The Struggle is Real: Resistance, (in)visibility, and the platformisation of trauma in digital labour

The event focuses on how individuals or groups grapple with the power dynamics, restrictions, and opportunities that digital platforms impose on their work, identities, and self-representation

This research seminar brings together an international group of mid- and early-career scholars, each researching a range of topics and contexts— from the development of worker-led AI policies in Hollywood to camgirls and online sex workers in Romania, the Netherlands, and the UK, as well as the rise of 'war influencers' within Palestinian digital activism. Their work highlights the contested and ambivalent realities of digital labour for creators and workers, foregrounding also the classed, gendered, and racialised dynamics reproduced by ongoing platformisation.

Following a roundtable format, speakers will give short presentations, which will be followed by a discussion and Q&A.

This event is open to all, including students, and no registration is required.

Dr Rafael Grohmann, University of Toronto

Worker-Led AI Governance: Hollywood Writers’ Strikes and Policy from Below

This talk theorises about worker-led AI governance based on the case of Hollywood writers and the agreement around generative AI after long strikes. It argues that workers can govern - bargaining, negotiating parameters - generative AI as a “policy from below”. Thus, governance is not just up to States and industries, but can be guided by workers and their ways of organising. In 2023, in the United States, Hollywood writers conducted a historic 148-day strike, led by the Writers Guild of America, focusing on negotiations with studios and streaming platforms regarding payment and use of generative AI. After the strike, they reached an unprecedented agreement that defines rules and parameters for the use of generative AI by entertainment companies. Building on analyses of campaigns, social media, the agreement of writers strikes in the US in 2023 and interviews with organisers, the talk analyses how this case relates to worker-led AI governance in its discursive dimensions - especially in the way happened the communication of the strike around AI - and material dimensions - the negotiation and consequences of this agreement for workers. Thus, the talk offers a contribution both to studies on AI governance, with a perspective from below, and to future policy implications in relation to the topic.

Rafael Grohmann is an Assistant Professor of Media Studies (Critical Platform Studies) at the University of Toronto. He is leader of the DigiLabour initiative and principal investigator of Worker-Owned Intersectional Platforms (WOIP) and Creative Labour and Critical Futures (CLCF) projects. Grohmann is also a 2024-2025 Faculty Fellow at the Queer and Trans Research Lab / Bonham Centre for Sexual Diversity Studies (University of Toronto). He is researcher of Fairwork and Platform Work Inclusion Living Lab (P-WILL) projects, and one of the founding editors of Platforms & Society journal. Currently, he is working on a book project on the learning process workers are having while building collectivities and engaging with platforms in Latin America.

Dr Hanne M. Stegeman, University of Amsterdam

“When you’re online, people can see you”: What online sex work can teach us about platformised visibility

Whether you’re an artist, journalist, academic, or sex worker, having an online profile is increasingly important in all sorts of industries. In this talk I explore how online sex workers’ experiences expose the ambiguity, inequality and impacts of platformised visibility. As some of the earliest and most stigmatised types of online labour, the online sex work industry has a long and contentious history with its presentation on platforms. I draw on analysis of 50 online sex work platforms and interviews with 80 European workers in the adult webcamming industry to complicate the notion of platformised visibility. Webcam performers, it turns out, work to both be seen by some audiences but also to remain invisible to others. More representation, these workers and platforms show, is not always better. I show what other labourers, such as gig workers, offline sex workers, and creators can also benefit from a more nuanced understanding of platform visibility.

Hanne Stegeman recently completed her PhD at the University of Amsterdam. She was also affiliated with the Centre for Employment Relations, Innovation and Change and the Leeds University Business School as a visiting fellow. Hanne’s PhD research focussed on the labour experiences and strategies of online sex workers in Europe. This work complicates ideas about the implications of mediated visibility. Besides that her research touches on gig labour, platform governance, worker resistance and sexual norms.

Tom Divon, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem

War Zones as Content: The Contested Realities of War Influencers

This talk examines the intersection of social media platforms and warzones, where creators transform their sites of trauma into content and immerse themselves in the online mediatization of daily atrocities. By employing frameworks of platform vernaculars and visibility, the discussion will delve into how creators navigate their realities into algorithmic desirability, integrating platform features and translating their experiences into global internet dialects. We will glimpse at their voices and motivations, demystifying the spectacle of their online performances by revealing the precarious conditions under which they produce content. Ultimately, this talk contributes to a broader and crucial dialogue, breaking media silos and highlighting the struggles of marginalized communities—particularly Palestinian creators—who confront the dual dehumanization of their identity both offline and online.

Tom Divon is an ethnographer of user-platform interactions, focusing on creator culture, platform affordances, and user-generated content. In his PhD taking place in the Department of Communication at The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Divon explores the socio-political subcultures of platforms across three distinct domains on TikTok: (1) Memory: Creators' Engagement with Historical Commemoration and Education, (2) Activism: Creators' performative combat against racism, antisemitism, and hate speech, and (3) Conflict: Creators' memetic participation in identity-driven warfare, with a focus on Palestinian resistance.