Brian Plackis-Cheng

The government needs to shut down these microtasking factories especially this one. Crowdsurf, run by Cielo2, is a microtasking transcription company creating written and visual media for the hearing-impaired. It employs dangerous and illegal labor practices. First, they require workers, their contracted transcriptionists, to listen to audio files at *extremely high volumes* where two speakers have been recorded at very different volume levels with no warning beforehand. The only way to receive payment for this work is to listen to both voices at an extremely high volume which is very painful and can damage hearing. Second, they incentivize workers, who make at most $6 per hour as per their own estimates, to work over 70 hours a week at this rate by offering bonuses to those who complete a certain, very high number of files called "HITs"- while maintaining a near-perfect score. Many people do just this, as evidence by various social media posts from workers. Third, they employ complex training manuals for which a worker after passing, can later be at any time blocked from various types of their HITs after years of working for them with no regard to average quality score. One type of mistake is enough for them to revoke all qualifications you have earned. There is no second-person review and customer service feedback offered on work is dishonest and quantitatively untrue, making the training and testing period particularly unjust as we are not notified about the likelihood of eventually being disqualified suddenly and at random. Fourth, they offer as payment method only a work card known as Global Cash Card which charges a minimum of 50cents for each and every purchase made no matter how small as well as a variety of unethical fees. They will be reported to the Department of Labor.