MTurk + Google News API = press

Mechanical turk is abusive. It bypasses the laws that were designed to protect the most vulnerable, and it will take some time for new laws to catch up that can regulate operations like mechanical turk. Just because new services and start ups have out maneuvered the law making system does not make those services ethical.

"Workers relying on such low wages and unstable employment are not likely to be able to educate their children enough to escape increasingly high rates of unemployment. A sustainable form of crowdsourcing will require forms of collective governance that mitigate the effects of market competition on those treated as mere links in a chain of algorithmic logic."

http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/03/18/the-unregulated...

Workers will do jobs for as little as 25 cents an hour. http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2011/06/22/americans-w...

According to the nytimes article, 70% of the workers are women. For me, the possibility of paying an american woman 25 cents an hour so that I can get some press coverage is disgusting. When we needed data entry done, we hired some of our out of work friends for about $12-$15 per hour. It served our needs just fine and cost us about $1500 total.

For fast turn arounds, I see why you would want mechanical turk, but planning ahead can give you the possibility of treating people ethically. I don't agree with any systems that perpetuate poverty. Mechanical Turk obviously provides a very valuable service to businesses however. Does anyone know if there any systems like mechanical turk that guarantee at least minimum wage is being paid to the workers?

It's not as though Amazon is going and pointing a gun at people's heads and telling them to Turk or die.

If it's a bad trade for people to exchange their time for the low wage, they shouldn't take it.

Love your passion social justice. I share it, and I can understand how a cursory understanding of mTurk may feel exploitative.

That said, it's clear neither the NYT nor the Daily Beast understand MTurk users - and because of that, they mistake a hobby for a job.

For many people in the US, MTurk isn't about making money, it's about doing something while you're bored. It's not a replacement for a job, it's a replacement for Farmville.

"Ever wonder what our labor market would look like without minimum wages or labor law protections?"

If Turkers were paid with a virtual currency, there would be no comparison to minimum wages - but because they're paid with cash, the puzzles/work exists in a weird world between work and play.

Also worth mentioning, I intentionally price my HITs low so as to target turkers who aren't looking to supplement their income. It only takes 5 minutes of trying to find one person's email address to realize $.03 isn't worth it - if your goal is to make money.

I may be still missing the boat, but if Turkers really are doing this as a hobby - is it still exploitative?

Rob, as a software engineer at google, I would not expect you to to be able to relate to those without opportunities. In fact, there is some evidence that utilizing your brain to solve technical problems can restrict its ability to empathize. Of course amazon has no gun, but that does not mean that poverty in itself is not violent. As you like science and data, here is a read for you: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/10/121030161416.ht...

(Disclaimer: I work for Amazon, but not on anything related to mTurk)

Is there reason to believe that people are using mTurk full-time as a significant source of income? I've Turked a bunch -- and know people who do it for a couple hours a day -- and my understanding is that its overwhelmingly used as a way to pick up a few extra bucks while catching up on TV, a slightly more civilized replacement for clipping coupons or filling out paid surveys.