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 who 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.
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.
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.
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.
Click Captives. The Unseen Struggle of Data Workers.
By Wilington Shitawa
Based on the author’s experience at Cloud Factory and Sama, this comic describes the widespread exploitation of data workers.
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.
"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.
Annotate to Educate: The Dual life 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.
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 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.
Artificial AI
by Ruba
The promise of easy and flexible work, and small paid tasks done from home without a boss giving orders attracts many workers to digital platforms. This video explores the many ways in which the reality is far from the promised autonomy with strict time and quality management, non-transparent rules, and low pay.
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.
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.
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.
From Data Workers to Data Workers 2 - Mind over Moderation
by Anonymous Workers
This podcast was developed and recorded by two anonymous data workers, currently employed as Content Moderators at an outsourcing company in Berlin, Germany.
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.
We Are All Data Workers!
From essays to audiovisual pieces, the authors describe how they, too, are forced into data work.
Transnational Solidarity with Data Workers
Experiences of cross-border solidarity and advocacy for data workers.
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
Copy editing: Nicholas Rodelo
Graphic design: Heitor Bonan, Pauline Wee
Illustrations: Marc Pohl, Kevin Makinya Kaunda, Pauline Wee
Animations: Vladimir L. Ochoa-Andrade
Funded by
