Ars Technica reports: Bloomberg reported that Facebook moderators have failed to remove posts shared in anti-vaccine groups and on pages that would ordinarily be considered violating content, if not for the code-speak. Pizza slices, cupcakes, and carrots are just a few emojis that anti-vaccine activists use to speak in code and continue spreading COVID-19 misinformation on Facebook. As Nguyen and Zelickson point out, it is ingenious how Amazon has "managed to transform what was once a labor cost (i.e., supervising work and asset protection) into a revenue stream through the sale of doorbell cameras and subscription services to residents who then perform the labor of securing their own doorstep." The report's conclusion is clear: Amazon has deputized its customers and made them partners in a scheme that encourages antagonistic social relations, undermines labor rights, and provides cover for a march towards increasingly ambitious monopolistic exploits. The introduction of surveillance cameras at the delivery destination, however, adds another level of surveillance to the gigification. Even without cameras, customers have made onerous demands of Flex drivers even as the drivers are pressed to meet unrealistic and dangerous routes alongside unsafe and demanding productivity quotas. "Through interviews with Flex drivers, it became apparent that these marketed perks have hidden costs: drivers often have to compete for shifts, spend hours trying to get reimbursed for lost wages, pay for wear and tear on their vehicle, and have no control over where they work." That competition between workers manifests in other ways too, namely acquiescing to and complying with customer demands when delivering purchases to their homes. Amazon tells Flex drivers that they have complete control over their schedule, and can work on their terms and in their space," Nguyen and Zelickson write. "Gig workers, including Flex drivers, are sold on the promise of flexibility, independence and freedom. This dovetails with the "gigification" of Amazon's delivery workers in two ways: labor dynamics and customer behavior. As the report lays out, Ring cameras allow customers to surveil delivery workers and discipline their labor by, for example, sharing shaming footage online. Just as important as the adoption of these cameras, however, is the rise of delivery work and its transformation into gig labor. Obviously, the first one is the widespread adoption of doorbell surveillance cameras like Ring. Thanks to interviews with surveillance camera users and delivery drivers, the researchers are able to dive into a few major developments interacting here to bring this to a head. The result is a collision between the American ideas of private property and the business imperatives of doing a job." "But for delivery drivers, this has meant their work is increasingly surveilled by the doorbell cameras and supervised by customers. "The growing popularity of Ring and other networked doorbell cameras has normalized home and neighborhood surveillance in the name of safety and security," Data & Society's Labor Futures program director Aiha Nguyen and research analyst Eve Zelickson write. An anonymous reader quotes a report from Motherboard: Networked doorbell surveillance cameras like Amazon's Ring are everywhere, and have changed the nature of delivery work by letting customers take on the role of bosses to monitor, control, and discipline workers, according to a recent report (PDF) by the Data & Society tech research institute.
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