Digital Labor—Hope of the Liberation of Human Labor or a New Form of Alienated Labor? ^†

Abstract

Digital labor already plays an important role in the development of modern society and it is related with the liberation of human being. There are two distinct arguments: one is that digital labor is the hope of liberation of human labor and bring another chance like a New Renaissance; another is that it is still an alienated form of labor. This article focuses on studying digital labor by dialectics through philosophy reflection.

Recent years, socialmedia has developed rapidly, such as Facebook, Blogspot, Twitter and micro-blog have become one of the 50 frequently visited sites in the world. They are developing rapidly in the global Internet, especially with the support of Web2.0. The biggest difference between Web2.0 and the traditional Web1.0 generated by employee generated by web site is that it takes advantage of Web’s platform, an Internet product model dominated by users. This is a ubiquitous social interaction that transcends national boundaries and transcends ideological limits.

Social media is a social interactive media that provides everyone with a platform for creating and disseminating information. On this platform, users can process text, pictures and videos in different ways, and then express them and interact with each other. The status of users has changed dramatically, from passive consumer information to active, free information and knowledge producers. In Marx’s view, surplus value is generated by the variable capital that is used to buy labor. For the capitalists, in order to obtain more surplus value, will try every way to increase surplus labor time to increase the exploitation of workers, or extend the working day to increase the surplus labor time, or shorten the necessary labor time to increase the relative surplus labor time. However, the exploitation of the workers by capitalists has now reached a higher level, and they do not need to pay or pay very little to earn high profits. The exploitation of social media users by capitalists has reached this level, and social media users have become producers of surplus value. Tencent currently has a market capitalization of $195 billion 500 million. It is China’s largest social networking platform, with two giant platforms: QQ and WeChat. QQ is the computer must install, WeChat is Tencent’s mobile Internet ticket. On 17 May 2017, Tencent reported consolidated results for the first quarter of 2017. As of 31 March 2017, Tencent’s first quarter total income was 49 billion 552 million yuan, an increase of 55%. Among them, the online advertising revenue grew 47%, to the first quarter of 2017, 6 billion 888 million yuan, mainly by “social and other advertising revenue” driven. The user’s work has a huge impact on social media, in which case the concept of “digital labor” has emerged, particularly for social media users such as WeChat and QQ.

Social media has created a powerful network for users, who can display themselves or communicate with their family, classmates, friends and other places at any time and place. However, for the sake of profit, social media has a profit model behind the provision of free services. One of the most important profit models is advertising. Social media has advertising value as long as it has enough users and traffic. In addition, there are other income from the operators, such as income, membership fees and so on. Users play an important role in the way in which social media is profitable. Based on the different research on the role of user labor in the creation of surplus value, this paper discusses the form of two kinds of user labor.

Social media such as Facebook, Blogspot and Twitter do not have the information available for user consumption themselves, providing only a platform for users. On this platform, users play the role of producer and become a part of the capitalists’ creating surplus value. In Marx’s view, the capitalists’ capital is divided into two parts, the constant capital and the variable capital. In the process of production of goods, the production of constant capital to buy just had some value transfer to new products, not the production of surplus value; labor capital variable buy not only produce the value of labor, and produce surplus value. The realization of the surplus value of social media is achieved by selling the user’s information to the advertiser through the capitalists.

Social media employees produce software that provides users with a platform for creating data. On this platform, user registration, creation, browsing, and exchange of information will be used to organize the user’s personal data stored in the database. The employees will process the user’s data to become data products that will be sold to advertisers, and then the advertising client will provide targeted advertising to the user. At this point, the capitalists of social media get the surplus value. After the capitalists make profits, they will not pay very little or less to the users. In fact, the users will be exploited. The more time users spend online, the more data they will be able to sell, and they will show more advertising to them. As a result, time plays a crucial role in social media. Therefore, the productive labor time exploited by the social media capitalists, on the one hand, includes the working hours of paid employees, and on the other hand, all the hours spent by the user on the internet. For the first type of knowledge worker, new media company pays wages. The second kind of knowledge is entirely free of charge.

