Turkopticon was founded in 2008 by Lilly Irani and Six Silberman as a review site for workers on the Amazon Mechanical Turk platform. It gave workers a space to share information about requesters, warn one another about unfair or poorly designed tasks, and make more informed decisions about their work. Turkopticon continues to provide these resources and support to workers today.
In 2019, workers and longtime collaborators began exploring how Turkopticon could become more than a review site. Platform workers formed a team alongside Lilly and Six, while graduate students, tech workers, and other supporters contributed their skills to software development and organizational needs. This marked Turkopticon’s transition into a worker-led organization.
As the platform data work industry changed, Turkopticon changed with it. Many workers were no longer relying on a single platform and were working on multiple platforms. Turkopticon expanded its focus beyond Amazon Mechanical Turk to support platform data workers wherever they work.
Today, we bring worker concerns directly to platforms. These concerns include unfair account suspensions and deactivations, mass rejections of completed work, nonpayment, harmful or misleading tasks, unclear platform policies, and other issues raised by the data worker community. We go where workers need us.
Throughout our history, we have used surveys, open forums, one-on-one conversations, social media, and direct worker outreach to understand the challenges workers face. Our priorities are shaped by workers’ lived experiences, ensuring that the issues affecting platform data workers are brought forward, made visible, and addressed.