It has been a particularly productive semester for DiPLab researchers and affiliates in terms of publishing articles and book chapters. Here are the complete citations (and open access links) of our recent contributions that compare data work in various countries. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- A Special issue of New Political Economy guest-edited by Uma Rani Amara and Nicolas Pons-Vignon on “Power relations in the digital economy” has been published as Volume 30, issue 3 of the journal. It includes our article on “Where does AI come from?”, a comparison of data work in Venezuela, Madagascar, and France. > Tubaro, Paola, Antonio A. Casilli, Maxime Cornet, Clément Le Ludec, and Juana > Torres Cierpe. 2025. “Where Does AI Come from? A Global Case Study across > Europe, Africa, and Latin America.” New Political Economy 30 (3): 359–72. > doi:10.1080/13563467.2025.2462137. (preprint access here: > https://inria.hal.science/hal-04933816v1) The Journal Globalizations has published a special issue on The Political Economy of Artificial Intelligence in Latin America. It features our article on AI labor in Brazil and Argentina. > Tubaro, Paola, Antonio A. Casilli, Mariana Fernández Massi, Julieta Longo, > Juana Torres Cierpe, and Matheus Viana Braz. 2025. “The Digital Labour of > Artificial Intelligence in Latin America: A Comparison of Argentina, Brazil, > and Venezuela.” Globalizations, February, 1–16. > doi:10.1080/14747731.2025.2465171. (preprint access here: > https://cnrs.hal.science/hal-04935984v1) The Handbook of Digital Labor, edited by Jack Linchuan Qiu, Shinjoung Yeo, and Richard Maxwell, has been released by Wiley Blackwell. This comprehensive work brings together leading voices on the transformations of labor in the digital age. Among its contributions, our chapter on global inequalities and AI, comparing Venezuela, France, Madagascar, and Brazil. > Casilli, Antonio A., Paola Tubaro, Maxime Cornet, Clément Le Ludec, Juana > Torres-Cierpe, et al. 2025. Global Inequalities in the Production of > Artificial Intelligence: A Four-Country Study on Data Work. In: Jack Linchuan > Qiu, Shinjoung Yeo, Richard Maxwell (eds.). The Handbook of Digital Labor, > Wiley Blackwell, pp.219-232, 2025, ISBN10: 9781119981800. (preprint access > here: https://hal.science/hal-04742532v2) The journal New Technology, Work and Employment has made available, as an online first, the new article by Juana Torres-Cierpe and Paola Tubaro about Venezuelan data workers. > Torres-Cierpe, Juana and Paola Tubaro. 2025. Uninvited Protagonists: The > Networked Agency of Venezuelan Platform Data Workers. New Technology, Work and > Employment. https://doi.org/10.1111/ntwe.12340 (preprint access here: > https://hal.science/hal-05041068v1)

We’re proud to share that DiPLab research was featured at the 9th Regulating for Decent Work (RDW) Conference, hosted by the International Labour Office in Geneva from 2–4 July 2025. In a joint paper with Nagla Rizk (A2K4D, American University in Cairo), DiPLab’s Myriam Raymond presented research titled Regulating Digital Platform Payments: Barriers to Fair Compensation and Policy Implications for Egyptian Microworkers. > This study draws on extensive survey data (N=948) and focus group discussions > with Egyptian microworkers performing small online tasks on global platforms.  > It sheds light on the lived reality of financial precarity: unpredictable > payments, opaque fees, currency exchange losses, and reliance on informal > intermediaries. Many workers remain excluded from fair financial participation > due to technical, institutional, and regulatory gaps. Our findings emphasize > that these payment frictions are not marginal inconveniences—they are central > to workers’ experience and reinforce their vulnerability in ways largely > invisible to existing labor regulation. The paper calls for targeted financial > inclusion policies, better platform accountability, and a serious rethink of > regulatory frameworks to protect microworkers as legitimate workers deserving > fair pay and institutional support. > > Within the frame of this ongoing study, a closed-door meeting with key > policymakers and public actors will be convened on November 2025. Amongst the > participants: Egyptian Ministry of ManPower, Central Bank of Egypt, Central > Agency for Public Mobilization and Statistics (CAPMAS), ILO Egypt’s office, > National Telecommunications Regulating Agency (NTRA), Financial Regulatory > Authority (FRA), and the Micro, Small & Medium Enterprises Development Agency > (MSMEDA).   This year’s RDW theme focused on Strengthening labour institutions and worker voice to deliver decent employment. It brought together an extraordinary range of grounded research from all over the globe—scholars, policymakers, and practitioners all exchanging ideas on how to make work fairer, safer, and more inclusive. Every session, keynote, and plenary was packed with insights. It was a privilege to be part of such a collective effort where research meets purpose and gives real meaning to what we do.

