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Kenshin Nakano: Okay. Step So, Hello, everyone. I'm I'm I'm sorry. Not being a be able to come. But I'm glad to share my research and to love from you.

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Kenshin Nakano: So my presentation is based on my basis work in progress.

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Kenshin Nakano: This tastes, compares trade unions, privatization of platform workers in France and Japan, especially for delivery, Korea's.

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Kenshin Nakano: As to the Chicomoria, that it by step platform companies that is to use independent work as calling to question at all series of social systems, because they are system, they are based on which they are in many countries.

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Kenshin Nakano: at the same time. In this situation, research shows that there is diversity in this system, then I have both sides. That different form of platformization of the economy can expand

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Kenshin Nakano: by these different systems in of industrial relations. In other words, my presentation aims to show how different system, how many employment relation impact the rate platform has taken rules in these 2 countries.

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Kenshin Nakano: They are several aspects in a in a iterations. But here we will focus on through social security and economic regulation.

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Kenshin Nakano: The first aspect, rather individual, is that about different type of rights that are granted to the State, that some of the employee, the second one is collective, and that about how it? How an economic activity is integrated.

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Kenshin Nakano: this to accept to, of course, is that to accept, to already linked but distinguish them helps to have a pre- view situation

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Kenshin Nakano: regarding labor market structures.

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Kenshin Nakano: These 2 countries compressed, the shabby grass is characterized by a lower rate of this on no standard jobs in the employment employees stage operation.

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Kenshin Nakano: but also a high, a relatively high rate of unemployment.

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Kenshin Nakano: The Japanese creation is the upside. It is characterized by a low rate of unemployment, but also a highlight of non-standard jobs.

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Kenshin Nakano: From a social security point of view it should be not, that is that in Japan. Nearly half of no regular employees do not belong to the same scheme as leg. Their employees.

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Kenshin Nakano: so in terms of have hits into us and pensions. For example. many of them belong to scheme for which they have to pay the full contribution, whereas for regular employees to a company pays half.

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Kenshin Nakano: This you I. This, between regular and no regular employees in terms of secure social security, being the letter closet to the safely employed, must also pay the full contribution.

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Kenshin Nakano: These employment state structures should be considered in conjunction with the Co. Collective regulation

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Kenshin Nakano: in France the main level of activity regulation is that of the profession or sector collectively. Agreement signed at this level often extended to the entire sector.

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Kenshin Nakano: As a result we'll have this in organization. Right is a among them is among the lowest. In the Oecd countries.

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Kenshin Nakano: The proportion of the employee covered by Collectiv at the limits is among the highest

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Kenshin Nakano: in this system.

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Kenshin Nakano: Soon as a system of professional elections. They are elected by employees to have a negotiating mandate through their trade union organizations, compete for this mandate, and it all claim to represent not only their members, but all employees

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Kenshin Nakano: in Japan. The main level of regulation is that of the company. The Union is, therefore, from at this level. It's awfully present. Only the employees who are its members

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Kenshin Nakano: correct that the limit sign at least level there for apply only to those main employees who are members of each company. So leaving more than 80% of the employees, neither organized by you and us. No covered by a quality agreement.

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Kenshin Nakano: This.

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Kenshin Nakano: namely, the platform company in the passenger transport sector.

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Kenshin Nakano: Indeed, the Japanese capital sector is largely occupied

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Kenshin Nakano: by the camp, and it's that employees of drivers, and the source of sector is that to be very organized? In addition to the cabinet which

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Kenshin Nakano: the Ali of the platform. the structure also mobilized, the second, the sick test employers that day platform application that we introduced via more and more account companies

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Kenshin Nakano: while the driver limits the employee. This introduction is beginning to have a need back to their work in France

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Kenshin Nakano: several factors, such as 2 types of competing licenses, licenses

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at full of potential worker. Given that the high unemployment right.

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Kenshin Nakano: the predominance of the independent cab drivers, and as we will from the governments, have a name, it's all over the set. Such factor have enabled platforms to set up shop.

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Kenshin Nakano: The food delivery sector, meanwhile, is booming in both countries.

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Kenshin Nakano: also due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

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Kenshin Nakano: This, the number of day by 2 is is estimated at around the 2, some 200,000 in each country.

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Kenshin Nakano: In both countries there is no such status of a workers, such as a work as they just in the United Kingdom.

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Kenshin Nakano: For example.

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Kenshin Nakano: however the current dynamic may lead these 2 counts is to develop a glaze on between employee and in the independent.

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Kenshin Nakano: In France. Several legal action have resulted in the recognition of the employment relationship between Platform Rock and the

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Kenshin Nakano: They You European Union as a European Union is Eastern or directed for the presumption of all the employees status. It means to consider platform work as an employees by default.

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Kenshin Nakano: However, in face of this pressure, the French. You haven't had to recognize some of these while my maintaining

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Kenshin Nakano: them in safe endpoint status.

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Kenshin Nakano: The Ravas are there for taking different position some day very previous, and the left line. You left wing vineyards, such as the Cct. Demanding

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Kenshin Nakano: endpoint status.

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Kenshin Nakano: That's a constable proportion of delivery courses also want to improve their working condition. While in manuscript from pride.

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Kenshin Nakano: The Cf. Dt. For example, represent this position

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Kenshin Nakano: in Japan. There are no Lim, no delivery code. We is climbing emperor status and taking legal action to this standard.

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Kenshin Nakano: The only deliberate, you know, that exist today. Crimes work as State as we in the meet within the meaning of the Trade Union roles.

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Kenshin Nakano: Indeed, she has 2 cas per day. Barrows.

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Kenshin Nakano: That is

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Kenshin Nakano: the the labor stand as a low, and then that played you in your row. Do not define the time at time, work in the same way.

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Kenshin Nakano: so much

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Kenshin Nakano: the lab stand as a defines a worker in terms of interpersonal dependence.

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Kenshin Nakano: This worker is almost equal to the employee.

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Kenshin Nakano: as we have seen, benefits to at least extend from employees social security.

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Kenshin Nakano: The trade union law.

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Kenshin Nakano: on the other hand, he finds a worker in terms of economic dependence.

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Kenshin Nakano: as economic is interpreted, is some broader in the broader sense that in that place and independence. There may be work recognized by the training we trade you in your law, but not by the labor standards room.

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Kenshin Nakano: In other words, this work that may have access to economic regulation with this economic regulation through union rights

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Kenshin Nakano: without benefiting from the employees social security.

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Kenshin Nakano: That way of institutionalization also affects a regulatory model. In each country.

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Kenshin Nakano: In France a professional election has been set up in the in both cap platform sectors. Although the of this body, it has not yet been established mainly due to low turnout.

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Kenshin Nakano: It does give the elected organization a mandate to negotiate with the platforms, employers, representatives. and this for the whole of each sector

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Kenshin Nakano: elected organization.

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Kenshin Nakano: Often trade unions, therefore, tend to represent all the work, as

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Kenshin Nakano: in Japan, a Departmental Labor Relations Commission.

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Kenshin Nakano: which is a collective dispute to resolution, body between campaign and the Union.

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Kenshin Nakano: Listen to recognize the you know, lights for you, that is, for deliberate couriers also. The decision is not yet final. As a company has appealed to the Sentinel Labor Relations Commission.

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Kenshin Nakano: This definition, it's a

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Kenshin Nakano: to accept the collective bargaining with a very, very cool, as we use

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Kenshin Nakano: this lady right to him.

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Kenshin Nakano: root for, like for us, a Japanese nom in the way that the delegation takes place at the company level between management and the Union.

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Kenshin Nakano: To conclude, we can point out both similarity and this differences, both camp is experiencing and certain degree optimization and dividing upgrade. The glaze on between employee and this Independent.

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Kenshin Nakano: But it's from taken

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Kenshin Nakano: of what the great zone means, and the legal actions are different

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Kenshin Nakano: from a social security point of view, the relativity will protect the State test will be employed in the class least, some very obvious to claim this status. That this claim does not exist.

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Kenshin Nakano: This can be explained by the

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Kenshin Nakano: in which A, which assembly condition of that State test does not necessarily X guarantee access to the from social security

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Kenshin Nakano: from the from my economic regulation points of view. This formal regulation in the 2 counties take as a via more than a dominant known in each country.

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Kenshin Nakano: It means that the that's that's at and the

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Kenshin Nakano: however, this, not this. This does not mean that they converge to their national standards in the sense that this institutionalization could go hand with the consolidation of the independent status.

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Kenshin Nakano: That's for my presentation. Thank you for your attention.

