Whenever we go online, we might find ourselves part of an experiment — without knowing it. Digital platforms track what users do and how they respond to features. Increasingly, these tests are having real-world consequences for its participants.

In a paper published in the Journal Academy of Management, it was reported that platforms that offer paid tasks and jobs to freelancers (H. A. Rahman et al. Acad. Mgmt. J. 66, 1803–1830; 2023) are experimenting  with using different methods for scoring people’s work, as well as changing how their skills would be listed on their profile page and how they could interact with their contractors. These changes affected people’s ratings and the amount of work they received. Twenty years ago, such experimentation was transparent. Gig workers could opt in or out of tests. But today, these experiments are done covertly. Gig workers waive their rights when they create an account.

Being experimented on can be disconcerting and disempowering. Imagine that, every time you enter your office, it has been redesigned. So has how you are evaluated, and how you can speak with your superiors, but without your knowledge or consent. Such continual changes affect how you do and feel about your job.

Gig workers expressed that, after noticing frequent changes on the listing platforms that were made without their consent, they started to see themselves as laboratory rats rather than valued users. Because their messages were blocked by chatbots, they were unable to speak to the platform to complain or opt out of the changes. Frustration flared and apathy set in. Their income and well-being declined.

This is concerning, not only because of how it affects gig workers, but also because academics are increasingly becoming involved in designing digital experiments. Social scientists follow strict Institutional Review Board (IRB) procedures that govern the ethics of experiments involving people — such as informing them and requiring consent — but these rules don’t apply to technology companies. And that’s leading to questionable practices and potentially unreliable results.

Excerpt from Tim Weiss, Why we are all lab rats in the digital world, Nature, Nov. 12, 2024