How Facebook and Amazon Rely on an Invisible Workforce
Contractors are starting to protest their dismal working conditions, but it’s an uphill battle.
Photographer: NICOLAS ASFOURI/AFP via Getty Images
You don’t see them, but they’re there: hundreds of thousands of people sitting at keyboards for hours on end to keep online services humming along seamlessly. It can seem like the Internet operates entirely automatically, but it doesn’t. Humans are often hidden behind the scenes, working in real time to verify your identity, flag hate speech or caption videos.
The market for on-demand, digital tasks is estimated by the World Bank to be worth $25 billion, with Facebook’s Meta Platforms Inc., Amazon Inc. and Alphabet Inc.’s YouTube some of the biggest buyers. Over the years they have collected an array of global on-demand digital workers whom they have kept at arms length. Therein lies the problem.