At this stage of information, communication technology achieves the combination of time and space and information, accelerates the speed of information dissemination, reduces the circulation time of capital and accelerates the accumulation of capital. With the support of information technology, many platforms of social media are related to each other. Users can relay their own information and the information produced by employees through these platforms. Compared with the traditional media, this kind of information dissemination by users is similar to the role of newspaper distributor, and distributes various media information to a wider user base. Naturally, this kind of user’s information dissemination work also produces the value for the medium. In addition, users can communicate and communicate with others on their own views, and realize immediate interaction while transmitting this information. If there is no user information dissemination of labor, and then good content is difficult to obtain the breadth of communication, there is no user information dissemination of labor; some media capital cannot get its due value.

The transition of human society to modernization is not a process of accelerating human liberation rationally, but a process of losing the subjectivity of a person. In the period of industrialization, workers were exploited by capitalists, and labor of workers was alienated labor. In the information age, the way workers are exploited is more hidden, and the labor of the workers is still alienated labor.

With the development of commodity economy, workers are gradually integrated into a mechanized system characterized by the production of commodities and rational principles. This system causes the worker to lose the subjective initiative, becomes the abstract numeral, the worker’s activity becomes each specialized, the mechanized operation process. As Lukacs pointed out: “on the one hand, the labor process gradually differentiate into abstract, rational and specific operation process, so that workers have lost contact with the end product, the workers are classified as a special fixed action mechanical repetition. On the other hand, due to the production process of mechanization and rationalization is strengthened, the necessary time workers work done (this is a reasonable calculation basis) changed, from the beginning is only a level of experience on the digital variable as an objective, can calculate the work quota. It is a fixed and fixed reality and relative workers. With the modern psychological analysis of the working process of the workers (in the Taylor system), this rational mechanization has been extended to the worker’s mind”.

At the same time, the intelligent digital age labor tools of liberate people from the heavy manual labor, people can do to maximize their own limitations, more time to engage in other non productive activities to improve their own. Social media, however, takes full advantage of people’s free time and extends their labor time to free time. The use of social media is a process of productive labor. Users use the free platform and services to upload text, video and pictures to become the fixed capital of the platform. The longer the user is online, the more effective data he can provide, and the more advertisements he offers to the user. As social media permeate all aspects of people’s lives and production, people depend more on social media, and their personality is gradually replaced by the amount of time. For people, this is a digital process, people become one-sided people.

Social media has changed the way people interact, and modern people are more inclined to communicate online. To a certain extent, it speeds up the communication between people and improves the efficiency of work and life. But at the same time, people are divorced from this reality society and indulge in the virtual world.

Unlike face-to-face communication, network communication is the communication between people through network tools. In the process of communication, we can choose many possible connections with people who have good communication with each other through the screen without the restriction of time and geography. However, technology brings new conveniences, but it also brings new crisis for people. As Marx said, “man is the sum of social relations”. In reality, people live in social relations, and each specific individual forms a variety of social relations, and a variety of social relations for the development of individuals to create conditions. Individuals under the influence of social relations continue to grow, and the development of individuals continue to promote the improvement of social relations, and therefore, individuals and society are mutually reinforcing. The user in the process of indulging in the virtual world, do not care about the side of real relationships, not to participate in social activities, from around the real social relations, people prone to negative emotions such as loneliness and indifference, thus affecting the person’s life. At the same time, this is not conducive to social development.

Materialization consciousness—man’s subjectivity is suppressed and fettered. The proliferation of digital network information and the excessive dependence on digital networks lead to partial loss of human subjectivity. On the one hand, users publish various kinds of information on the platform of social media. In this case, the user is keen to accept all kinds of information, and ignore the authenticity of information; we do not have the enthusiasm of reading before, just stay in the purpose of understanding. At this point, information has become more than what we know. The information control of people’s thoughts and actions, and become a subject of alien force, weaken the people’s subjectivity; on the other hand, the digital era makes people rely on technology reached a very high level, individuals often passively waiting for the object—digital network self presentation, or simply enjoy the ready-made object attributes. Not according to their own needs and values, to discover and explore the object for their useful properties, and select the appropriate evaluation, decided to appraise the choice. It is more difficult to create conditions to overcome, limit, weaken and prevent the negative effects of the negative attributes of the object. In this way, not only the value attribute of the object is not fully realized and realized, but also the individual’s value needs are not satisfied. In this sense, the subjectivity of human beings is lost in the digital network society.