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Okay, thank you very much, Kenchin. for your study. A wonderful study on the comparative. Research! From French and Japanese housing. Our system. So next, because we, our our second speaker is still logging in. And she's email and china. There are some technical issues. So we have to move the speaker, our so speaker up to the second place. Hello! Let's welcome. Mami

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and Monica will talk about the visions of digital labor, how motivations for accumulation informs the nature of platform the labor relationship. Thank you very much.

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How do I? yeah, get my slides off.

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They were out. They share a screen first.

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Yeah. And then I just click on this one here.

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This one's the third one. Yeah.

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all right. Great. Okay, so thank you so much for having me here. I'm really looking forward to presenting on a panel that is very focused on the wage labor relation. especially in terms of platforms.

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so this paper is kind of my attempt to get my core argument of my Ph. D. Thesis across in 14 min. So I completed my this thesis about a year ago. And this is the kind of final culmination of my findings. So this was broadly a large project that looked at 3 online labor

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platforms in this sort of comparative way. So upwork squad help and Amazon mechanical Turk, which I'll look at all 3. so basically, what I've done is I did an 18 month. ethnography, where I bought and sold labor on all 3 of these platforms.

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I don't have enough time to go into all of the ethnographic methodology. But if you have questions, I'm happy to answer them. But I really looked at how the platforms intervened, managed and curated the labor relationship as a product to a sell to both buyers and sellers.

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and kind of the core thing is, I use the language buyers and sellers because I argue in my thesis and it throughout this paper that the platform actually treats users as inputs and treats users as workers for the platform to improve the value of the platform.

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So today's paper, I'm aiming to demonstrate how the Platform's desire to monopolize within the labor platform ecosystem has led to the creation of new structures of labor. So I'll first kind of give you a broad outline of how I understand platforms. I'll talk about the visions of all 3 of these platforms, and then we'll go into some examples from the infrastructures built into the platforms specifically focusing on how workers and work is acquired and also on communication.

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So basically. So looking first at capitalist visions and strategies of platforms. So the way I understand platforms is that they digitize sociality by facilitating interactions between users. So, for example, Facebook takes ownership over the social relationship of friendship, ebay over the social relationship of entertainment and Amazon mechanical Turk over the social relationship of labor.

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so I kind of use what valus and shore have kind of adapted from simmel is the idea that platforms act as the third who rejoices in that triadic relationship between users, interactions with each other with the through the platform. So the platform makes an interaction based on how it can profit out of these interactions. So it really is, they create a product out of that social relation.

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so.

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But like, what's the purpose. I often get asked, what's the purpose of of talking about platforms in this way? And what's the purpose of taking ownership over these digital relationships? So unlike traditional enterprises who chase profit from their commercial operations. The tech industry, and particularly the platform economy, is known for persistent losses and an inability to turn a profit so uber, for example, famously stated in their initial Ipo offering that they may not ever reach profitability. Having reported an operating loss of 3 point

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oh, 3 billion dollars. So these persistent losses have not

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slowed the acceleration of the platform economy, whose viability relies on external investment through entrepreneurial finance rather than internal revenue. Entrepreneurial finance refers to a suite of investment channels, including crowdfunding websites, angel investors, accelerators, venture capitalists, and wealth funds that have honed in on the platform. Economy as a source of capital gains.

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Profit, then gives way to value in understanding the driving goal of the platform enterprise. The dependency on the platform enterprise to grow. Their perceived value in the eyes of investors and shareholders is a symptom of a wider capital as a park of that's led by the logic of finance. So here, in understanding how platforms as an enterprise behave, I draw on the work of Michel Fair and Andre or Lane, who do argue that the rapid growth of financial markets has meant that power is now located.

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not in the means of production, but actually in the means of allocation. So, in other words, rather than amassing profits from the surplus capital, from workers. Capitalists now decide what gets to be produced, and extract surplus from the success of the projects they invest in.

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so financial markets are the social institution where that value is determined. Companies. Actions then become scrutinized, not based on their real consequences to the product offering. But how the market perceives this action! This has very important implications for the strategic choice of platform enterprises, whose strategic orientation is towards their shareholders rather than their customers.

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In conceiving of success through the appreciation of value rather than the accumulation of profit. We can understand the motivations behind the design of these labor platforms as not for the optimization of the labor relationship to the platform users, but to remain attractive to investors and prevent their liquidation. And this is particularly done through maintaining their user base and and create a monopolization through that kind of expansion of the user base.

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So then, turning now specifically to labor platforms.

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The social relationship, as we know that they facilitate is labor relationships that they sell

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So in an increasingly saturated labour market platform enterprises have to start creating unique types of labor relationships in order to create a new type of monopoly and grow their value. And the way that they do that. And the way that they achieve that vision, I argue, is through

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infrastructure is built into the platform. So I adapt infrastructure theory to talk about how the flows of knowledge and relationships and interaction move through the platform, and how that's impacted by the devices that are built into the platform. And so I draw on wood and Monaghan here when they say that digital infrastructures establish context for practice. So that's how I kind of envisage.

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infrastructures in this way.

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Okay, so what are the visions of labor on these platforms? So the first platform I studied with Amazon mechanical Turk. So it's perhaps one of the most famous online labor platforms. The platform is designed to facilitate the completion of fragmented short-term tasks that require the input of human intelligence typically to inform the design of software, machine learning and algorithms as well as collecting data for research both in the public and private sphere.

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The vision for labor on this platform is best summed up by Jeff. Bezos quote, where he calls it artificial artificial intelligence, where software needing a task completed that is easy for a human but extraordinarily hard for a computer calls on the Amazon mechanical Turk workers to complete that task

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financially, Amazon. Mechanical Turks sits within the Amazon web Services arm of Amazon, which is a publicly listed company. so the Amazon web services arm recently hit 2.1 sorry. 21 billion dollars in year over year sales. The strategic goal of Amazon web services is to build a long-term customer relationship whose technologies like rely on Amazon for their functioning with this artificial artificial intelligence offered by Amazon mechanical Turk a key tool. In that reliance.

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The second platform I started with squad help squad her offers a crowd of creative workers to contribute to the design of Logos and the brainstorming of names and slogans. Through the format of a contest. This contest structure,

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is enabled by having buyer users post a brief to the website and then sell a user submitting entries for consideration. It's only the winner of the contest that actually is compensated for this labor.

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So the founder, Darth, and Munjil's vision for this labor relationship was to to disrupt the traditional agency model by providing a fast and low-cost alternative with access to the most creative people across the globe. So it was trying to challenge

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like existing marketing and branding agencies. squad helps really interesting. It kind of just function on reinvesting all of its revenue for the majority of the time that I've studied

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the platform, but it recently has opened itself up to external financing, having which is interesting because it's also bound up in this pivot away from the labor structure that I'm talking about towards the creation of a domain name marketplace, where AI generates the names for you, and then you can kind of buy that domain like a real estate asset. so that's a really interesting twist. So if you have any questions about that, I'm happy to answer that.

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And then finally up work stands out in this platform as a single study that doesn't come under the crowdsourcing umbrella where you source from a whole crowd of workers. So rather than offering a crowd of workers contributing to a single task. What upwork specializes in connecting highly skilled workers with via users offering long-term job opportunities as a one-off project or an hourly ongoing project.

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It's primarily Commercial vision is about making a single destination that's capable of serving the full breadth of users hiring and work needs

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So it's very much being like you go to go to upwork, and everything is done within that platform. so that's driven their investment in collaborative and trust building infrastructures that we, I'll look at at this presentation. So also, like Amazon, mechanical Turk up work is a publicly listed company, and so their strategic orientation is towards growing their market value through increasing their user base, and in in that way reach a monopolization. So

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briefly, the visions for each platform of labor is Amazon. Mechanical Turk is looking at, at creating mechanized human intelligence, extracting human intelligence from the crowd of workers. So separating this intelligence from the actual worker emulating software code in the way that it's functioning and a low-cost solution to software and algorithm training squad helps. Vision is creative. So test crowdsource creativity and a low-cost substitute to branding agencies and

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upwork is connecting highly skilled workers with complex projects. So a digitized version of traditional freelance labor contracts and collaborative single single environment for labor relationships.

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So now we kind of know these commercial visions. Let's look at 2 ways that the platform infrastructure has been designed to align with their unique visions for labor. So the first one to look at is the way that these platforms actually find workers and

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find work, the users on these platforms. So

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job applications can take various forms on these platforms. So submitting already created work and also all submitting more traditional job applications. But on upwork, so upwork tries to emulate the actual freelancing system that happens in the post-based economy. So you can see here on this screen. So this is up work here, that

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basically, what happens is a job comes up and then you have to submit a proposal. to submit the proposal. You have to like pay in squad help currency. It's a way of kind of limiting spam proposals.

