How Platform Affordances Shape Risks of Harassment in Platform-Mediated Work

Platform-mediated work (PMW) represents a highly unregulated and individualized segment of the labor market, with significant implications for psychosocial work environment and limited occupational health and safety (OHS) management efforts. The use of Algorithmic Management (AM) by digital platforms extensively directs and discipline remote workers in PMW, and may exacerbate risks. This study employs the affordance concept initially introduced into safety science by Vicente and Rasmussen (1992) and later applied in social media studies. Adopting a platform-sensitive approach, this study examines how digital mediation facilitates encounters between platform workers and customers across three types of PMW, and in turn affects harassment among platform workers. The analysis draws on 22 qualitative interviews with young platform workers supplemented by three workshops involving 13 stakeholder participants, informed by the Canadian Knowledge-Transfer-Exchange approach. The findings identify three high-level affordances that significantly shape risks of harassment: (1) platforms’ ability to transcend physical space; (2) digital blurring of private-professional boundaries; and (3) amplification of asymmetric power relations among platform workers customers, and platforms, relations that are gendered, classed, and racialized. The type and severity of harassment differ across the three types of platforms explored.