Sana Ahmad

Migrant workers in Germany supply crucial labor to global social media platforms! In this new episode of Purple Code podcast, we speak with two former content moderators about their experiences of corporate authoritarianism at a Berlin-based company and challenges of accessing trade unions and institutional resources for power struggle. Tune in at https://purplecode.org/.

5 years later and the PhD monograph is open access! Ground Control is a tale of power relations in content moderation value chains, of the limits of algorithmic management, and much more. A more lucid book version will inshallah come out next year.
https://refubium.fu-berlin.de/handle/fub188/40979

How will work look like in 2045? asked students last weekend as part of the Global Citizenship Education funded by the Deutsche UNESCO-Kommission. Glad to have participated in the future of work discussion with some of my knowhow on workplace automation. Learnt a few things too!

"Our lives also matter" - yesterday in Berlin at a protest organised by No Border Assembly Berlin, Bleiberecht für Alle, @refugeesinlibya@dair-community.social, RefugeesTunisia, and others against the recent EU-Tunisia deal to stop refugees from entering Europe. Is it not border violence if the deal ignores mounting evidence of racism and clear violation of human rights by Tunisian authorities?

Glad to see one's research connecting to larger debates. Presented my work on power assymetries in IT value chains & implications for work & workers at a panel on "Digitalized Economic Interactions in the Global South: In Search of a New Research Agenda," by @rc02@botsin.space at #ISAWCS23

Can established sociological tools (concepts & methods) help understand the business models and underlying production processes of social media platforms? My contribution to the session on "Do we need a sociology of the digital?" organized by @Tg10DigiSoc at the World Congress of Sociology. #ISAWCS23

A glimpse into India’s $932B retail economy - the kirana stores that continue to represent 75-78% of total consumer goods sales in India. From fruits & vegetables to fake leather bags to kitchen items to even bongs and chillum here, the kiranas are a sociologist's delight.

@ubiquity75@dair-community.social @yassin@tilde.zone @josh@sciences.social @dansinker@omfg.town The structural conditions in Germany together with highly-controlled settings in the workplace make it exteremly challenging for workers to resist. Which is why there an ever increasing need to conceptualize and strengthen migrant labor voice!

@ubiquity75@dair-community.social @yassin@tilde.zone @josh@sciences.social @dansinker@omfg.town It is, but also the migrant workers doing this, in precarious conditions. Here is the recently published article analysing the same: https://bristoluniversitypressdigital.com/view/journals/wge/aop/article-10.1332-273241721X16647876031174 Not open access yet, but can email you the file. Another one on India: https://direct.mit.edu/books/oa-edited-volume/5319/chapter/3800155/Moderating-in-Obscurity-How-Indian-Content

@yassin@tilde.zone @ubiquity75@dair-community.social @josh@sciences.social @dansinker@omfg.town Thanks Yassin. Sarah Roberts has done great work on this, opening the conceptual doors for us to work with. I've been looking at content moderators in India and Germany, workers at the peripheries of global capitalism. My dissertation to be submitted this Feb shows the limits of automating content moderation. But also similar working conditions, similar control strategies, and similar limited resistance in India and in Germany. Happy to send you my works.