A postdoc at Peking University who has been delivering food for half a year for research has published his paper, and the food delivery experience has become an example

　　Recently, the issue of "Peking University postdoctoral fellows delivering food for half a year for research" has become a hot topic on the Internet.

　　Chen Long, a doctoral postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Sociology of Peking University, experienced the labor process of a takeaway rider for 5 and a half months in 2018 in order to complete the fieldwork of his doctoral dissertation. Chen Long wrote in the media about his experience as a rider for nearly half a year.

　　According to Chen Long’s self-report to the media, in 2018, in order to complete his doctoral dissertation, he joined a team of food delivery riders in Zhongguancun, Beijing, and spent five and a half months conducting fieldwork, delivering food every day, and experiencing the rider’s labor process. He was curious about how hundreds of thousands of riders could walk through the streets of various cities across the country, seemingly chaotic but orderly. The results of his dissertation will be published this year, and all his investigations have always revolved around a central proposition in sociology: How does capital control workers, and how do workers resist?

　　A reporter from Surging News found through China National Knowledge Network on May 9 that Chen Long’s paper "Labor Order under" Digital Control "- Research on Labor Control of Takeaway Riders" was recently published in the journal "Sociological Research" No. 6, 2020. Chen Long said in the abstract part: "Following the idea of Marx’s technical control, this paper studies the labor process of takeaway riders from the perspective of organizational technology and science and technology."

　　Drawing on his own experience, Chen points out: "On the one hand, through the redistribution of control by platform companies, the platform system and consumers have replaced the platform company in managing the riders. The platform company appears to have given up direct control over the riders, but in fact it has diluted the responsibility of the employer; labor conflicts have also been correspondingly transferred to the platform system and consumers. On the other hand," digital control "has been upgraded from physical machines and computer equipment to virtual software and data. The platform system makes labor order possible by subtly collecting and analyzing rider data and reacting the data results to the riders."

　　"Digital control not only weakens riders’ willingness to resist and erodes their autonomy, but also allows them to unknowingly participate in the process of managing themselves," says Mr. Chen. "Digital control also shows that capital control is not only shifting from autocracy to hegemony, but also from physical to virtual."

　　The surging news reporter noticed that Chen Long used his own experience in delivering food as an example in his paper to analyze the problems existing in the delivery platform system.

　　For example, in the section "Rider Autonomy under’Digital Control ‘" of Chen Long’s paper, he quoted a conversation he had seen in his food delivery team’s WeChat chat group:

　　screenshot of the paper

　　Chen Long explained: The "report" in the mouth of the rider refers to the fact that the rider can extend the delivery time by "reporting" when the delivery work is delayed due to the slow delivery of food in the restaurant. "Pending order" is a strategy that the rider "invented" during the delivery process over the years to run more orders. In principle, the rider should go to the restaurant to pick up the food immediately after receiving the order. However, before the rider feeds back "confirmed pickup" to the platform system, if the platform system receives a new order with the same destination, it will send the new order to the same rider. Whether there will be such an order depends entirely on luck, so the rider tries his luck by "hanging order", that is, dragging the way of not giving feedback "confirmed pickup" to the platform system. " The "pending order" is actually a strategy to delay the delivery time in exchange for more orders. However, when the rider wants to "place an order" and does not want to delay the delivery time because of the "pending order", making up for the time loss caused by the "pending order" becomes the primary issue before the rider.

　　He points out in the paper that the corresponding way to extend the delivery time is to "report", but the "report" needs to meet three prerequisites: first, the rider is near the restaurant; second, the rider has been at the store for more than 5 minutes; third, the restaurant has not eaten at the estimated time. For experienced riders, it is easy to meet the "report" prerequisites. First of all, the straight line distance between the place where the rider is waiting for the order and most restaurants is within 500 meters (the requirement of "near the restaurant" is that the straight line distance is within 500 meters); secondly, because it is within 500 meters, the rider can click "Confirm to arrive at the store" in the same place, so that the requirement of arriving at the store for more than 5 minutes can be met while "placing an order" in the same place; finally, in the midst of the busy situation, even if the restaurant has already served, the rider can still insist that the restaurant has not served within the estimated time or cannot find an order. In the end, the rider can extend the delivery time of the previous order by "reporting" the previous order, which means that it is assumed that the restaurant’s delivery is slow rather than his own "pending order" caused the delivery delay.

　　At the end of the paper, Chen Long argues: Although the platform system is used to manage the data of riders objectively, there is a profit orientation behind it. No matter how much technology leaps forward, it still essentially serves capital. And blind admiration for technological myths often makes us relax our vigilance against behind-the-scenes operations. Therefore, we should see that the platform system is not an objective and neutral "manager", and there is a figure of capital manipulation behind "digital control". If it has become an open secret that the content of social media and shopping websites will be pushed according to the preferences and habits of your audience, then there is also reason to believe that Internet platform companies are using the data they collect to maximize their profits.

　　Chen Long wrote: As people’s daily lives are surrounded by various Internet platforms, whether consumers or workers, to avoid eventually becoming "digital refugees" under the Internet platform, they must see the potential dark side of data, be vigilant against capital manipulation behind technology, and resist data infringement by platform companies through reflection, criticism and action.