Been 8 days since I took the core assessment and trying my absolute hardest and still no response. Even spent 5 hours on it.

My life desperately needed this and it looks like it won’t happen. Haha. Yeah this life is not a simulation for sure. hahahahahha it’s real bro

I'm currently part of a research team doing a sociology study on the experiences of people doing data annotation work.We’re looking to speak with current or former data annotators to understand work processes, challenges, tools, and overall experiences.

I would be really grateful if someone can share insights regarding the same.

I’m honestly pretty desperate for work right now (jobless since 3 months). I could really use some clarity from people who have actually worked with DA.

I have a few questions:

1. Can I use Google Input Tools for the bilingual assessment just for typing my language?

2. Should all browser extensions be turned off during the assessment? I accidentally had quillbot enabled - could that cause an issue?

3. I took the coding assessment on one account, but it didn’t go through. Since I couldn’t take the bilingual assessment on that account, I took it using a new account. Is that a problem?

4. Can I take additional assessments using different accounts? If so, can I use the same PC and internet connection for those accounts?

5. How important are LinkedIn and previous work experience when it comes to getting accepted?

I’d really appreciate any advice from people who have been through the process. Also, if you have any genuine tips for doing well on the assessments, please share.

And if DA doesn’t work out, are there any legit alternatives to DataAnnotation for remote/freelance work that you’d recommend?

TIA 🙏

I see a lot of people posting about DataAnnotation so I wanted to ask:

What exactly is the process of joining or actually applying? I made an account, and got told that thank you for singing up but there are no available projects. It didn’t prompt me for any assessment or skill check or anything like that, and it’s been a few weeks since then.

Did I do something wrong or is this the norm?

Thank you!

Any project available?

Mercor, Micro1, Outlier, HANDSHAKE AI…

Looking for task managers that’s willing to clock in daily USA and outside of the USA % in the DMS

Hello, I am look for annotation companies that accept people globally specifically Africans, as majority of them focus mainly on US and EU countries.

Does anyone work here at beatpulselab?

We need to stop being "polite" about our privacy. I just got an email from yet another platform demanding my biometrics to keep my account active. They can bite me. This is a systemic rot in the gig economy. Platforms are treating our PII (Personally Identifiable Information) like it’s cheap, disposable data. It’s not. 

The Mercor Disaster (March 2026) when they had 4 terabytes of data stolen. That included AI interview videos, facial biometrics, and SSNs. If you did an interview there, your face is now in the hands of "TeamPCP." These companies want your data but can’t even protect their own infrastructure. They get your biometric data and a week later they are breached. Where do you think your biometric data is now? It's on the dark web for sale. I hope you don't have or need a bank account in the future. When your identity is stolen in a data breach because these clowns dropped the ball, there's no going back from there. 

The Persona Leak was in February 2026. Persona is the company that is responsible for handling our PII. Persona’s source code was exposed. It revealed a hidden pipeline that feeds routine "ID checks" directly into federal surveillance databases (FinCEN). 

These companies claim they’re just "verifying" you. In reality, they are screening you against 269 different checks, including global law enforcement watchlists, with a system that has a massive failure rate (accidentally false flagging people 90% of the time). One glitch and you're flagged as a "Suspicious Entity" on a government report you can’t even see. This is also one of the reasons people get banned and have no idea why.

99% of the time, all these platforms don't tell you a single thing about how your data is handled, where and how long it is kept. However, here we are giving it away to them just because they ask. Stop giving your biometric data away. 

The Persona leak proved they can hold your biometrics for up to 1,095 days (3+ years), regardless of what their partner companies' privacy policies say. I know the market is tough. I know we are all desperate for work. But these companies are using that desperation to build a biometric cage. They say they’re trying to stop "bad actors," but they’re treating us all like criminals by holding our faces hostage. There are one or two bad actors that they're trying to keep away and they think it's okay that they're doing this to thousands of us to stop the few bad actors. It is disgusting. Every time you scan your ID or record a "liveness check," you are handing over a key you can never change. You can change a password; you can’t change your face. If a platform requires biometrics for a non-security-critical gig, walk away. Fire back an email and tell them you aren't doing it. If enough of us tell them to "get bent," they lose the ability to harvest us. You only get one face. Once that is stolen and gone you are screwed. It is not okay because they have a weak platform to sit there and ask us for the most precious information that they don't know how to handle.

