Reddit, Wikipedia and Co.: The value of unpaid work online

Katharina Wilhelm
ARD-Studio Los Angeles

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“I felt burned out”

Stevie Chancellor has moderated several subreddits, including those on weightlifting and mental health. She spent about an hour a day on it, she tells im ARD-Interview. “I moderated for five years. I stopped because other things were more important to me. But lately it was also exhausting,” says Chancellor. “I felt a bit burned out and I had problems because I was harassed there as a presenter.” She also received little help, she complains: “That also made it difficult to continue working there.”

Working is the key: Because Chancellor wondered how many people put how much time and work into moderating, uploading, sharing and clicking. Together with their colleagues Hanlin Li and Brent Hecht from Northwestern University in Illinois, they evaluated, among other things, log-in records from moderators and also held discussions with 40 Reddit moderators. They concluded: Reddit volunteers do $3.4 million in unpaid work annually, which is about 3 percent of Reddit’s revenue.

Just the tip of the iceberg?

“Our estimates are very conservative,” Li emphasizes. It’s more like the tip of the iceberg. Many platforms need private individuals to devote their time to improving their products. Li and Chancellor also mention Facebook groups or websites like Yelp that rate restaurants, for example. The question arises as to how one evaluates this work: is it voluntary, an altruistic act – or even exploitation?

“People benefit from restaurant reviews, for example, and the Yelp company can only thrive because there are private users who participate,” emphasizes Chancellor. “But Yelp or Reddit are profitable businesses.” It’s different with Wikipedia: “Wikipedia is non-profit and doesn’t make any sales – it’s a different form of altruism,” says Chancellor.

Freedom and independence important factors

The results of the study were discussed on Twitter – some users see the moderators as something like modern slaves. But how do you appreciate the hours that volunteers put up for the general public – but also for the companies? An obvious solution would of course be remuneration. But even the moderators didn’t necessarily want that, says Chancellor. “It’s complicated because the freedom and independence from the platform is a value in its own right.” She would have been laughed at and kicked out if users had even thought that she was paid to be a Reddit moderator, she suspects. “They wouldn’t have taken me seriously.”

Above all, Chancellor and Li want to draw attention to the value of moderators on the Internet. From their point of view, concrete help would be if the platforms better contact the moderators and, above all, protect them if, for example, bullying and harassment occur.