Thread by @doctorow

The internet age has certainly transformed journalism; these days we mostly think about investigative journalism's decline, but there are digital investigative outlets that shine like diamonds.

I'm thinking here about @propublica.

1/

Propublica's @JustinElliott and @paulkiel wrote a series of blockbuster stories about the monopolist @Intuit, a business organized as a cult around its then-CEO Brad Smith, engaged in decades' worth of dirty tricks to kill free, IRS tax-prep services.

propublica.org/article/inside…

2/

Not only did they stay with this story for months on end, digging up incredible stories of corruption, they also shamed the IRS and spurred state AGs into investigating the company.

3/

Then a funny thing happened: Intuit customer service whistleblower revealed ANOTHER scandal, one that sprawled outside of Intuit and spilled over into the world's largest blue-chip companies from Disney to Airbnb to Comcast and more.

4/

That was the story of Arise, yet another cult-like business that you have almost certainly interacted with, without knowing it.

On its surface, Arise is an outsource customer service company. Other businesses pay it to staff their phones and answer customer queries.

5/

But Arise is many other things. For one thing, it's a pyramid scheme: the people who work for it - disproportionately Black women - are not classed as employees, but as "contractors." They are paid for recruiting their friends to work for it.

pluralistic.net/2020/10/02/chi…

6/

That might sound like a nice way to help a business staff its call-centers, but you need to understand that Arise has no call centers OR staff - its workers take calls from their homes.

Those workers aren't employees - they're misclassified as "independent contractors."

7/

If you want to work for Arise, you have to pay them for the privilege. Not only do you have to buy a computer and phone, you have to pay to get trained for each firm whose calls you'll be taking.

If you quit, you have to pay Arise for "early termination" of your contract.

8/

Believe it or not, those are the BEST parts of working for Arise. When you are an Arise worker, you can be terminated without notice or cause - forfeiting the money and time you spent for training and equipment. You can get fired by Arise itself, or by any of its customers.

9/

Reps from Arise and its customers listen in on your calls. If your children make noise in the background, you can lose everything. Same if your neighbor's dog starts barking. Forget about running a fan or air conditioner - the noise is "unprofessional."

10/

The Arise story prompted outrage from the public - and it sent Propublica's investigators deeper into the story. They documented how the Department of Labor knew about Arise's illegal and abusive conduct, and let them get away with it for years.

pluralistic.net/2021/01/22/pap…

11/

And here's the most amazing part: Propublica never stopped reporting on this story. This month, @Ariana_Tobin, @bykenarmstrong, and @JustinElliott worked with Brooke Stephenson to tell Arise workers' stories in their own words.

propublica.org/article/the-wo…

12/

These stories reveal Arise's lies about its working conditions, as workers describe how they were unequivocally ordered NEVER to hang up on customers, even in the face of death and rape threats, racist abuse, and sexual harassment.

13/

Arise may tell regulators and reporters that its workers are empowered to hang up the phone if the man on the other end is masturbating, but the women who endure this abuse tell a very different story:

propublica.org/article/not-al…

14/

The writers connect Arise's working conditions with the promises made by temp agencies for generations - companies like "Kelly Girl," who promised a disposable, attractive, pliable and hardworking woman whom a company could work like a government mule and then discard.

15/

Arise preys on the economically precarious and traps their whole families into literal conspiracies of silence, as spouses and children tiptoe around their homes to spare their mothers the economic catastrophe of being summarily fired.

16/

The powerful words of the women answering these calls are a reminder of the human cost of systemic racism and sexism, and the willingness of the world's largest companies to exploit it.

17/

While this is a systemic problem, there are ways you can individually help the people you speak to, beyond being courteous and decent and understanding (this being the minimum we all owe one another).

18/

I. Complete the end-of-call survey. Workers can get fired and lose their investment in equipment and training if the people they help don't do this.

19/

II. After text-based service interactions, reply "No thank you," after the rep asks "is there anything else I can help you with?" Workers are punished if you close your browser without answering this question.

20/

III. Be organized with all relevant information in hand before you call. Workers are penalized for calls that last too long - even if the reason for the delay is that the caller took forever looking up a key piece of information.

21/

Yes, it's unfair that workers are penalized if you don't play along with Arise's idiotic customer service metrics, but the unfairness accrues disproportionately to workers, and you can shoulder some of that burden.

22/

I'm grateful to Propublica for continuing to bring us this story - and doubly glad to be an annual donor to this charitable nonprofit.

Image: @dizdizh/Propublica

eof/

ETA - If you'd like an unrolled version of this thread to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

pluralistic.net/2021/07/29/imp…