Time untill launch event:
Data Workers‘ Inquiry
The Data Workers’ Inquiry is a community-based research project in which data workers join us as community researchers to lead their own inquiry in their respective workplaces. The community researchers guide the direction of the research, such that it is oriented towards their needs and goals of building workplace power but supported by formally trained qualitative researchers. We adapt Marx’s 1880 Workers’ Inquiry to the phenomenon of data workers wo are both essential for contemporary AI applications yet precariously employed—if at all—and politically dispersed.
data workers worldwide report on their workplaces
The Inquiries
15 data workers in Venezuela, Kenya, Syria, and Germany conducting research with their colleagues in their respective workplaces and reporting on labor conditions and widespread practices in the AI industry. Explore the inquiries below!
Data Workers in Kenya Organize!
Learn more about the grievances of data workers at Sama, Cloud Factory, and Remotasks, and how they organize to demand better working conditions.
![A drawn screaming woman tied to some sort of wood with skeleton-like heads looking at her.](https://data-workers.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/Cover_V4-e1716747809567-1024x1024.png)
The African Women of Content Moderation
by Botlhokwa Ranta
This zine sheds light on the experiences of women, mothers, and migrants working as content moderators at Sama.
![A drawn figure walking to the left of the picture and leaving behind drawn lines.](https://data-workers.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/Spagetti_girl-e1716747894228-1024x1024.png)
Mental Health and Drug Dependency in Content Moderation
by Fasica Berhane Gebrekidan
Exploited by subcontractors like Sama, Meta content moderators in Nairobi face psychological trauma and silencing.
![A portrait of Mophat Okinyi. He has his armes crossed and wears a gray short and has very short hair and a very short dark beard.](https://data-workers.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/9W7A7703-scaled-e1716748604837-908x1024.jpg)
Impact of Remotasks’ Closure on Kenyan Workers
By Mophat Okinyi
In March 2024, Remotasks shut down thousands of accounts of data workers in African countries.
![A comic-like drawing of two guys sitting in front of computer-screens and looking exhausted. The right guy says "This isn't ok". Above their heads is a title saying "Click Captives. The unseen struggles of data workers.".](https://data-workers.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/WhatsApp-Image-2024-06-14-at-12.15.55-724x1024.jpeg)
They Are All the Same! Widespread Issues in Kenya's Outsourcing Industry
By Wilington Shitawa
Based on the author’s experience at Cloud Factory and Sama, this comic describes the widespread exploitation of data workers.
![Adio talking to Richard on a street in Nairobi.](https://data-workers.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/Z5A1118-scaled-e1716747675469-1024x937.jpg)
Data Workers Organizing: The African Content Moderators Union
by Richard Mathenge
This documentary explores the issues faced by data workers at Sama in Nairobi, Kenya, that led to the union’s creation.
Syrian Data Workers in their own Words.
Read a report describing the challenges faced by refugee data workers in Lebanon and watch a Vlog exploring a day in the life of a data worker in Syria.
![Plastic figures resembling humans who sit at tables in front of laptops. the lack of background makes their envoronment look bleak.](https://data-workers.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/MaxGruber-ClickworkerAbyss-1280x853-1-1024x682.jpg)
"If I Had Another Job, I Would Not Accept Data Annotation Tasks"
by Roukaya Al Hammada
This report examines the unique challenges faced by Syrian refugees working as data annotators in Lebanon.
– COMING SOON –
![Video snippet in which the captions read "I've spent 10 hours on making these taks, and now I find miself having to redo the all"](https://data-workers.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/Bildschirmfoto-2024-06-21-um-12.23.21.png)
Annotate to Educate: The Dual of a Syrian Student & Data Annotator
by Yasser Yousef Alrayes
This short film highlights the inadequate training of data workers in Syria and their resulting personal struggles.
Venezuelan Data Workers Say Enough!
Watch Oskarina’s animated video and read Alex’s report to learn more about platform-mediated data work in Latin America.