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but then, what you have to do is you have to include a cover letter. That's kind of your pitch to the proposal you have to adapt at. Attach a profile. So you can make unique profiles for different skills you might have on the platform. But then, what's interesting particularly is this place where you bid for the job. So what what is particularly interesting here is that they've put the upwork service fee here so you can calculate how much money is getting going to be taken out of your earnings

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at the end. So on all of these platforms they take a cut of the of the

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of the budget of the of the buyer user, but on Amazon, mechanical Turk and upwork that sits on the kind of client side of the platform, whereas on upwork. It sits on the workers side of the platform kind of really playing into this idea that like as the freelance, so you have to absorb the risk of of engaging with the platform and and absorb the cost of engaging with the platform.

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 so yeah, so really, Amazon. Mechanical toes. Application system is very much based on digitizing existing labor relations in the freelancing sphere.

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On the other hand, Amazon, mechanical Turk and squad help focus on a submission structure.

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So what that means is a move away from the application for work towards the submission of work to achieve their vision of the speedy deployment of a crowd of labor. So, in other words, rather than working work, as applying to complete a task for the by a user, as is the case in upwork, both platforms require their seller users to submit the completed task before any commitment to payment. So, as I said in upward sorry in squad help there is no guarantee that you'll win the contest, and you are sort of competing by thousands and thousands of entries.

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When I posted a contest on this platform it was overwhelming. How many submissions I got! It was hundreds and hundreds through the hour.

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and then on Amazon, mechanical Turk, you submit the task you do the labor, and the requester, as the language of the platform is, can always reject it without any explanation, and still keep the data at the end.

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So there becomes this really risky situation, where the workers have to absorb all of the labor without the guarantee of payment, and that is very much aligned with the both platforms visions of having a low cost solution to what was previously quite an expensive labour relation.

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cool. And then Finally, we'll look at connection so coordinating connection between users is one of the key services that the platform provides, and this acts as a justification for the Platform's position within the labor relationship

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by providing these infrastructures, users benefit from the ability to connect with each other and The platform also benefits from occupying a role of the sole distributor and designer of its connection, allowing it to control how users interact throughout their labor relationship.

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So one of the interesting things about connection is that on an Amazon mechanical Turk, because it's designed to be a mechanized labor relationship where the the human worker is pretty much made invisible. the worker, Id and the worker comes to you when you, when they submit a task as a numerical code.

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so I've blocked out the actual workers. Id for anonymization. But this kind of number across here is like a big string of numbers. And so I noted when I was working and and hiring workers on this platform

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that really the only thing I know about this person is now what their favorite color was, because that was the task. So there's this real kind of separation. This mechanization of labor that happens on Amazon, mechanical Turk. And you can. Only workers can only communicate with their request is through a query form, almost as if you're submitting like a question like a help to an it department. It's very. It's very separate.

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then, squad help very quickly. You can only give comments based on our feedback.

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on the entry. But the issue is is that feedback not compulsory? So clients, like contest holders are not obliged to give any feedback, and when you're getting hundreds and hundreds of feedback entries

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like, I even struggle to give feedback to everybody. And so it becomes really alienating, like, you're throwing these submissions into the into the void without any expert, without any help back. And really, that's because the money is actually coming from the contest holders. So the platform doesn't want to challenge them and make their lives harder. they just want that seamless kind of constant entry coming in to keep the the

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the buyer uses engaged, and then upwork is the most complex which is understandable because they have complex projects. So you can engage with Zoom. You can engage with internal messaging software. It's all kind of there on the platform, so you can't leave. And, in fact, you're not allowed to communicate with each other outside of the upward platform. It's a policy rule. And to be able to con

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have an offline relationship. You have to pay the platform A. X Andc. Which kind of proves the commercialization of that labor relationship because they put a monetary value.

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$2,500 to be able to take that labor relationship off the platform.

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So yeah, basically, what this study has come up with. And that's kind of come to the conclusion of is that div-dural infrastructures and devices present on online labor platforms

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shape the labor relationship to align with the platform enterprise's specific commercial vision, so creating competitive creatives, collaborative freelances, or artificial artificial intelligence. These tools are orientated towards luring users into the platform environment by presenting a unique solution to the tensions of remote work while preventing the exit of existing users from the platform.

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So the creation of this commercial space for the conduct of labor allows the platform to take ownership over the labor relationships formed within the platform. But without the platform each unique platform, mediated labor relationship would not exist. Therefore, transforming the labor relationship into a commercial product for the accumulation of capital and financial markets. Thank you.

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Fantastic talk. And now we we are inviting our speaker, who is online.

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No, no, no, no. The second one.

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Yeah, no, no, no, she's online already.

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I mean, this one is feeding.

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Can we? Can we just ask her to share, share the Powerpoint share her screen. Yeah.

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this is a chaotic.

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We go back to the zoom.

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Shelton, can you hear me?

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Yeah. Can you. Can you share your screen right now?

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Jian Xiao: yeah. Oh, it says

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the other kind of participants are sharing so I can't share my screen. I just stop the sharing our screen so you can share your

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Jian Xiao: yeah, I think I can.

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Jian Xiao: How about now?

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Oh, yes, great.

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so so, so. we we now, finally, have our second speaker, Xiao, Tian! Jen Xiao! Actually from Judgian University, and Wang Yi Chen Xiang from Saint-in-law University. So their talk is on music's dreaming platform and effective labor. The case of net is cloud in China. So the forest yours shall.

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Jian Xiao: Thank you. Hi, everyone. I'm from January. Today, I'm going to talk about the midstream platform and effective labor. I'm going to use the net East cloud in China as a case study.

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Jian Xiao: Here is the content. I'm going to divide it into 5 5 parts.

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Jian Xiao: So first, what is the net? Is cloud music? It is the second largest to music platform in China with high user loyalty. And also it is a widely recognized music, virtual community. It is actually have a lot of active common area with a lot of emotional content.

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Jian Xiao: And then we because it has a lot of emotional content. So we start to think about the effective economy and effective labor as one approach that we can use to deal with this one phenomenon. So what is the effective economy? The Harrington's conceptualization of the effective you common from prompts us to look at the effective industries.

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Jian Xiao: And my and Michael Harded has proposed to the concept of factual labor to describe effective practices in play during interpersonal communications. So this series suggests not only the exploitation of labor, we, seeing the ditch to economy, but also the potential for labor liberation and the realization of subjectivity in the get economy.

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Jian Xiao: And then we come back to the platform companies, which is net is a cloud music company. As over case study. So nowadays the platforms serve

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Jian Xiao: as an effective space of accumulation over time through the circulation of fact amount objects, sign and events, people, and so on. Users who participate in the net is cloud music, virtual community. We argue not only post effective content online, but also participate in the emotional marketing of the platform

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Jian Xiao: or develop in motion. based activities offline.

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Jian Xiao: So here is our threshold framework and from emotion to effective labor. So we put first look at the sociology of emotion, some scholars pointing out that in motion it's a a social phenomenon, and has gradually been controlled by social forces, such as organizations and capital giving birth to a huge in motion.

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Jian Xiao: emotion, industry, and a effective labor. we look at the hardened and Nagree pointed out that effective labor is a kind of lab that requires virtual or actual human interaction involves the production and control emotions, and then a hard. It argue that effective labor not only produces to capture directly, but also for us. It's an untouchable feeling.

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Jian Xiao: So first, it is the individual level, the feeling of ease, happiness, satisfaction, excitement, passion, the sense of connection and belonging, and also it has a socially at social level. So it will have the social networks, forms of community and power over life.

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Jian Xiao: So dual layers of affecting labour's deaths ending boarded is subject to in effective labor, however, marudo, and Katie Katina believe that effective labor is collective, blurring boundaries between work and leisure, and also turns client clients into co producers of at most fear.

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Jian Xiao: So we use the walk through of method. And the method of is notography and so light proposed the work through method as a way of engaging directly with nap surface. And it's an embedded, cultural, referencing, understanding how it shaves a users experiences.

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Jian Xiao: And then, we have done an online asenography study on the net is cloud music platform since 20 20 first, and then we have done

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Jian Xiao: 20 interviews. including people who

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Jian Xiao: people who are the users in the net is cloudy music, and also our second also work in. And it is cloudy music company, as in. So we conducted interviews with people at the mandatory level

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Jian Xiao: huge other findings. So we divided up the effective labor into our 3 different kinds. So first is the unconscious effective labor.

