Negotiating digital identity and conditional voice under algorithmic power: Gojek drivers’ online communities in Indonesia

Digital platforms increasingly structure how workers communicate, construct identity, and express dissent under algorithmic governance. While gig work research has emphasized precarity and control, less attention has been paid to how identity and voice are negotiated within workers’ online communities. Drawing on Communication Theory of Identity (CTI), this study examines how Gojek drivers in Indonesia construct personal, relational, and communal identities in Facebook-based communities. Combining social network and computational content analysis, the findings show that expression is unevenly distributed and shaped by network position and community norms. Central actors exhibit greater discursive flexibility, while peripheral members experience constrained and conditional voice. These findings demonstrate that algorithmic power operates through communicative and relational structures, producing identity gaps and mediated inequality in platform-based work.