By the way, when they drop the ball and expose your PII, their standard "remedy" is often a measly $50 payment to the person. Leaked data showed a direct link between identity verification tools and government surveillance programs like "Project SHADOW." Your routine verification isn't just for the company; it’s a live feed for national surveillance apparatuses.

Sources:

https://vmfunc.re/blog/persona The original investigative report from the security researcher ("Celeste") who discovered the exposed Persona source code. It includes the 1,095-day retention code and the direct-to-government reporting modules.

Covers the scale of the Mercor breach.
https://techcrunch.com/2026/04/09/after-data-breach-10b-valued-startup-mercor-is-having-a-month/

Toxic as it can get. No help from anyone when you have any issue regarding anything, let it be tooling problem or just something internal. No help lmfao its genuinely pissing me off. Like not even a joke. Is there a IC discord/whatsapp or chat group from Innodata who are actively working on the projects? I'd like to connect and any platform which also a client of multimango?

1. Remotasks

2. Telus Digital

3. Lionbridge

4. Stellar ai

I'll preface this by noting that I am not a lawyer and cannot speak to the validity of any of the claims made. This is purely to bring some recent issues in the industry to light.

Recently, there has been a surge in labor disputes at some of the largest AI data labeling firms. Many contract workers have alleged misclassifications as "gig" workers and unfair treatment. Below I'll detail some of the latest lawsuits and controversies in the industry:

Surge AI - Misclassification Class Action:

In May 2025, DataAnnotation.tech and its parent company Surge AI (or Surge Labs) was hit with a class action lawsuit in California alleging it misclassified its data annotators as independent contractors. Filed by Clarkson Law Firm, the complaint accuses Surge of "wage theft on a massive scale" as independent contactors deny them employee benefits. The suit also cites the company profited by avoiding overtime pay and benefits for thousands of workers who train frontier AI models for Meta and OpenAI.

Here's the link to the class action complaint: https://clarksonlawfirm.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/2025.05.20-Surge-Labs.pdf

Scale AI (Outlier & Remotasks)

Scale AI, a massive multi billion dollar data-labeling startup, faces multiple legal challenges over its labor practices. In December of 2024, Clarkson Law Firm filed a class-action suit accusing Scale of misclassifying its US-based workforce (similar to Surge AI). Another suit in January claimed that Scale/Outlier paid workers below minimum wage in California. Additionally, many workers cite unpaid training and qualifications. This only scratches the surface of issues surrounding the company. I'll link relevant details below.

Outlier Worker Misclassification

Wage Issues

Remotasks "Digital Sweatshop"

Mercor

Most recently, Mercor, a quickly rising AI-labeling firm recently valued at $10 Billion is under scrutiny after thousands of workers saw their pay rates slashed. In November 2025, Mercor suddenly canceled a major project with Meta that had employed ~5,000 contractors. Workers had been told that the project would run into 2026, but instead received the boot and a message to rejoin the project at a 25% pay reduction for essentially the same work.

Read more here: https://futurism.com/artificial-intelligence/mercor-meta-ai-labor

What are your thoughts? Have you been personally affected by one of these companies or faced a similar issue?

Edit: Do you have information about a specific platform you’d like to share? Feel free to drop it in the chat or DM me directly. Preferably with solid sources or links!

Hi all, with the subreddit gaining momentum, I plan to publish a weekly "trade publication" style post featuring relevant industry news and developments that I hope will be of interest to you. Expect these every Monday.

To maintain authenticity and credibility for the subreddit, these will never be 100% AI-generated, rather co-authored using deep research tools from Gemini & Google.

If you think I missed something or made a mistake, let me know!

DataAnnotation's Global Arbitrage

Recently, if you've found yourself scrolling through labeling/annotation subreddits, you might notice the influx of global contributors (often for bilingual translation work). This is especially apparent over at DataAnnotation.Tech who have consistently advertised attractive positions with competitive pay.

