BLACK MIRROR (S3, Ep 1) “NOSEDIVE”: Rating System in Real Life
Tags: Ratings, Delivery, Uber, Black Mirror, Zomato

Charlie Brooker’s sci-fi Netflix series “Black-Mirror” displays a dystopian Technology advanced future where the intervention of technology in human lives has taken a firm hold. Each episode is captivating, imaginative, and spine-chilling. The episode titled “Nosedive” in particular left the viewers more petrified than the rest because of its current prevalence in some form or the other in our society and the possibility of the episode being a reality one day. The episode in a satirical way takes a dig at the entire rating system and draws an analogy with the way we as customers feel entitled to rate the Uber drivers, restaurant waiters, etc to the world where every individual is constantly rated for their day-to-day activities. In a nutshell, the episode manages to show us that the effects of the rating system are way worse than what they appear to be for the mental and physical health of many professionals.

Nosedive presented a very uncomfortable reality of the superficial world we are heading towards.

It takes a dig at the way we present our most perfect selves on social media for the purpose of a few likes by using the same concept and applying it to a world where the image is no longer to be maintained just on social media for a few likes but has to be carried in our day-to-day interactions for the purpose of being liked by every next individual who has the potential to either upvote or downvote.

In nosedive, the social rating determined the friends you have, the place where you live and came with several other advantages, much similar to the rating system on several apps today which determine the number and/or kind of jobs people get whereas if the rating is low, you’re completely ostracised by the society and are seen as a threat because you’re seen as unlikeable or undesirable. This is the terrifying reality of the world of social media today. It seems in this episode as if the purpose of such a system is to promote kindness and good behavior in the society much like the goals of the rating system employed currently but this indeed promotes superficiality and unrealistic expectations leaving no room for error. People in this episode, including the main character “Stacie”

is seen faking her smile, acting factitiously, and organizing her life aesthetically for the perfect photo which gives out the impression of the extent one has to go to remain up the social ladder. The constant pressure to keep up ultimately becomes the reason for her outburst at the end of the episode. Drawing an analogy to the present times, people on the opposite end of the rating system are seen going through a similar case daily, having to be extra kind, presenting a more appeasable outlook all for the sake of a 5-star rating. I wonder if just like the episode, they’ll also have an outburst someday and collectively decide to raise voices against this superficial system?

One of the worst outcomes of the rating systems on platform work is the negative shift of control or power from the worker to the customer which is more often than not exploited by the customers. Such transition of power has the customers acting as the oblivious middle managers whose swipe of fingers on a phone screen is controlling the livelihood of many. It’s a strange power that they hold.

I can personally recall a hundred instances where the delivery boys have borderline pleaded with me to rate them. I never realized the power I hold which determines their earning for that particular delivery. We usually brush it off by ensuring them that we’ll do it the second they leave but how often do we really do that? The worst part is, most of us are unaware of how important it is for the delivery boys because even though the rating system is very well familiar to us, its consequences are oblivious to many.

One very important question to be addressed here is what do we actually rate people for? Let’s start with the example of Uber Drivers. Talking from personal experience, anytime we experience a slightly brusque tone by the drivers we subliminally form a negative image in our head about them. We often forget that it could just be the way they communicate and has nothing to do with their behavior towards us. But what the rating system does, is that it takes away that platform for an explanation. The option to rate only appears at the end of the trip and once rated can not be edited or undone. Similarly, for other forms of platform work, the delivery boys are often given a rating for the food not matching up to the customer’s expectations which the delivery boy has absolutely no involvement in.

What happens when you rate? Let’s examine this question with reference to the work of Delivery boys working for platforms like Zomato or Swiggy. A lot is based on the ratings one holds. A higher rating automatically links them to more orders which increases their daily pay as they earn a certain amount for every order. For every 5 star rating given by a customer, some bonus

amount is credited to their pay-check. Having summarised the outcome of the rating system in the above two lines, it seems simple and harmless. The higher the rating, the more you’ll earn. It almost seems fair, doesn’t it? Except, it’s far from being a fair way to judge someone’s work. In one of the articles the experience of a Delivery worker named “Kumar” is mentioned who sheds light on the fact that Zomato with its ratings and rankings of top riders in the area incentivizes the riders to stay logged in for long hours creating a negative competitive environment that doesn’t come with any financial benefits. A similar experience was also shared by @Delivery Bhoy who exposed the harsh reality of the rating algorithm. The riders aren’t shown the ratings given by the customers unless it’s a 5-star rating which seems so flawed. Riders are often punished for things they aren’t even responsible for. The restaurant can delay the order, there could be traffic on the way which the app doesn’t account for, the route could be dangerous and several other factors which aren’t under the control of the rider but who could still be blamed by the customers as the final outcome is the customer’s order being delayed and since it’s the easiest option to let the app know of their resentment, customers tend to downrate the riders.

Several apps have now begun a two-way rating system to promote excellence and transparency from both parties involved. Such a system is deployed for all forms of future platform work is said to be the best possible scenario with an even distribution of power which opens up better lines of communication. But the system is far from being the promoter of the Utopian world the app developers expect to make. A two-way system is in no way a balance and to state the obvious, the fact is that the livelihood of only one party involved is dependent on those ratings. If we open the travel apps like Uber and Ola on our phones, we can see the rating that we hold as well, and yes the drivers do hold the power to skip low rated passengers but the irony is, that drivers can be deactivated for skipping too many low rated passengers or for their rating falling below 4.6 yet no such condition holds for the customers. The reason for this is again quite obvious, the app is a profit-driven corporation and the customer is the one bringing them that money.