The development of social media has become an irresistible trend, and it will play an increasingly important role in the development of human beings. Therefore, the phenomenon of labor alienation of social media, to continue to promote the process of socialist China characteristics, achieve the goal of the “two one hundred year”, so as to realize the comprehensive development of human freedom, undoubtedly has important guiding significance.

First, to prevent the alienation of workers and labor products, fully mobilize the enthusiasm of the masses, and let the people share the fruits of reforming. To prevent and overcome the alienation of labor products, for China’s current, it is to realize the workers’ share of labor products, and prevent labor without getting anything for nothing. It is necessary for all sectors of society to realize that building socialism with Chinese characteristics is the common cause of all the people. Xi Jinping made it clear that “the whole society should carry out the important policy of respecting labor, respecting knowledge, respecting talents, respecting creativity, safeguarding and developing the interests of workers and safeguarding the rights of workers”. We must adhere to social equity and justice, eliminate obstacles to workers’ participation in development and share the fruits of development, and strive to enable workers to achieve decent work and all-round development.

From the point of view of social media capital profitability, the user’s labor will not only create value for them, but also directly contribute to the value of social media capital. That is, the way in which social media capital benefits is not only free of charge for users, but also through consumer spending. Therefore, social media capitalists should also give users material rewards. Reddit, for instance, decided to give 10% of the company’s stock ($5 million) to active Internet users after obtaining $50 million in venture financing.

Second, to prevent and overcome the alienation of the labor process, realize the activities of freedom and self-consciousness, and give full play to people’s subjective initiative, Marx pointed out that in the future communist society, people do not work for survival, labor is the first need of people, and it is a free and conscious activity. However, in the current period of rapid development of social productive forces, human labor is alienated. As Marx pointed out, “alienation is not only manifested in the results, but also in the production behavior, manifested in the production activities itself”. Labor is originally a voluntary act of man, a process in which he exerts himself freely. However, alienated labor makes labor not belong to the worker himself, but belongs to the capitalist. People should improve their ability to work consciously and liberate themselves from the bondage of society and become the masters of society.

In the face of social media, although personal strength is very weak, but we can still play their part. To overcome the alienation of labor, we must fight for sovereignty and not be swayed by social media capitalists, that is, the correct use of social media. We can accept the help of the government, society and schools, with their help to reason and self-discipline, and to deal with the relationship between our own development and social media. As Heidegger thought: who is the essence of meditation by thinkers, meditation can help people liberate from the main processing ruled in the liberation to the existence of deep and wide, back to the inner world.

Third, to prevent and overcome the alienation of human and human relations, to build a new interpersonal relationship and to create a harmonious society.

The capitalist society regards the acquisition of surplus value as the goal, and the relation between man and man is unequal. In order to promote the all-round development of people in the socialist society, we must prevent the alienation between people and achieve the goal of harmony between people. The relationship between people in a virtual network society should be the same.

The emergence of social media provides many conveniences for people to communicate and cooperate with each other and makes it easier to find like-minded friends. But we can not because of this, and ignore the real life with family, friends and classmates. We should make the best use of social media in delivering information, expressing emotional advantages, and providing conditions for building a harmonious relationship with ourselves. Some offline social activities can be carried out to strengthen the links between users, to narrow the link between reality and the network, thereby reducing the user’s dependence on the network.

To sum up, in the digital technology and digital era, we should hold a cautious and optimistic attitude and grasp the labor problems in technology scientifically. And pays attention to the technical humanities spirit, carries on the effective digestion to the dissimilation phenomenon in the labor, thus can realize person’s overall free development.