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Jian Xiao: the unconscious labor is a type of labor describing a large amount of the net is cloud users who seek for affections such as blowning joy, freedom driven boats by music tastes, and also the platform gift. system. So we we you, you could see the the 3 pictures on the knees. So the first picture is about the common area. so the

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Jian Xiao: users. The large amount of users can purchase their comments in this area and provide at this area has provided, and into a active space for users with similar music tastes, and in the second, the picture scheming up has provided us that the up our platform has a rewarding system, encouraging, retweeting, translating, or writing music reviews.

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Jian Xiao: And it's that picture we can see that users can share their lives, and they're willing to share their lives in the music, virtual community.

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Jian Xiao: So

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Jian Xiao: when we deal with the our unconscious, effective labor, we also look at how, how the platform actually

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Jian Xiao: to manage this kind of effective labor. So we look at one a particular instant. The net is cloud, and in it on east cloud. So

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Jian Xiao: it is a that that that is cloud when they a lot of people write very sad comments or emotional comments in the platform, and then they encourage and they start to shape very negative

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Jian Xiao: environment in the platform. So the platform start platform companies start to say something like, for instance, you have to be positive. So here we have the emotional turn in the platform. So without

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Jian Xiao: so here we can see that the mimics of the net is net on its cloud or net email cloud one even

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Jian Xiao: from the left picture.

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Jian Xiao: And then the company have have launched a project. basically, there is a series of marketing components conducted by net is cloud music encourage positive emotions.

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Jian Xiao: So why we say that the the the unconscious, effective labor. So, without realizing their own paid work to the platform economy and the rights of resistance they suffer from the reshaping affections because of the platform regulation. And more importantly, when the the

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Jian Xiao: the platform starts to manage their emotions they start to reshape themselves in their own communities rather than turn their

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Jian Xiao:  a turning motion to the platform itself.

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Jian Xiao: And the second is the identity effective labor so augmented effective labor. We categorize it. based on the users who establish a commercial relation with the platform to some degree.

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Jian Xiao: So we can see that left and the right. The the left is 2 darren. Kl system. A program of the net is cloud music, and the second is the music partner system of net east cloud music. So through the software management strategies, the platform established as informal labor relation with users and workers, also

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Jian Xiao: a rebel in the form of doubling alone. So in

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Jian Xiao: in this

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Jian Xiao: our agent, identic effective labor

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Jian Xiao: are the ones who are aware of the platforms commercial incentives, and we would take positive or negative actions under it's

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soft amount to men distractors.

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Jian Xiao: you can look at the 3 different in different interviews from the day 3 different interviews, and then, when users resents the platforms, actions, their power is often scatter some beak, and so in this sense the genetic itself is hotly actualized through the action of resistance further than our resistance. It's either to fall back on the unconscious users especially the

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Jian Xiao: the

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Jian Xiao: so we can see the the, the last one. So actually, when I first started doing the graphics, it was because of material rewards. But then, since the winter break, I haven't a bordered to

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Jian Xiao: quick on a regular topic every day I just go and share some of the my daily routines. So from this interviewing number 12, we can see that the identity itself, when they realize their work or their labor labouring work, they start to fall back. The unconscious user, basically the the large amount of the users.

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Jian Xiao: And then we characterize the third one as the mediated effectively by you all the ways, affections. So this, this.

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Jian Xiao: this group of people are actually working for the platform organized activities of actions. and then they create create a deeper, effective at most fear through online and offline. activities. So here are the 2 examples. The first day to return Joel Music Review, marketing campaign for Chinese Valentine's Day.

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Jian Xiao: And there's the the second case is the confession roof top marketing campaign for graduation 6 season.

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Jian Xiao: so we can see from the number 10. Interview this. She's this interview. You said, I like to community people around the and the east cloud, I mean, they always reply to you. I thought they were supposed to be, if it official, yet you can direct with them.

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Jian Xiao: and then after we, I have categorized 3 different labors, and we

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Jian Xiao: fund that. Actually, there is the parallelistic population of effects in the Chinese context. So

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Jian Xiao: a, compared to the previous online communities which users are a most mostly use self-censorship of a depend on a general system of alliances. Shift this platform, soft to process, have progressed into and also Turing and the parental style intervention

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Jian Xiao: in the platform, and also in the labouring work.

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Jian Xiao: So here comes to the conclusion.

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Jian Xiao: So we we found that there is a relationship between the atmosphere and effective labor, so continuous construction of the effective at most feel of your effect. The form is used at Zoom and the for a frequency of effective labor, and also the unconscious creation, conscious contribution and a corporation between different kinds of effective labor will further up promote the deeper formation of effective at most fear.

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Jian Xiao: And then we we try to link it with the the Chinese. we try to link the Chinese parentalistic effect to us most via to the the you know the society of China. we think there is this kind of traditional society of China, and more than our side of China difference. So in the old

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Jian Xiao: traditional society of China. There is this kind of extended family intimacy. relationship in the offline, our community. But in the modern society of China. they have, only one child, a family

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Jian Xiao: and a lot of people will try to seek emotional support in the online community rather than on offline relationships. So

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Jian Xiao: although the china's effective support has undergone a market or an or rented transformations. But actually, the dissolution of the extended family a parentalistic at most. Fear effective as mostly it has still been reshaped on the market provision.

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Jian Xiao: okay, thank you. That's all my presentation.

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Thank you very much for a wonderful talk.

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so Please stay on for questions. We will correct questions at the end of this session, and so next, we want to welcome Dr. Huang for his study.

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Yes.

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Komoni, I'm data Jin-hwan from academic and Cynica in Taiwan. Thank you, is a for inviting me to share my research.

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I look forward to your comments today. I speaker on the digital transformation and Taiwan's

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model, an ingestion industry from the 1,900 ninetys to

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20 and tenth, and is continually impacted on labor.

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Us listen!

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Before the 19 nineteenth, Taiwan's in budgetary still relied on skilled workers. However, in the 19 nineties there were some structural changes in Taiwan resulting in critical changes in the factory.

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One of the most changes is that the workplace has begun

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to promote digital transformation. In this research, I try to answer how the digital transformation has led to a serious transitions in the production practice and the labor control.

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The impact of new technologies is contingent on various

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vectors, including management strategies and the integration of technology. I constructed and

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an analytical farming work, integrating my integrating new technologies, production practice. And the label comes into the labor processes.

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This process theories specifically look at the questions, how do new technologies impact the skills

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of workers. And how do managers establish and maintain

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control over labor within their production practice?

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My my case is the procession industry that integrates

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model manufacturing and the injection routing it has 2 features. The first production organization is a cooperative network composed of Smes.

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second, for Dutching. Your children release and skilled workers.

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Since the 19 nineties he has

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introduce the 3 digital technologies in response to increasing demands for quality. They have resulted in a comprehensive digital transformation in Pertin, not only in production practice, but also labeled Control.

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And, as you can see, I'm a Slider. I conducted conducted my vegetable from July 2020, twentieth, 20,

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1717 to December 2020.

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The impact of digital transformation. Our neighbor is two-fold. first, in production practice, engineers replace the skilled workers.

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Second, they will come to accept it from responsible autonomy to integrate the technical control.

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In the following sessions. I will describe describe the the changes

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before the 19 nineties, the production related on skilled workers like feature masters and ingestion masters who use the try and arrow, however, their skills become become insufficient as demands

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for higher quality increased to address this. Managers explored new technologies between the 1919 and 2,005. The introduction of CAD can

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change the mode of manufacturing model, decisive sheet of fun-feit, fetal masters to design engineers who use the catalog

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enhancing design, accuracy, and reducing the responsibility

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and the authority of a filter masters.

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Although Catalan improved improved

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modern quality, it didn't guarantee success in the injections process between 2,005 and 2,015, the in

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industry, a data

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adopted, a model for analysis to put

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protect production outcome before finishing a mode in abouting issue, identification and early intervention.

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however, model for analysis, was integrated into model design. Further resident, the authority of design engineers.

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the accuracy of model for analysis depends on process production.

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Her relatives, however, the Lakers of standardization in equivalent in equipment and the environment among Taiwan's Ss. As well as disconnect between manufacturing and the back of his departments.

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Often we started in in sub-automy

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performance. Therefore, the management system gained attention to create a standardized information for connecting departments and promotes mandatory standardization and processing visualization.

