minerals for our shiny devices. </p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal">This kind of super-exploitation surely needs to be on the
back of our minds but I wonder if this really cancels out the second order
exploitation, let's say of the lowest paid workers on Mechanical Turk. Miriam
Cherry has a great piece on that (<a href="https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1499823">https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1499823</a>). </p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Nicholas Carr talked about the sharecropping of Internet
users while Julian Kücklich wrote that “the one-size-fits-all concept of
exploitation we have inherited from the Marxist tradition was probably never
particularly useful to begin with, but when we talk about forms of living where
labor and leisure are so deeply intertwined it is in danger of losing its
meaning altogether. K<span lang="DE">ü</span>cklich
argued that what Terranova calls "free labor" and what he calls
playbor... "is never entirely exploited, nor is it ever entirely
free (in the sense of libre)." </p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Adam Arvidsson discussed the exploitation of communicative
and affectual processes that transpire among consumers in terms of their
contribution to the value of the brand. But Arvidsson wonders how much value is
actually generated. </p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Graham Murdoch figured that Internet gift relations are
incorporated into the economy of commodities leading to an intensification of
exploitation. </p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Mark Andrejevic describes exploitation as an ”external influence,”
a channel used to fold users into the dictate of consumption. On YouTube,
"the submitted data translate, with the help of analytics-based forms,
into ”external influence”-- the channel is used to induce their desires for
commercial products." Andrejevic and Michel Bauwens emphasize that not all
of digital labor is in fact exploited, giving the example of Wikipedia and
Goteo. </p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Lily Irani turns to Donna Haraway to suggest responsibility
and responsiveness as an alternate framework for thinking about exploitation.
For Irani then, exploitation is a failed sort of relation that has to be
"judged by time and situation, rather than by who has the capital or the
breasts." </p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal">In the context of data labor, Howard Rheingold wrote
"Informal consent is crucial - I choose to be exploited, if exploitation
is how you want to see my uploading and tagging of my photos and videos."
Could exploitation be mutually advantageous and consensual? </p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal">For Christian Fuchs, the exploitation of digital labor
involves three elements. In short, it is about coercion, alienation, and
appropriation: "Coercion: Users are ideologically coerced to use
commercial platforms in order to be able to engage in communication….
Alienation: companies, not the users, own the platforms and the created profit.
Appropriation: Users spend time on corporate Internet platforms that are funded
by targeted advertising capital accumulation models." </p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Don't you think that the understanding of workers being
exploited at unacceptable levels could influence changes in Labor Law, for
example? Could not exploitation, as a moral concept, have an impact on policy
changes and new forms of solidarity or mutual aid? </p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal">I mean, obfuscation of the actual labor dynamics is
pervasive. Owners call their workers “requesters,” “task rabbits,” “cloud
workers,” or “providers” when in fact they are just that: workers, living under precarious conditions very much comparable to those in the
fast food industry and elsewhere. </p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal">You probably saw the sickening news about a food drive of a
Walmart in Cleveland:</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">"Please donate food items so associates in need can
enjoy Thanksgiving dinner." </p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><a href="http://tinyurl.com/l59pbsy">http://tinyurl.com/l59pbsy</a></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Trebor</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p><p class="MsoNormal"><br></p><p class="MsoNormal"> <br></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
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