Turkopticon
Worker powerLabor producing AIworker-run organizing and advocacy…active
Turkopticon: a worker-run organizing and advocacy project for platform data workers, with a review site and browser add-on that rated Amazon Mechanical Turk requesters until the platform closed (30 September 2026). Operator: Turkopticon: a worker-run committee of Turk workers, maintained with volunteers from Tech Workers Coalition; founded by Lilly Irani and Six Silberman. Its unit: a worker's review of a Mechanical Turk requester, rated on four attributes (communicativity, pay (now pay/hr), fairness, promptness), as recorded until Mechanical Turk's announced closure on 30 September 2026; the API returns a requester's average ratings and review counts. Whose labor: the work of Amazon Mechanical Turk workers (Turkers) on HITs posted by requesters, until Amazon's announced closure of Mechanical Turk on 30 September 2026; since the expansion, platform data workers wherever they work, including AI training and evaluation, data annotation, surveys, transcription and content moderation.
Turkopticon used to be a volunteer run software project and now it is a worker-run organizing and advocacy project, and software is one of the things we do.
In its own words: https://turkopticon.net/faq/index.html, read 2026-10-29
Who supplies, who directs, who gains
Supplies the laborTurkers, and data workers on other data-work platforms after the expansion
Directs iton Mechanical Turk, until its announced closure on 30 September 2026, requesters made the payment decisions; the FAQ places them 'in a position of power over workers by virtue of making payment decisions' and states they are 'not employers in the legal sense'; Amazon ran the platform and announced its closure; on other data-work platforms, not recorded
Receives the gains, bears the costsnot recorded as a quantity; the founders built it after seeing requesters and researchers celebrate how cheaply they could get work done on Mechanical Turk; reviews rate how well requesters paid for the time HITs take
Each as the resource itself records it. Where it records nothing, the census says so.
What it records
| Intersections | Worker power: bargaining, organizing, consent, refusal, contestation and enforceable protections; Labor producing AI: annotation, moderation, evaluation, maintenance, and creative or scholarly work entering training and retrieval; Distribution of gains and losses: wages, employment, workload, credit, ownership, and who captures productivity gains |
| Kind of evidence | worker testimonyrating against standardsorganizing resourcedata access |
| Unit of record | a worker's review of a Mechanical Turk requester, rated on four attributes (communicativity, pay (now pay/hr), fairness, promptness), as recorded until Mechanical Turk's announced closure on 30 September 2026; the API returns a requester's average ratings and review counts op |
| Whose labor | the work of Amazon Mechanical Turk workers (Turkers) on HITs posted by requesters, until Amazon's announced closure of Mechanical Turk on 30 September 2026; since the expansion, platform data workers wherever they work, including AI training and evaluation, data annotation, surveys, transcription and content moderation |
| Method | worker-written reviews moderated by flags and moderators; organizing work: account reinstatement help, a weekly report to AMT staff on requesters with low approval ratings, worker forums, campaigns |
| Coverage | geography: Amazon Mechanical Turk workers (global); data workers worldwide after the expansion; period: 2008 to present; worker-led since 2019 |
| What it finds | the saved sources state no aggregate findings; the organization reports a working relationship with Amazon, a reinstatement system for mistakenly suspended accounts, and a mass rejection campaign on Mechanical Turk (reported before Amazon announced the platform's closure on 30 September 2026); on the closure, Turkopticon states that it continues to support and advocate for platform data workers wherever they work |
| Its stated limits | Turkopticon does not use its data to produce research and does not publish papers using its data; use of Turkopticon is not implicit consent to being a research subject; it has not released anonymized database extracts and would consult workers publicly first; the API is rate-limited and untested beyond a hundred or so IDs per call |
op the resource's own statement · 3p a third-party account · obs our observation · rd our reading. Hover a tag for its quote; each opens below with its source.
What this evidence can settle
Can answer
- how workers rated a named Mechanical Turk requester's communication, pay per hour, fairness of approvals and promptness, in reviews recorded until the platform's announced closure on 30 September 2026
- what organizing and advocacy Turkers ran on Mechanical Turk, and that Turkopticon states it continues for platform data workers after the closure
Cannot answer
- representative pay or rejection rates on Mechanical Turk
- the conditions of data work on other platforms (the expansion is announced, without data in the saved sources)
- what the HITs are used for downstream
In the worked questions
Where it meets Labor Vector
rd none stated. The archive reads the review as the worker's record of the party that directs the task (the requester), kept in Turkopticon's four attributes; it answers who directs the labor from the side of the one who supplies it.