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This enhanced stability, and the predictability touching

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in abouting informed the decision making, based on visualize that information

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overall due to difference in funds, interest interests, and capabilities

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in a type hint, digital technology layer this, this transition, a coded gradually, additionally, in schedule

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workers continue to play a crucial role

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in never cheating these digitotic analogies. Their skills and experience are helpful in maximizing the potential.

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Oh, fool. these digital technologies and the many younger skiers.

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the workers have moved up the later by learning digital skills

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so scared of

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skilled workers and engineers are not 2 distincted groups

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in these pictures we can clearly see the gradually

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co-, the gradual changes in production practice follow along with a lot with a with a slider like this label comes to also change the phone responsible autonomy to decentralize the technical control and the limit the Bureau quality come to

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and then to integrate the technical control and the Limited

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Bureau credited come true

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in responsible autonomy. Skilled workers held the key technology and experience. They had the authority to make a critical decision

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and were responsible for resolving problems. However, with the introduction of a can

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design. Engineers get the ability to out of my

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modern accuracy and the reduced reliance on skilled workers, the importance and the and the salt and the salty of skilled workers began to decline

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the most-specific designed so, so so the well was crucial in decentralized the technical control and the limited bureaucratic control. There was 3 ways to develop it. First, design engineers built

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common parts, database by themselves, by themselves.

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Second, so to well, Mendez developed approaching in software oil that integrated model-specific function into CAD.

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Certain.

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based on the combination of above 2

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managers, have established a set of management strategies that is complementary to CAD. The most not common strategies include the tax code, supportivity, division and the standard procedure.

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In addition, model for analysis, provider qualified the remoters that co-fired the responsibility, and of

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facilitated the rewards as the punishment

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in recent years due to the emergency of industry. 4 point

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and related. related, discounts, discusses this industry has

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his gradually focused on the integration of digital technologies manager. When the system has enhanced the transparency in production practice and a road for the definition of a standard procedure.

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A typical example is

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model design guidance systems that interface can can model through analysis and management strategies. While this low systems improved efficiency. It also constrains constraints, workers, creativity and autonomy

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overall. The impact of digital technology are complex.

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while some skills have been debated. new skills are emphasized, and all skills

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often press upgrading law in the digital transformation level control have been separated Towards the technical control and in for skill, saturation, and predicted predicted ability.

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But digital technology require workers, cooperation and the scale for maximum, you know, in utility. This, my question, my my presentation. Thank you.

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Thank you very much, Dr. Wong, for share his study on Taiwan, the modi industry, which is very interesting. So we, moving to our last speaker, Julia.

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and

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okay.

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so.

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okay, so I just have

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2 slides. So I think we'll go Jackly

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to this one.

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that.

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yes.

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But in case you missed it, this is a

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the Picasso on the first one.

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Alright. So, I'm presenting some ideas from a project that I think is still looking for an intellectual home. So I welcome any feed back. the title of the presentation has changed in part, because I realize I need to do a much

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sort of a basic science project before I moved on to a project dealing with policy.

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So what I'm doing here is looking at the legal agreement and relationship between social media platforms and individuals who produce original content for these platforms, and who are trying to earn an income or make some kind of living doing so. So my central question is, does the legal rendering of these relationships obscure labor, capital relations between platforms and their content creators? And if so, how

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so? I argue that platforms terms of use agreements and they are monetized. sorry monetization programs tend to conceal capitalist exploitation and alienation.

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and I'm using the term exploitation in the Marxian, since, as appropriating labor's products, in part through the extraction of labor effort, and also using alienation in the Marxian, since as a separation of the worker from the purpose of work, the work process, object of objects of work, and, as a consequence from other people and the workers self.

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My main example in this project is from Youtube. So I'm looking at the terms of service agreement between Youtube users and the company.

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even though I'm focused on Youtube definitely, some as well. Quite a bit of this analysis is generalizable to other social media platforms.

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So. turning to their terms of service.

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In the terms of service, Youtube describes itself as a distribution platform for content that users submit. So in exchange for the right to submit, not post content. the user grants Youtube a non-exclusive license to use any contact. content that it accepts

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 to start off. I'd like to emphasize that consistent with Marx's analysis of juridical relations, I think not claiming that this agreement is illegal or completely inaccurate, or some sort of epiphenomenal delusion, but rather that it conceals labor, capital relations, and distorts the actual relationship between platforms and creators.

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 So I will acknowledge. I think the class position of creators is somewhat ambiguous. But a starting point of this analysis, which is

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based on the work of other social scientists, is that there is some kind of labor, capital relationship between individual creators and the social media platforms.

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As others have noted, creators produce value for the platform in the form of audience attention, and they work to produce this value. And the audience, attention is an input in the production of advertising services at the platform sells to its clients.

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Sorry to anybody who's on line.

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All right.

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so for reasons that I'll cover as I discuss the the Youtube contract, I also think this relationship features some capitalist exploitation and alienation.

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So then the question is, how does the legal agreement both underwrite, but also obscure labor, capital relations between platforms and their content creators?

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so when I created these slides. I was quite over ambitious, and thinking that I could cover all of these points in 14 min. So I'm really dealing with. just the first bullet point.

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All right. So I'm going to discuss together 2 features of Youtube's terms of service agreement. First, its description of itself as a distribution platform for content submitted by the Creator, and, second, the location of the agreement. temporarily, in the process of production.

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So on its face, the Youtube terms of service distinguishes the subject, entering the agreement from the object of the agreement, and in this sense it's quite on its face, at least, unlike a wage labor agreement.

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The Creator ostensibly provides an already produced commodity, content to Youtube that then it's something capable of being licensed and thus capable of being alienable.

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Yet the timing of the agreement within the productive process, and treating the metaphor of the platform as a literal material. Legal object, obscures labor capital relations by obscuring the nature of the commodity being produced which in turn obscures relations in and of production.

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So how does it do this? well, distributing a thing occurs after its creation. So this legal construction suggests that the Creator's production has ended. When the Creator submits a video to Youtube.

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it looks like the crater is exchanging only dead labor with the platform, or labor already mixed with capital, and already objectified in a commodity.

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It appears that a use value is complete and capable of being alienated the moment when it becomes content, ready for distribution on the platform. To quote Marks, the labor process appears to be extinguished in the object of the video content.

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However, while the content that creators license to the platform is a completed commodity in some sense. So, for instance, it has use value as entertainment, or some or an effective or cultural product to people, the Creator might show it to

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the content is also just one input into Youtube's commodity production.

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The use value of the video to Youtube is as an input to advertising services produced by Youtube for its clients and its submission to Youtube is not the last step of production or the last step requiring the Creator's work to complete the commodity.

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So this obscuration of what commodity is being produced. I think also, obscure is the continuing work that creators perform to really distribute their videos and thus complete production of Youtube's advertising services and a part, even production of the entertainment commodity.

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So, after posting content creators reports that they often need to continue working to promote their content and attract and keep an audience.

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So Youtube does valorize the labor process, even though it's production includes a circulation of use values to users in the form of videos that entertain people. In other words, to reference, Frank Pesqualet platforms like Youtube, organize the market as the factory

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so to help make the point about the continuing labor efforts needed to finish the commodity after it is submitted to Youtube. I've been playing a bit with the trope of animation. And this is based on Terry Silvio's work, suggesting that animation is a useful concept for understanding

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social action today. So after creators submit discrete content to the platform.

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content that often are typically features, a creator's own voice and body. I conceptualize the continuing work that creators do to increase the visibility and popularity of this content. as labor required to animate the ostensibly dead labor that creators provide to the platform. So, in other words, instead of looking at a Creator's video as a say, completed performance by the Creator.

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I look at it as, for instance, that with video. And even the creators. body or figure in the video, say a puppet that requires animation through the additional work that creators perform to create and sustain their brand.

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upon which my earning income. the pits.

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So I like the trope of animation, because I think it captures the particular relationship between dead and live labor in the production of advertising services. The Creator works to breathe life into the character appearing in the uploaded videos, for instance, by engaging with the audience a lot, responding to comments, live streaming, and providing fresh content regularly

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next. So the metaphor of the distribution platform and the location of the agreement in the productive process also distorts the relationship between creators and platforms by suggesting that all prior production was autonomous production.

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So while you have to agree to the terms of service initially, when you create a Youtube account, whether you want to post stuff, or just look at videos on Youtube

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for creators, the agreement really becomes active or operative upon the submission of content. So the thrust of this licensing agreement is, If you submit, content that we accept and post, you grant us a license to use that content.

