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.<p>"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."<p><a href="http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/03/18/the-unregulated-work-of-mechanical-turk/" rel="nofollow">http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/03/18/the-unregulated...</a><p>Workers will do jobs for as little as 25 cents an hour.
<a href="http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2011/06/22/americans-will-work-for-25-cents-an-hour.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2011/06/22/americans-w...</a><p>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.<p>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?