The Défenseur des droits, France’s national rights watchdog, has just made public their latest decision (Decision No. 2025-086) concerning a major French platform that offers internet users micro-tasks in exchange for payment. This landmark ruling follows an in-depth investigation into discriminatory recruitment practices—based on nationality, bank domiciliation, and place of residence—brought to light with the support of DiPLab’s research, after the French data authority CNIL – Commission Nationale de l’Informatique et des Libertés had already flagged the platform. DiPLab’s 104-page anonymized report “Discriminations and vulnerabilities in France’s micro-work platforms” (in French) provided critical evidence and analysis. Our key scientific contribution was the development of a “vulnerability index,” a novel statistical measure that reveals how economic precarity can lead to indirect discrimination among microworkers. This tool—pioneering in its application to platform-based data work—helped demonstrate how structural conditions on these platforms can unfairly disadvantage certain groups. The Défenseur des Droits’ final recommendations to the platform include eliminating discriminatory registration criteria, increasing transparency in worker evaluation and payment systems, limiting intrusive personal data collection, and auditing algorithmic systems for potential biases. This decision carries significant implications for DiPLab. Being formally consulted and cited in such a high-level ruling affirms the scientific value and societal relevance of our work. It validates our methodological innovations—particularly the vulnerability Inde—as tools for understanding and addressing structural inequalities in digital labor. The outcome strengthens DiPLab’s position as a trusted partner for institutions, NGOs, and regulators working on platform fairness and algorithmic accountability, while providing a concrete case study that will inform future research. For a preview of our continuing work in this area, we invite you to attend our upcoming presentation at the INSNA Sunbelt Social Network Conference (June 23–29, 2025, Paris). Paola Tubaro, Antonio Casilli, José Luis Molina, and Antonio Santos-Ortega will present a comparative study on data worker vulnerability in France and Spain (see link in comment).

The journal New Technology, Work and Employment just published the article Uninvited Protagonists: The Networked Agency of Venezuelan Platform Data Workers, co-authored by DiPLab’s Paola Tubaro and Juana Torres-Cierpe. New-Technol-Work-Employ-2025-Cierpe-Uninvited-Protagonists-The-Networked-Agency-of-Venezuelan-Platform-Data-Workers Workers in Venezuela are powering AI production, often under tough conditions. Sanctions and a deep political-economic crisis have pushed them to work for platforms that pay in US dollars, albeit at low rates. They constitute a large reservoir for technology producers from rich countries. But they are not passive players. They build resilience, rework their environment, and sometimes engage in acts of resistance, with support from different segments of their personal networks. From strong local ties to loose online connections, these informal webs help them cope, adapt, and occasionally push back. Their diversified relationships comprise an unofficial and often hidden, albeit largely digitised relational infrastructure that sustains their work and shapes collective action. These findings invite to rethink agency as embedded in workers’ personal networks. To respond to adversities, one must liaise with equally affected peers, with family and friends who offer support, etc. Social ties ultimately determine who is enabled to respond, and who is not; whether any benefits and costs are shared, and with whom; whether any solution will be conflictual or peaceful. Social networks are not accessory but constitute the very channel through which Venezuelan data workers cope with hardship. Not all relationships play the same role, though. Venezuelans discover online data work through their strong ties with family, close friends, and neighbours. To convert their online earnings into local currency, they rely on their broader social networks of relatives and friends living abroad and indirect relationships with intermediaries. For managing their day-to-day activities, Venezuelans expand their social networks through online services like Facebook, WhatsApp, and Telegram, connecting with diverse and less-close peers within and outside the country. Different social ties affect the various stages of the data working experience. Overall, no Venezuelan could work alone – and the networked interactions that sustain each of them against hardship have made them massively present, as ‘uninvited protagonists,’ in international platforms. Their massive presence in the planetary data-tasking market is a supply rather than demand-driven phenomenon. This analysis also sheds light on the reasons why mobilisation is uncommon among platform data workers. Other studies noted diverging orientations of workers, unclear goals, lack of focus, and insufficient leadership. Another powerful reason hinges upon the predominance of weak ties in building up online group membership: indeed, distant acquaintances are insufficient to prompt people to action if their intrinsic motivations are low. The article is available in open access here.

We share the exciting news of two new papers that were published last month, concerning parts of the extensive research DiPLab conducts on the networks of production of AI The first paper is titled “Where does AI come from? A global case study across Europe, Africa, and Latin America” (by P. Tubaro, A.A. Casilli, M. Cornet, C. le Ludec and J. Torres Cierpe), appears in New Political Economy’s special issue on power in the digital economy. It examines AI supply chains, focusing on how and where companies recruit workers for data annotation and other essential tasks. While the organisation of AI data work varies, the reasons for these differences and the ways it dovetails with local economies were underexplored. This article clarifies these supply chains’ structures, highlighting their impacts on labour conditions and remunerations. Framing AI as an instance of well-known outsourcing and offshoring trends, analysis of AI data work in France, Madagascar, and Venezuela, highlights two main models: marketplace-like contracts and firm-like structures, with hybrid arrangements in between. Each model suits different AI tasks but all reproduce well-known patterns of exclusion that harm externalised workers especially in the Global South. We argue that worker reclassification alone is insufficient and advocate for a broader policy mix, including regulation of technology and development strategies at national and supra-national levels. You may find an open access version of the preprint of the paper here -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The second paper is titled “The digital labour of artificial intelligence in Latin America: a comparison of Argentina, Brazil, and Venezuela” (by P. Tubaro, A.A. Casilli, M. Fernández Massi, J. Longo, J. Torres Cierpe and M. Viana Braz) appears in Globalizations’ special issue on AI in Latin America. It sheds light on the precarious, low-paid data workers supporting AI production in the region, often for foreign firms. Mixed-method data support a comparison of Argentina, Brazil, and Venezuela to reveal common patterns and regional differences. The analysis supports the conclusion that Latin America plays a key role in AI data work, with companies exploiting economic hardship to cut costs. In Venezuela and Argentina, crisis conditions foster an ‘elite’ of young, STEM-educated workers, while in Brazil, this work is done by lower-income groups. In all three countries, AI data work also blends with the informal economy, reinforcing inequality in this way. These findings call for more attention to AI labour conditions and advocate for policies to recognise data workers’ skills and support their career development, potentially enabling worker organisation. You may find an open access version of the preprint of the paper here