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So this suggests that any work the Creator performed before submitting content to the platform was autonomous. or that the Creator mixed labor with capital according to the Creator's own purposes and under terms and conditions decided by the Creator.

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So it looks autonomous because it's quite. It seems this might seem to be a trite point, but I think it's worth making. It looks autonomous because it's quite unusual for anyone to have a legal right to control someone else or demand that they do or not do something before entering a contract with that person.

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In practice, of course, the stronger party to contract can often

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impose on the weaker party a lot of conditions they have to comply with before they'll enter a contract. But and judges do struggle with the reality of this situation in contract disputes, but nonetheless, the presumption is that one party's conduct before entering the agreement was autonomous, not controlled by the other party.

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So the platform metaphor and location of the agreement in the productive process conceals a company's role in organizing live labor. In reality, creators have explained an order to maximize their earnings on

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the platform. They try very closely to follow Youtube's guidance about what appeals to advertisers, and they look to the various metrics that Youtube provides about user engagement with their content. And they also make informed guesses about what the Platform's algorithms prefer

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and find advertising advertiser friendly. So these parameters influence creators, decisions about topics, visuals, narration, voice, pace, length, and other aspects of the video, as well as how often to post new content.

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So the need to provide regular content to the platform in part dictates the intensity and rhythm of live labor. Now the Creator's production, I would say, is still relatively autonomous compared to that of most employees.

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But the platforms, imperatives regarding advertising attractive content do shape the labor process.

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so in some the location of the agreement temporarily in the productive process, and treating the platform platform distribution metaphor as a legally intelligible object blurs commodity production and circulation, making it seem like Youtube only organizes dead labor in the form of video content.

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And I'll end by making a point about how technology and the labor process certainly contributes to the appearance that the exchange or transfer only involves dead labor.

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The legal agreement that splits the labor process into different parts is possible, in part because the technology affords this division.

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So to use a concept from the economist, Oliver Williamson. It's possible to construct and delimit what he calls a transaction between the Creator and the platform where a transaction, to quote Williamson, is the transfer of a good or service across a technologically separable interface.

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So today, cloud computing has reduced the cost of accessing information and communications technologies. So creators don't need to own the systems they use or build their own systems.

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Amateur production, as or what we call amateur production has surged in popularity, and of course made Youtube what it is.

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So Youtube creators with access to these cloud computing technologies can produce videos at home or anywhere else without the platform space tools or supervision.

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So, in other words, there is now a technologically separable interface in the production of advertising services at the point where a Creator completes a video.

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This interface as well as the potential use value. The video has to someone as entertainment or a different kind of cultural product simply upon its creation, makes it plausible to legally depict the submission of a video to the platform as a market transaction or a transfer of a completed commodity.

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While this is partly true, the reality is that the video is also part of the means of producing advertising, and wants the worker's continuing application of labor effort to complete production.

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So in inclusion I spent quite a bit of time here, just looking at 2 features of Youtube's terms of service agreement. The timing of the license becoming operative, and the description of the object requiring this license as a distribution platform.

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I argue that these features obscure what commodity the Creator is producing for the platform the role of the platform in organizing previously unobjectified labor and the continuing live labor necessary to complete the commodity and for the Creator to receive payment.

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And I'll in there. Thank you.

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Okay.  we have.

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I think we are open to questions and comments.

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Yeah.

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we will, with just over the lady over there, and the gentleman over there, and also the one at the back.

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also the the lady in red. We have one.

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Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

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thank you. Everyone for a fantastic panel. This is all. Okay. I have a question for Julia about the concept of animation that you were using. which I think refers to the post-production labor that these content producers have to put in to continually advertise something from which you know both

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to which something their revenue generation and the Company's revenue generation is also linked. I was wondering, though, how distinct is it from the kind of work that occurs. Movie actors continue to do most the production of their books or movies in advertising those types of you know, non-platform linked creative products to

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continue to keep that sort of alive in public imagination, because to me it seems like, you know, when authors do sort of, you know, seminars, book talks, book signings. And when actors do appearances, post movie production, it's possibly the same kind of process that's going on to continue to highlight that you know, dead labor that has been produced.

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Thank you.

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Today.

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thanks. I have 2 questions, one for a morning, because you highlight the important, you have a dichotomy between profit and value

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regarding to digital platforms motivations. But it seems to me this dichotomy you didn't really link to the case studies. So for those cases, you didn't discuss too much about those, how value creation or profit maximization linked to the labor digital platform. They were in those 3 cases I have a question for Dr. Juan, so the also the

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So you talk about these skill labels and also software. So that part I can understand. But you also mentioned the bureaucracy. We are talking about industries, so it seems to me many decisions in.

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you know, regarding to production in that industry seems to be market-driven rather than bureaucratic decision-driven. So I just want you to to elaborate the role of bureaucrats of bureaucrats in in your in your context, homo. The industry related to bureaucratic process. Thank you.

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Introduce a self-

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mentioned university of A.

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My name is Chen, away from National University, Singapore. Thank you.

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Hi. My name is Nuna Bavida, from

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the University of Lisbon.

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Portugal. I have a few comments to

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First Monique

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and then to Mr.

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One.

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so you analyze quite interestingly for platforms.

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One of them is very prominent and almost anonymous

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in this type of services.

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Now I see the presentation lack this distinction.

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of course.

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Amazon.

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the

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he was very big in the last decade.

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But now we're talking about upwork. That's basically where they stand. Most of them and the others are just.

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They seem to be

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well, at least the last time I checked it seemed to be very, very small.

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I think, by giving this context you introduces

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the reader

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to a different dimension of the problem.

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and it, interestingly, is the atomization of the worker

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and to the chances they might have to engage in

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in

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public. representatives

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or no, and if they do, what kind of representation do they look for? And where?

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Trade unions are not?

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Are not their beaches used to say. but

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but for sure there are other ones that as I've been studying so I'd like to.

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So I would elaborate a little bit on that.

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And

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Mr. Shang.

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I was wondering.

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it is true that Throughout the the last decades, that

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the workers that have been engaged in this kind of activities that you mentioned.

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They have been changing slowly to the extent that you don't really find much unemployment or job destruction going on, but more substitution.

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you didn't mention a very important part of it, which is the middle management, which

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are to a certain extent in some industries, the ones who actually lose power and lose agency, especially in the context of industry. 4.0.

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They are the most effective ones. Their actual power inside the organizations is into question

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when they have to share all the information available in the companies and to the other companies.

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So I think it could be useful to also address these meeting management, and not just the changes

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and the fashion that they are taking over this process.

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And also what I mention of the relative number

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of

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of workers involved in this type of activities such as molds

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and also to do the the world spread

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activity that it's done 24 h

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around the world. It's not just a one country or another, and there have been teams.

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and the teams are based on

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very complex and highly sophisticated software. So a little bit more of more context would help us

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understand. Understand this.

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 I might have something that I just forgot. So thank you very much.

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I don't know. I think I'll just take on something that

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I think for me, Monica. The the thing for me. Sorry. My name is Porcasa. I'm from the University of Cape Town in South Africa.

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I think for me, I don't know if it's a problem, but what I'm not understanding is the methodology in terms of this user experience research that I think you both are doing Julia and Monique.

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because I think when you started a particular Monique, you spoke about that you. You worked for these platforms, or you at least try to work for them.

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But then, when you were doing your conclusions, I did not get the idea that those are conclusions that you have reached

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without at least a fair amount of secondary research. Or perhaps I don't know. I think I need more rich data analysis to order in order to understand. But also these platforms are not. Besides Amazon. They're not in South Africa. Perhaps there's something I'm definitely missing. But I think, as you're explaining your data, your process of reaching the conclusions you need to give someone more than you've given me.

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Thank you all for such rich and informed presentations. My name is Rachel RAM, from the University of New South Wales.

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Julia, I wanted to ask you if you could speak. Come of you if you could speak a little bit about the policy intervention that you see this research informing. That's how you began, and I'm curious to see where you plan to take the work.

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and how I wondered if you could

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explain to us why it matters to study digital labor processes from the perspective of workers.

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I thought it was quite interesting that you spoke about the shifts in technical control, but also workers cooperation, which is a very, you know, hard and Negri type.

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I think analysis. And I'm curious. What are the implications for your research in terms of workers improving their conditions at work and their lives.

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And Monique I'm curious about the question of trust and trustworthiness, and how these platforms Garner Trust. Given that there seems to be absolutely no guarantees for workers for doing the work.