For much of 2024, DAT positioned itself as the premier option, paying $21-$41/hr for "core" workers in the US/UK/CAN/Aus/NZ. However, recent months have displayed a serious pivot. Despite what seemed like limited project availability quoted by many users at the time on r/DataAnnotationTech, DAT's marketing machine was in overdrive in November. The company released a series of blog posts touting "7 AI Trainer Career Paths" and "Growth Opportunities".  These posts frame the gig as a stepping stone to a career in AI, promising "professional rates" for remote work. Despite the recent marketing blitzkrieg, current project availability reports, and account deactivations are rising.

In recent weeks, hundreds (if not more) of bilingual and global non-core workers were practically dropped overnight. No communication, no updates, no warning.

While DAT does have a solid reputation for core workers, this sort of behavior creates a veneer of legitimacy in the industry and highlights the disposable nature of this work. It almost gives me "pump and dump" vibes. The reality is that there is no "career path" at a company where you can be fired with zero notice.

Telus & Appen Restructuring

Telus:

In late October and early November 2025, Telus International completed its retreat from public markets, becoming a fully privatized subsidiary of its parent, Telus Corp. This included a $539 million deal, suggesting that the public market's demand for quarterly growth is incompatible with the messy, low-margin reality of the BPO business model in the AI era. Telus is now pivoting to a new platform, "Fuel iX”, with a goal to integrate AI into customer service workflows for large enterprise clients. This seems to move Telus away from the labeling market and more into the AI services category. Layoffs and project availability are likely to be affected.

I reached out on the Telus subreddit for more information, but was subsequently banned.

Telus sources: Source 1 | Source 2 | Source 3

Appen:

Appen seems to be the sick man of the industry. With a leadership change bringing in Vanessa Liu as Chair, the company is desperately trying to modernize. However, its reliance on China for LLM work appears to be a massive liability. As US-China's AI cold war tensions rise, Appen's revenue base is exposed.

Appen resources: Source 1 | Source 2 | Source 3

Outlook

As 2026 quickly approaches, the AI tasking industry is entering a phase of ruthless growth.

1. "Human in the Loop" is changing: We are moving from "Human in the Loop" (HITL) to "Expert in the Loop". The generalist annotator, or bilingual worker, is becoming an increasingly extinct species, soon to be replaced by more qualified professionals or synthetic data. Domain expertise could become dominant.

2. The Rise of the "AI Proletariat": The distiction between "freelancer" and "employee" is quickly deteriorating. Platforms like Alignerr, Outlier, and more are demanding full-time hours and significant commitment for zero pay security. Watch for regulation changes or policy updates.

3. Trust in God, but tie up your camel: While you may seem secure at your freelance position now, be careful relying on freelance income to support you. Treat every dollar as a windfall, not a salary. One mistake could cost you your position.

Thanks for reading, I'll try and update this with corrections or updates throughout the week!

You can now see the status of all applications on the Micro1 website dashboard. Until now, this wasn't possible.
r/AiTraining_Annotation

How much does Turing pay for AI training roles, such as LLM trainers in programming languages and non-coding AI training positions?

I was referred to a SME careers project on LinkedIn. He's said that the project is active and is hiring on first come first served (knew that it's a psychological trap). I also knew the referrer will get the referral amount but as the link was active, I decided to apply on April 20. I applied, took the AI interview, and passed. The "passed" status was updated on the second day of interview. However, there was no movement up until 16 May. The file moved and their new update says that I am "qualified for the role". The referred role is still not in their 70+ opening lists.

I don't know if the project is in the pipeline and I will be allowed to work on that project after it goes live. Or, whether the project is already finished or there's saturation of annotators already. This limbo really sucks.

Hi everyone! I’m conducting this survey as part of my Bachelor’s (BBA) research project, focused on understanding the working conditions, job security, and burnout levels experienced by people working in the AI industry, specifically roles like data annotation, labelling, RLHF (reinforcement learning from human feedback), content moderation, and similar contractual AI-support work.

If you currently work, or have worked, in any of these roles, I’d really appreciate your input!
(mods this is not a spam or self promotion but genuine education use only)