One must ask, what are the consequences of these ratings? In short, People get fired! As shown in Nosedive, that people with low ratings are denied entry to various social hubs, they’re looked down upon, they’re given access to the lowest forms of technology in terms of cars or homes, and much more. A quite similar situation emerges for the platform work which is run by a rating system. Another important question to address is whether these ratings are always based on the customer's experience with the platform worker or merely on their personal disliking for the worker? Several types of research have shown that especially in a country like India, ratings depend a lot on the religion of the worker. Several Muslim workers are rated low in various Hindu dominant areas and since the apps rarely ask the customer for an explanation behind their ratings, such discrimination continues to exist and harm the workers belonging to minority communities.

China has implemented and emulated the system in Nosedive to monitor its citizen's social conduct. Civilians would be given ratings on the basis of their social conduct as a form of monitoring by the government. For eg, volunteering for NGOs would get them a higher rating, and jumping traffic lights or holding criminal records would lead to a lower one. China is known to exercise control over social media and internet usage of their citizens and the implementation of this app in that country doesn’t come out as a shock to us. Yet, This will be the future of the world Everywhere if the rating system is deployed for future forms of work. Almost every individual will be tracked by their respective organizations.

With the unjust power to control the trajectory of one’s career or daily earnings, customers begin to demand a BMW service with the budget of a Maruti 800. They exercise an insane amount of control over the behavior and mannerisms of the service provider. It’s not uncommon to find viral videos on the internet of the Uber drivers being unable to divert from the guidelines they’re bound to but are repeatedly being threatened by customers of being given negative ratings and ruining their future earnings. This system has magnified the age-old saying “Customer Bhagwan Hai” to a whole level. This saying worked well when the customers were being excessively exploited in terms of value for money, quantity, and quality, etc, yet in the case of platform work the tables have turned, and now it’s the customer with all the power, leaving the workers as mere “Puppets” or “Servants”.

I have mentioned some very critical points about the effect of the rating system yet it still manages to be a practice that is widely being adopted by many platforms like online shopping websites, courier services like Dunzo, etc. Surely, there have to be reasons behind it. Let’s shed light on some of those reasons.

It encourages the service providers to put in extra effort into their services: We’re constantly posting about our favorite food or clothing item on social media, encouraging more people to try them out, the rating system in its true essence is meant to serve the same purpose. It’s meant to narrow down the choices for people to help them get the best value for their money. As a customer, it’s really difficult to know if the service provider would own up to their words and therefore a rating helps establish trust between the two parties. For example, linking it to the job of an Uber driver. Choosing to sit in a car with a complete stranger requires a certain amount of trust and reassurance. The rating assigned to each driver on the app along with additional customer remarks helps us to know if whether the driver is careful on the road or whether they are disrespectful or not, these answers in hindsight are very important to ensure one’s safety. Had the rating system not been there, the drivers could choose the route they wish to take costing the customer extra money, they could choose to not ensure the customer’s safety either in terms of hygiene (Pandemic Essentials) or comfort and several other factors. The incentive to have a good rating acts as a ubiquitous check on them. Ratings act as a good scale of comparison: We live in a very competitive world and it’s hard to trust someone on the word of mouth. We’re experiencing a huge wave of a new form of emerging work known as “Freelance” where people are hired for a specific task and are paid accordingly. Everyone has their resume posted on the websites, however unlike hiring for the long term in a company where employees are eventually trained for the task they’re meant to do, the employer for freelance work neither has the time nor the resources to train someone and therefore would like to hire someone who is well experienced and does the specified work efficiently. In such a case, ratings are more reliable than resumes. The rating system rewards a job well done and not the time spent to master the skill required for the job: When we’re looking for someone for a job that requires a certain amount of time perhaps years to master and involves the process of getting a basic education and then a higher degree and so on, the resume matters a lot, it is an indicator of the time the person has spent to gain the necessary skills for the job they are applying for. Such is not the case for most platform jobs where the time spent in this case could just mean that the worker showed up and performed decently to not get fired. However, using ratings and reviews gives the user an insight into the actual task that has been performed and answers questions like, If the job was well done? Was the worker reliable and good to work with?

The lead of the episode, Stacie, is terrified at the thought of being downrated by anyone let alone the panic that arises with being downrated by high raters. This constant fear controls her life, such is the reality of the platform workers today. If this rating system is adopted for all future forms of work, the constant state of neurotic anxious terror of making even the slightest slip up will affect the mental state of many. The gig or the platform economy is supposed to give both the parties included a certain amount of control but if one side starts to feel like a servant is when one needs to work on the cause of the problem. Just as the characters in the episode alter their lives almost like a sycophant for the online approval, Uber drivers offer riders snacks, water and offer other perks all for the purpose of inveigling the customers.

To conclude, with the three reasons stated above and several more, the rating system is just too efficient to not be used. But presently, we lack a standardized rating system, which means that one needs to rebuild their online reputation for every new app or service we sign up for. If the future forms of work adopt the rating system, it’d be beneficial if the ratings aren’t based on a single platform. The users shouldn’t just judge someone’s character or work ethic based on just one platform. Incorporating more data points from different services to build a proper profile would be much more beneficial. There’s no doubt that such a system would be way more complex and require much more input from both the parties involved, but just as we’ve found ways to simplify several complex things as technology has taken over, I’m sure there’s hope for this as well. If someone is a positive contributor to their society and economy, one tiny mistake or negative action shouldn’t tarnish or jeopardize someone’s entire career and reputation.