Social media platforms earn a fortune from our unpaid labour. Users share pictures on Instagram, tell stories on Twitter, and offer up their music on YouTube - all for free. But have the tables now turned? Patreon offers fans the ability to pay their favourite artists and writers directly. TikTok and Facebook have started offering cash to the most popular "creators". So what is the Creator Economy - and who is policing this online world?

Guests: Sam Yam, co-founder of Patreon; Kaya Yurieff, tech reporter at The Information; Beckii Flint, YouTube influencer and founder of Pepper Studio, a social media marketing agency; Chris Stokel-Walker, author of TikTok Boom: China’s Dynamite App and the Superpower Race for Social Media; Kaf Okpattah, reporter at BBC Panorama.

Studio engineer: Giles Aspen

Producer: Hannah Sander

Presenter: Julian Worricker