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Thanks again. Now. Yes, I'm Rachel Roe from the University of New South Wales.

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Okay, thank you. Thank you very much for the the Dr. Juan's Taiwan's case very impressive. So I am. My name is Mayumi. I came from the University of Sancho from Japan. So actually, I think the transformation digital transformation is

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that brings a very big impact on this kind of change from the skilled deliver in Taiwan

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to the engineer. Right? So I'm very curious about the education system in Taiwan. So what kind of process the transformation

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that appeared from this skilled labor to the the engineer? Actually, engineer is very, very prestigious position in Taiwan what I know. So actually, this is a very interesting, because the traditional skilled raver, the change into the engineer. So this is an educational

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backgrounds, or how to educate the talent in this, the historical point of view. So could you explain about more about this? Thank you very much.

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The

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Hi, I'm Aaron Pelock from Illinois State University. My question is for Julia. I find your argument credible that Youtube's terms of service obscures the capital labor relationship.

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And I thought that what I kind of think of is the other part of your presentation where you're describing in detail the the way that the platform architecture.

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shaping the labor relations. I also find that credible. So my question, though, is the counterfactual, which is what are the social implications of Youtube's obfuscations. I mean, imagine the counterfactual that the terms of service is written by a Marxist

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and describes exactly as you describe the relationship.

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Will that actually ease the exploitation in any way whatsoever.

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We have

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that there.

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okay? Oh.

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this on. Ok. So I'll do with the first question

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about

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animation first, and how the

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waiver that Youtube creators do is similar to the marketing and promotion work that other

474
01:27:49.500 --> 01:27:53.420
artists do after they are done with their project.

475
01:27:53.450 --> 01:27:55.790
So yeah, I

476
01:27:56.310 --> 01:28:02.460
I know it's always dangerous when you have a concept, and it's like a new toy, and you want to use it everywhere.

477
01:28:02.510 --> 01:28:04.769
You have to make sure it's actually doing some work.

478
01:28:05.280 --> 01:28:28.660
I thinking I think it does here for a few reasons. so what one? The all the promotion and marketing work that artists do after completing their project. It's quite easy to see that as additional work And it's quite easy to see that as marketing or promotion work?

479
01:28:34.320 --> 01:28:38.749
Whether you say that's part of I don't know. If I would say that's part of

480
01:28:39.300 --> 01:28:41.670
completing the commodity or not.

481
01:28:41.680 --> 01:28:46.289
 I would say that maybe more belongs to

482
01:28:46.650 --> 01:28:57.369
labor in that circulation. But anyway, I'm just thinking out loud to put that apart right now. So the distinction between the product and marketing

483
01:28:57.820 --> 01:28:59.770
that you have with other kinds of

484
01:28:59.920 --> 01:29:19.920
artistic production or cultural production, you don't really have on social media. So basically, your brand is your product. and and top of that. Not only do you work to create the product, but you use your body in part as a means of production that you apply your labor to to create this

485
01:29:19.920 --> 01:29:31.190
branded persona. That is your product on social media like Youtube. And so I think the animation is helpful in this sense.

486
01:29:31.270 --> 01:29:40.390
because it's so. It's the brand that you could say. The animated character that produces the audience's attention, and

487
01:29:40.840 --> 01:29:51.039
the trip of animation helps keep the live labor involved in that in the foreground. as opposed to seeing it

488
01:29:51.560 --> 01:29:53.090
just

489
01:29:53.120 --> 01:30:17.020
as as opposed to just seeing either the objectified labor that only goes into the video or saying, the live labor is just an investment. This will be the neoliberal argument, the investment of time and your body that you put into creating your brand branded persona. yeah. So I don't know hopefully that kind of answers the

490
01:30:17.420 --> 01:30:18.299
question.

491
01:30:18.900 --> 01:30:28.469
And oh, there's a question on policy, or what are what are some of the policy implications of this analysis?

492
01:30:28.590 --> 01:30:34.509
kind of retreated from that a bit as well. so not quite

493
01:30:34.650 --> 01:30:42.139
sure other than it probably adds more fodder to some of the.

494
01:30:42.299 --> 01:30:53.020
in some national context, to the basic arguments that well, maybe not so many  benefits or

495
01:30:53.200 --> 01:30:57.530
things you need to live should be tied to the employment relationship.

496
01:30:58.530 --> 01:31:02.550
sorry I don't have a more satisfying answer there.

497
01:31:03.160 --> 01:31:11.130
So then there's, I think this connects to Aaron's question. So then why do this analysis?

498
01:31:11.340 --> 01:31:20.220
And there's the counterfactual. Well, what if the terms of service were written by a Marxist.

499
01:31:20.580 --> 01:31:24.630
would that make any difference? I mean.

500
01:31:25.020 --> 01:31:43.490
not entirely. But, on the other hand, I mean so they wouldn't change the actual relationship. But that doesn't mean that.  well, Ok, first, I should say that you would still need some of what's in the terms of service, the licensing agreement.

501
01:31:43.549 --> 01:31:48.180
So my point is here is kind of to show that

502
01:31:48.370 --> 01:31:51.650
 the.

503
01:31:52.330 --> 01:32:08.819
even if these legal relations kind of or this legal character. No, it's that. It's more than a legal characterization that in part it's constitutive of the relationship of exploitation and alienation, or or of a wage capital relationship.

504
01:32:08.930 --> 01:32:15.650
And so no, if you had sort of the licensing stuff in the agreement, plus

505
01:32:15.760 --> 01:32:21.340
the rest of it sounds like it was written by the Marxist

506
01:32:22.280 --> 01:32:24.720
that wouldn't really change.

507
01:32:24.930 --> 01:32:26.739
It's

508
01:32:28.299 --> 01:32:31.040
But I think what that brings.

509
01:32:31.410 --> 01:32:32.240
then

510
01:32:32.629 --> 01:32:36.570
maybe that what point that makes more salient is that

511
01:32:36.620 --> 01:32:52.029
 there's a lot of legal relations that are necessary to labor capital exploitation like just the fact. Or, as Marx argued, that you have 2 juridical equals who enter the

512
01:32:52.110 --> 01:32:57.470
employment relationship without that you don't have a distinction between

513
01:32:57.959 --> 01:33:16.010
selling yourself and selling your labor power, which is the basis and labor commodification of labor power is, of course, the basis of capitalist exploitation and accumulation. So maybe the point is really just to show that how we

514
01:33:16.020 --> 01:33:18.959
another way in which

515
01:33:19.120 --> 01:33:29.390
the legal relations are constitutive of the relationship, but also distort it at the same time and just in ways that we take for granted. Whether that matters to anybody I don't.

516
01:33:29.400 --> 01:33:42.200
I know for sure. Given that, I think most of us don't feel that the legal relationships necessarily bear resemblance to the other or the actual relationship. Nobody thinks

517
01:33:42.250 --> 01:33:51.270
Apple's relationship with Microsoft is the same as my relationship with Apple, just because we both enter so-called contracts. Right?

518
01:33:51.600 --> 01:33:55.040
But nonetheless, I don't know. I kind of like

519
01:33:55.360 --> 01:33:57.410
trying to figure out well.

520
01:33:57.700 --> 01:34:02.990
even if this legal relationship is real, what is it doing to conceal

521
01:34:03.000 --> 01:34:07.409
as a structure of capitalist accumulation? So that's the best I can do right now.

522
01:34:09.290 --> 01:34:30.950
Yeah, thank you so much for all your questions. I think a lot of them. come out of the silly task. I think I did of trying to squeeze 100,000 words into 14 min. but I think what I'll start with is actually start with the methodology question, because I think that also contextualizes the rest of the answers. So

523
01:34:31.150 --> 01:35:00.970
the way it became a methodologically complex project because of the atomization of workers. but mainly what I did was I actually use what one of my co-presenters also use, which is the walkthrough method by Ben Light and colleagues. and that basically starts with the idea of doing a large content analysis of all the public documents on the websites. So that's what I started with first. So all the which is helpful with Amazon mechanical Turk.

524
01:35:01.080 --> 01:35:12.320
well, particularly helpful with upwork because it's publicly listed. So like all of its financials, are listed, and same with Amazon. So I did content. Analysis of

525
01:35:12.320 --> 01:35:35.240
all the like support articles, the frequently asked questions, all of the blog posts, all of the yeah financial documentation. And so that kind of gave me the corporate language and the sort of rhetorical language of the platforms. And then what I did following that was undertake this, this ethnography where I worked and also hired workers on the platform.

