Digital Labour: Meta Spark

Digital Labour (IP #4)

My Understanding of Digital Labour

Based off of Kate Crawford’s chapter on “Labour”, I understand Digital Labour to be precarious work that involves the exploitation of human skill and disregard for worker’s wellbeing; along with a primary focus on making profit, while controlling the commodity of time, and using digital tools to monitor and/or assess worker performance to meet production goals (Crawford, 2021).  

Today, AI mimics the chess robot “Mechanical Turk”, in the way that there is a plethora of invisible labour and underpaid workers who create the magic throughout the AI pipeline (Crawford, 2021). AI would not be what it is without the skills of the people who perform the Ghost Work, creating the illusion of AI (Crawford,2021).

I’m reminded of industrial labour exploitation and Karl Marx’ Labour Theory of Value; however, what’s different about the recent use of the term “digital labour" is that Playbour (Kücklich, 2005) and Ghost Work (Gray & Suri, 2019) produce work that is immaterial in value. The barrier between work and play barely exists (playbour) and integral work is done by invisible gig economy workers (ghost work). The work of digital creators, developers and influencers is not sustainable due to its extractive logic—mining labour and resources from people who get very little or nothing in return, with platforms such as Facebook and Instagram becoming more powerful and wealthy.

‍

Example: Meta Spark AR

Meta Spark is a platform by Meta (previously Facebook) that “creators” can use for free to create video filters to use on Facebook and Instagram. Filters are built and used for free with the promise of building a successful augmented reality (AR) business from it. Meta profits from Facebook and Instagram app users implementing the AR filters made by creators for free. 

Duffy’s term “Aspirational Labour” is at play on Meta Spark, as Meta states their AR development tool as a way to make money once you harness how to use their technology—promising potential to earn, if a creator works hard (2017). There is an opportunity to become a member of the Meta Spark “Partner Network” which is marketed to be exclusive; where members gain early access to advanced features and training materials (Meta Spark Partner Network, n.d.). Another component contributing to aspirational labour, Meta shares an opportunity to join communities to network and grow a career in AR development. Meta provides creators with access to optional training to grow their AR development skills. This training is free to access, limiting monetary barriers to start learning.

The implementation and reliance on algorithms and artificial intelligence implies that control is equal to intelligence which is used to control worker’s performance and output, without the worker having a “say” or break in their work production (Crawford, 2021). The AR filters developed are “open sourced” meaning the workstays and lives within the Meta Spark app—all creations are never fully owned by the developer, they are owned by Meta (Boz, 2023). Because it’s an open source platform, everyone has access to their work. They will never receive adequate compensation for the time and skill it took to develop the AR filters they produced. This type of work is often seen in the gig economy and for some freelancers. Duffy highlights the “pervasive misrepresentation” which occurs in social media that “perpetuate[s] a culture of supposed instant success and leads to a culture of insecurity…” (2017).

‍

Summary

Digital Labour is a serious problem that exploits the workers who create the AI “magic”, it is not environmentally sustainable and reveals to us how toxic AI and algorithms can be, not only on the consumer of social media, but also on the unseen and unsung creators. Modern digital labourers are controlled by time similar to the age of industrialization in the 1890s into the early twentieth century (Crawford, 2021), but even more so, many creators do not get a break as they are constantly racing against time and trying to swim upstream against algorithms and AI (Duffy, 2017). From the consumer’s perspective,the illusion of perfection that AR filters can deliver is incredibly unhealthy,especially the beauty or touch-up filters that are on many social and video conferencing tools (Well, 2023).

‍

‍

References 

Boz, Umut. (2023, September 1). AR Developer Perspective on Meta Spark AR. Medium. https://medium.com/antaeus-ar/ar-developer-perspective-on-meta-spark-ar-77f8a48a173f

Crawford, K. (2021). Atlas of AI: Power, Politics, and the Planetary Costs of Artificial Intelligence. In Atlas of AI. Yale University Press. https://doi.org/10.12987/9780300252392

Duffy, B. E. (2017). The “Instagram Filter”: Dispelling the Myths of Entrepreneurial Glamour. In (Not) Getting Paid to Do What You Love (pp. 185–215). Yale University Press. https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt1q31skt.9

Gray, M. L., & Suri, S.(2019). Ghost Work: How to Stop Silicon Valley from Building a New Global Underclass. Eamon Dolan Books. http://sarkoups.free.fr/gray2019.pdf

Kücklich, J. (2005). FCJ-025 Precarious Playbour: Modders and the Digital GamesIndustry. The Fibreculture Journal, 5. Retrieved October 9, 2023.  https://five.fibreculturejournal.org/fcj-025-precarious-playbour-modders-and-the-digital-games-industry 

Meta Spark Partner Network. (n.d.). Meta Spark. Retrieved October 8, 2023. https://spark.meta.com/programs/partner-network/

Well,Tara (2023, March 25). The Hidden Danger of Online Beauty Filters. Psychology Today Canada. Retrieved October 9, 2023. https://www.psychologytoday.com/ca/blog/the-clarity/202303/can-beauty-filters-damage-your-self-esteem