Match Match: Combatting Pay Opacity on Digital Labour Platforms
Project Lead:
Funda Ustek Spilda, Matthew Cole, Mark Graham
About the project:
This project seeks to challenge and raise awareness about the precarious payment structures and algorithmic management systems of workers in the platform economy. In particular, it aims to make visible the discrepancy between what customers pay for a particular service and the earning workers actually receive for it, and hereby, to reverse-engineer the opacity of these payment structures.
As part of this project, we will examine 15 digital labour platforms and conduct interviews and polls with both platform workers and consumers in order to enquire into their level of awareness about working and pay conditions in the platform economy.
The findings of our research will be conveyed in a visual interactive art exhibition that will be open to the public, and will aim to raise awareness about the opaque payment structures and algorithmic management systems in the platform economy.
Our project builds upon the success of the Fairwork project that we are currently working on at the Oxford Internet Institute.
Contact: Funda Ustek Spilda