526
01:35:35.310 --> 01:35:42.439
What I did there is, I recorded myself the whole time screen, recorded myself the whole time, and then came back

527
01:35:42.440 --> 01:36:05.769
and coded all of like, re-watched. It encoded Timestamps, and then went through and did a secondary infrastructural analysis of the very micro devices built into the platform. So it went, as small as the choice to use infinite scroll versus page movements in search to make search feel endless. So it became this sort of very big

528
01:36:05.800 --> 01:36:31.509
methodological puzzle. Oh, and I also surveyed platform workers and we all platform users. I initially wanted to do a interview, but it is very hard to get atomized workers to dedicate an hour of their time to talk to you when they live in a very precarious situation a lot of the time. So that ended up becoming a task on Amazon mechanical Turk

529
01:36:31.510 --> 01:36:54.920
which was a survey which I paid a livable wage for as advocated actually by participants. And I have an article that I just released on that if you're interested. So that's kind of the complicated methodology that I've brought in. I was very also inspired by early industrial sociologists who went into the factories and really saw what was happening inside. So that's what I wanted to do.

530
01:36:54.960 --> 01:37:04.760
and so kind of on that if we look at sort of profit and value, and also the the second question of monopoly in services. so

531
01:37:05.200 --> 01:37:21.709
upwork and Amazon followed a very similar kind of build up process. In the way that they got a private investment first and then once they reached a certain level of saturation, went to the share market in order to

532
01:37:21.710 --> 01:37:39.229
continue to build value. Amazon kind of happened 10 years, obviously 10 years before. upwork. And so Jeff Bezos didn't need to raise as much as what else work did. So. Bezos eventually, I think, only had one or 2 private investors about 30 million dollars before going public

533
01:37:39.230 --> 01:37:54.820
but up work had, like a 10 year run of of building up investment, getting bits of 10 million 30 million 50 million and kind of building infrastructures to continue to like, create their monopolization

534
01:37:54.820 --> 01:37:56.430
in the area. So

535
01:37:56.430 --> 01:38:22.560
what these design of these platforms are meant to do is to lure users off of their competitor platforms to like what I offer this trust building infrastructure. So kind of surveillance systems I offer Lower Commission rates, and all of that is kind of a structure of luring in and then secondary infrastructures on the platform, then focus on keeping the user base. And so that's very much

536
01:38:22.560 --> 01:38:28.200
based on the notion that value in the platform. Economy is based on the user number.

537
01:38:28.200 --> 01:38:38.329
and so that's kind of how that works with upwork. Amazon, Amazon, mechanical Turk. Yes, I don't know if I agree, if it's

538
01:38:38.450 --> 01:38:41.519
not becoming the monopoly, because I argue

539
01:38:41.590 --> 01:38:58.159
that upwork and Amazon actually exist in different spheres. So there's a whole like labor platform ecosystem in my mind, and different platforms are trying to monopolize different sections of that platform. So like Amazon and upwork don't don't really compete

540
01:38:58.180 --> 01:39:17.960
because Amazon focuses on embedding human intelligence into algorithms and upwork focuses on remote freelances. So technically, they're in the same category as being labor platforms. But they're different sectors. and so yeah, Amazon, growing its kind of role as a

541
01:39:18.010 --> 01:39:34.629
kind of place where you go for all of your technological needs, the Amazon mechanical Turk became part of that structure. And, interestingly, now, they also have brought up their own kind of generative AI alongside their artificial AI,

542
01:39:34.700 --> 01:39:51.300
So yeah, that's kind of how Amazon and profit and value. I mean, both Amazon and upwork. Now make profit. Obviously, So they've kind of moved now into that profit sector, but at the beginning it is a generation of value to be able to then allow them to build profit

543
01:39:51.490 --> 01:40:17.719
down the kind of the the kind of highway of financial markets and then squad help. I did want to kind of mention, because it's interesting because they failed to get monopoly. So 99 designs is the kind of peak contest-based structure in the platform ecosystem. They have one monopoly squad help has actually pivoted, as I said, to selling domains and

544
01:40:17.720 --> 01:40:39.280
kind of take pulling the labor platform aspect out and pitching AI generated names instead. And so it's more focusing on the buying and selling of online domains. So that's a really interesting example of when yet monopolies failed so they couldn't get the value as a labor platform. So they are kind of pulling out of being a labor platform.

545
01:40:39.280 --> 01:40:53.800
and then finally, trust and trust. Oh, unions! Unions are really interesting. There was a really great session yesterday on platform Unionism and and platform collective action. But it's less successful in

546
01:40:54.100 --> 01:41:09.859
in the like, like like online labor platforms because of that exact reason of atomized workers. It's very, very hard to collectivize But Amazon, mechanical Turk has done a really good job of of it. So there was to coctic on which was developed by Liliani and

547
01:41:09.860 --> 01:41:32.300
Silverman. But also there's tocination on Reddit, and they're really good at collective action. What they do is they'll post about bad reviewers like it's very kind of micro-sized, and I was also kind of the recipient of that collective action. So when I posted for an unpaid interview, I got that collective action back onto me, being told that it was disrespectful to not ask platform workers to

548
01:41:32.310 --> 01:41:45.619
to do work for free, so so sorry, like it was disrespectful to ask for unpaid labor. So I very much kind of saw that collective action happening. So it is happening. It's just not happening to the same extent as in the gig

549
01:41:45.810 --> 01:41:51.910
area, and then trust and trustworthiness is really interesting because it actually becomes a tool of commodification.

550
01:41:51.950 --> 01:42:19.079
so it's one of their key strategies to lower people in being like, you know how distrustful the online space is come to us. We have these like infrastructures of dispute management of payment, escrows where you pay like, where the like the client pays first, and then we release it to you without the client in the middle. All these infrastructures get kind of used as tools of value and as tools of being able to lure people in and keep people in.

551
01:42:19.130 --> 01:42:47.239
so yeah, that's kind of how trustworthiness happens. And I think workers kind of continue to work on these platforms purely because of the growing gigification of the economy in general. So whether that's online or offline, you know, we're, we're in an increasingly precarious world. Online labor platforms provide a low barrier to entry to labor. So that's really kind of the reason these platforms keep going. so yeah, that's that's thank you for the questions. They were great.

552
01:42:50.430 --> 01:42:53.530
Thank you. Thank you for your questions.

553
01:42:53.590 --> 01:42:59.550
 a. For the first question

554
01:43:00.100 --> 01:43:04.200
I use the bureaucratic or control

555
01:43:04.410 --> 01:43:12.320
in this paper. I means some loose that management in better than

556
01:43:12.350 --> 01:43:14.870
into the technologies

557
01:43:15.020 --> 01:43:18.219
to standard livestock

558
01:43:20.180 --> 01:43:24.640
workers. behavior or there

559
01:43:25.050 --> 01:43:28.099
or something. And

560
01:43:29.230 --> 01:43:30.509
I think

561
01:43:30.880 --> 01:43:38.939
bureau critical control in this digital transfers. So digital transformation is

562
01:43:39.220 --> 01:43:40.480
always

563
01:43:40.680 --> 01:43:43.919
limited. This is due to.

564
01:43:45.270 --> 01:43:54.980
This is due to the domination of Smes in Taiwan, and the nature of management, assistance to

565
01:43:55.410 --> 01:43:56.520
and

566
01:43:56.590 --> 01:44:12.839
net traded bureaucratical space. As a result, their usage has in about managers to critical and report information more effectively, and the oversight of production practice in weird

567
01:44:13.280 --> 01:44:14.170
Hi.

568
01:44:14.420 --> 01:44:17.500
And for a second question

569
01:44:18.020 --> 01:44:18.930
I. So

570
01:44:19.410 --> 01:44:24.240
the we, the transformation is.

571
01:44:24.260 --> 01:44:26.470
it's another

572
01:44:26.590 --> 01:44:31.259
for pick up for different different different companies.

573
01:44:31.820 --> 01:44:32.500
You

574
01:44:32.650 --> 01:44:34.980
excellent for

575
01:44:35.130 --> 01:44:42.550
a bigger company, for big companies, layer degree, not degree of transformation is

576
01:44:42.710 --> 01:44:44.510
is bigger. Yeah.

577
01:44:45.120 --> 01:44:57.070
and sorry for so the and the both Christians, because my inclination is poor, so I can understand your question.

578
01:44:57.200 --> 01:45:04.870
He put you with the like to give me a follow- questions. Maybe we could. Hmm.

579
01:45:04.880 --> 01:45:10.680
Discussion is later in person or by email. Yeah, thank you.