Entity
| Canonical name | Turkopticon |
| Also known as | TO, the Turkopticon Script |
| Address | https://turkopticon.net/ |
| Operator | Turkopticon: a worker-run committee of Turk workers, maintained with volunteers from Tech Workers Coalition; founded by Lilly Irani and Six Silberman op |
| Founded | 2008 op |
| Kind | worker-run organizing and advocacy project for platform data workers, with a review site and browser add-on that rated Amazon Mechanical Turk requesters until the platform closed (30 September 2026) |
| Lifecycle | active — started 2008 as a class project; transition to a worker-led advocacy organization began 2019; expanded to all data workers (undated announcement), with a Mechanical Turk mass rejection campaign announced to continue; Amazon announced that Mechanical Turk would close on 30 September 2026 (Turkopticon's article of 4 September 2026), and Turkopticon states it is 'still here' and not tied to one platform; the requester reviews and the Mechanical Turk campaign record the platform until its closure |
| Count | not stated in the saved sources (as of 2026-10-29) |
| Data access | public API (multi-attrs.php) returning requesters' average ratings and review counts as JSON; no permission needed; reviews require a Turkopticon login |
| Licence | the API code on GitHub under the GNU Affero General Public License; the reviews' licence is not stated op |
| Versions and dates | faq: Version July 18 2023 (replaces the 2014 FAQ); transition: 2019; mturk closure article: 2026-09-04; mturk closure: 2026-09-30 (announced by Amazon); read: 2026-10-29 |
| Observation | 2026-10-29: read |
Relations
Neighbours
- Data Workers' Inquiry
the Data Workers' Inquiry home page carries an invited piece by Krystal Kauffman (Turkopticon, DAIR), whose name signs the Turkopticon announcement
- Fairwork Cloudwork Ratings
Fairwork's Cloudwork Ratings 2025 cites Turkopticon among worker resources and scores Amazon Mechanical Turk 0 of 10
Captures: the composition layer's account
The /non row
Evidenceevery field's quote, its source and the hash of the saved copy31
- mission op
Turkopticon’s mission is to organize data workers to build collective power, improve working conditions, and hold platforms, companies, and institutions accountable to the labor they rely on.
- self description op
Turkopticon used to be a volunteer run software project and now it is a worker-run organizing and advocacy project, and software is one of the things we do.
- operator op
Turkopticon is maintained by the committee and volunteers from Tech Workers Coalition.
- founders op
Turkopticon was founded by Lilly Irani and Six Silberman when they were kids.
- amazon op
1.5. Is Turkopticon associated with Amazon? No. It is not and it has never been.
- founded op
Turkopticon started in 2008 as a class project to raise awareness about the unaccountability of Mechanical Turk requesters.
- gains op
We saw requesters and researchers celebrating how cheaply they could get work done on Mechanical Turk and we felt this was wrong.
- unit op
generosity ("pay"): How well has this requester paid for the amount of time their HITs take?
- unit fair op
fairness ("fair"): How fair has this requester been in approving or rejecting your work?
- pay hr op
We have added a pay/hr attribute in place of the 1-5 scale rating for pay/generosity.
- directs op
While requesters are not employers in the legal sense, requesters are in a position of power over workers by virtue of making payment decisions that may have significant practical consequences.
- moderation op
If a review has at least two flags, and at least one is from a moderator, the review is hidden.
- api op
The Turkopticon API is a PHP file that accepts Mechanical Turk requester IDs and returns the information about those requesters available in the Turkopticon database.
- api permission op
4.4. Do I need permission to use it? No.
- api limit op
It has not been tested with more than a hundred or so, however.
- api rate op
If you call the API more than once a second, you will receive an error message.
- license op
It is licensed under the GNU Affero General Public License .
- limit research op
we do not use Turkopticon data to produce research. We have published papers about Turkopticon, but we do not publish papers using Turkopticon data. Use of Turkopticon is not implicit consent to being a research subject.
- limit anonymized op
We have not done this so far, although we might be willing to consider it. We would consult publicly with workers first
- faq version op
Turkopticon FAQ Version July 18 2023
- transition op
In 2019, Turkopticon began the process of transitioning to a worker-led, worker-run advocacy organization in addition to hosting the original tool and website.
- method organizing op
A weekly report is prepared and sent to AMT staff that reports “bad” requesters with low approval ratings.
- reinstatement op
We implemented a system to help workers who have had their accounts mistakenly suspended get them reinstated.
- expansion op
we have decided to expand our efforts to assist ALL data workers!
- campaign op
We will continue our work with AMT, especially our mass rejection campaign.
- mturk closure op
With Amazon announcing that MTurk will close on September 30, 2026, we know many workers may be wondering what that means for Turkopticon.
- closure article date op
Published Sep 4, 2026
- still here op
The short answer is that we are still here . Turkopticon may have started as a resource for MTurk workers, but our work has changed and expanded over the years. As data work moved onto more platforms, we did too.
- labor object after op
Today, Turkopticon supports and advocates for platform data workers wherever they are working. That includes people doing AI training and evaluation, data annotation, surveys, transcription, content moderation, and other forms of platform-based data work.
- not one platform op
Turkopticon isn’t tied to one platform. We’re here for the workers, and that isn’t changing.
- still used op
It was the first tool of its kind and is still widely used by the turker community today.
Negative tagswhat it is not5
- NOT associated with Amazon
- NOT a research dataset: Turkopticon does not publish papers using its data
- NOT a union, an advocacy organization led by workers
- NOT a platform rating: it rated requesters on Mechanical Turk, until the platform's announced closure on 30 September 2026
- NOT tied to Mechanical Turk: it states it continues for platform data workers after the closure
Sourcesevery source read, with its date and hash4
Not yet checkedwhat remains to read4
- the review database and requester list (login required)
- the API's live output
- the date of the expansion announcement (not in the saved text)
- the blog's articles and newsletters listed in its navigation
Cite this record
Lee Sharks, ed. "Turkopticon." Labor Vector meta-aggregator, laborvector.org, compiled 2026-10-29. https://www.laborvector.org/aggregators/turkopticon
Record https://www.laborvector.org/aggregators/turkopticon · entity https://www.laborvector.org/aggregators/turkopticon#entity · the census as data
@misc{lv-turkopticon2026,
editor = {Sharks, Lee},
title = {Turkopticon},
howpublished = {Labor Vector meta-aggregator, laborvector.org},
year = {2026},
note = {Compiled 2026-10-29; every field sourced and dated},
url = {https://www.laborvector.org/aggregators/turkopticon}
}