![A screenshot from a Video with drawn figures. A women raising her hands and shoulders that seemingly desperate, is shown sitting on a desk in a bedroom.](https://data-workers.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/Bildschirmfoto-2024-06-13-um-14.00.46-1024x1022.png)
Life of a Latin American Data Worker
by Oskarina Veronica Fuentes Anaya
Irregular working hours, uncertainty, meager wages, and unpaid time are daily realities for platform data workers. This animation video highlights the profession’s structural issues, which are exacerbated by economic and political crises in Latin America.
![The title is shown on black background with drawn bills and giftcards flying around it. Below the title a figure is drawn in white, falling down a red graph.](https://data-workers.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/Letter-7-752x1024.png)
The Impact of Gift Card Payments on MTurk Workers
By Alexis Chávez
Amazon Mechanical Turk pays data workers with gift cards instead of money. This report underlines how this payment method fosters workers‘ dependency, especially in countries conditioned by financial turbulences.
Content Moderators in Germany speak out.
Explore two powerful podcast episodes and a video by workers in Berlin and Essen to learn more about the widespread grievances of data workers in Europe.
![A tic-tac-toe board with human faces as digital blocks, symbolizing how AI works on pre-existing, biased online data for information processing and decision-making](https://data-workers.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/AmrithaR-Warrier-AI4Mediatictac-toe-1280x1280-1-1024x1024.png)
From Data Workers to Data Workers 1 – Precarious Working Conditions in Content Moderation and their Consequences for Workers
by Lais, Layla & Omar
This podcast (GER w/EN subtitles) discusses the struggles of content moderators at Telus International Germany, highlighting poor pay, mentally taxing tasks, and lack of support.
![Four white ceramic cups, that look like baby heads are staning in a green carpet. The eyes of the baby-cups look bloodshot.](https://data-workers.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/photo_2024-04-23_11-51-50-768x1024.jpg)
In the Colony of Blooded Eyes: A Trilogy on Working Conditions as a Content Moderator in Germany
by Sakine Mohamadi Bozorg
A brutally honest first-person account of the psychological scars borne by migrant content moderators in Germany.
![](https://data-workers.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/AdrienLimousin-Non-image-2560x2560-1-1024x1024.jpg)
From Data Workers to Data Workers 2 - Mind over Moderation
This podcast was developed and recorded by two anonymous data workers, currently employed as Content Moderators at an outsourcing company in Berlin, Germany.
by Anonymous Workers
– COMING SOON –
Data Work beyond data work
Invited Pieces
Artists, translators, writers, nurses, and internet users produce data for AI without compensation. As part of the Data Workers‘ Inquiry, workers collectives describe how they organize to fight power concentration and exploitation in the tech industry.
Explore the pieces
From essays and reports to audiovisual pieces, the authors describe how they, too, are forced into data work.
meet the team
Convenors
We are the organizing team developing a methodology and a platform for data workers to conduct individual inquiries. We provide guidance and training in specific data collection and analysis methods, and constantly monitor the legal and ethical boundaries of the inquiries.
The Data workers' Inquiry
Supported by amazing people:
Videography: Petros Teka
Website: Lena Pohlmann, David Hartmann, Marc Pohl
Events production and support: Max Rech, Christie Taylor
Graphic design: Heitor Bonan, Pauline Wee
Illustrations: Marc Pohl, Pauline Wee
Copy editing: Nicholas Rodelo
Funded by
![The Dair Logo. Entagled squares in black with the name next to it.](https://data-workers.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/Bildschirmfoto-2024-05-26-um-18.14.56-copy-1024x399.png)
![The logo of the Weizenbaum Institute. Two black backslashes with the institutes name on the right of it.](https://data-workers.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/Zeichenflaeche-19.png)
![Logo of Technische Universität Berlin. A black an big TU with the universities name on the left of it.](https://data-workers.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/TU_Logo__schwarz-1024x571.png)