No work and all play - the intersections between labour, fun and exploitation in online translation communities

Emerging internet technologies have revolutionized and invaded our private and professional lives in ways that are as yet hard to assess. These developments have also affected the field of translation. Professional translators’ workplaces and routines have changed profoundly and translation markets have been affected by increasing globalization. Furthermore, new forms of translation have emerged on the internet, including amateur translators’ communities which offer their time and efforts for a variety of different goals, not all of them exclusively charitable. Some are also commercial, others just for fun.
In this context, the present article demonstrates the ways in which recent developments related to the internet have started to call into question a series of long-established categories. Online phenomena have not only contributed to blurring the lines between the consumption and production of content; it has also become increasingly difficult to distinguish between amateurs and professionals or between work and leisure, and to differentiate between play and labour.
Drawing on examples from an ongoing research project on collaborative translation communities, this article illustrates how members of internet communities perceive, describe and construct their own translation activities. The paper then addresses the issue of how the internet paved the way for new forms of exploitation, which are also identifiable in the field of translation. By looking at the intersections between labour, fun and exploitation in internet translation communities, the paper aims to make a critical contribution to the debate on (ethical) questions that arise in relation to new online phenomena.