And that's where I really think you're missing the point. If I needed someone to write copy for my website, I'd search using those same terms (and have in the past).
UpWork is a service that sells workers. You're equating essay with education, which I think is a false correlation. The reason schools pound on essay writing so much is because so many professions require competent writers. I'm an engineer and probably spend 25% of my year writing documents, essays, proposals, blog posts, and website copy. UpWork may be unethical, but Keyword-Targeting Advertisements is not a good indicator of that.
Totally agree with the article, and I am more than certain that such acts and extortionate behaviour are widespread on the platform.
It seems it is part of their business model to allow clients in developed countries to find people in developing countries (all with weak legal systems and corruption) to commit illegal acts (both violations of public and private law). Just look at how many jobs involve rewriting, scraping, penetration testing (really a guise for hacking others sites) modifying existing copyrighted content to circumvent laws.
Upwork as middleman profits -- and takes a blind eye to all this corruption - since cross border police investigations are so difficult to manage when dealing with corrupt countries.
In my case, I had my competitors procuring hackers off Upwork to take down my site. We found out because one person who was contacted on Upwork to bring my site down actually contacted me via my site and provided screenshots and other evidence. There was literally a job posted requesting contractors to take my site down.
We raised this with Upwork. They did nothing.
Guess what they said?
Their customer support asked if I had proof that my site had been hacked by the specific person who posted the job on Upwork and that if had suffered financial loss as a result of the hacking! It wasn't merely enough for their client to procure contractors on the platform to commit an illegal act. They wanted proof that I suffered financial loss!!
However, I can say that we are considering a civil suit against them. It would be interesting to see how this impacts their brand.
Note: Please forgive the messy and unstructured writing. I've been writing it while walking the streets of Central London shopping for X-mas gifts.
You want to add you contact info to your HN bio. I thought you did a reasonable writeup and would consider contracting with you for this sort of work. I will avoid Upwork based on their appalling behavior here and lack of willingness to engage and accept their mistakes.
I'm not surprised in the least. One of the reasons I have avoided UpWork/Elance is that it seems like every other job is for something blatantly unethical (and perhaps illegal). I don't even have to ask for details for such jobs, anyone technical can figure out exactly what they're trying to do (rip off competitor, cheat Google, flout some service's ToS, etc. etc.).
Please do go through with it for all the obvious public service reasons on to 8 of your own recompense. IANAL but it seems there's a vase for criminal negligence there too.
Look up the other keywords. It's clear they want to target students.