Involving early career researchers in conference organisation is good for everyone

There seems to be an assumption here that 'junior scholars' are all young people (many PhD students are older, and have had experience in other careers), and that young people are likely to be brilliant at technology and social media. This just isn't true ('digital natives' is a controversial term), and a bit patronising to both younger and older ECRs. Also - I get what you mean about encouraging ECRs to speak and present alongside established academics; that seems a good idea and what you would hope for at any conference. But when it comes to the admin side - making posters, running official social media accounts, taking photos; this is labour that is benefiting you and your department, and therefore (in my opinion) poses just as much of a grey area regarding exploitation as does teaching. It is more easily justified, because the academic system expects that salaried academics give that labour (open for debate whether that system is fair!), but junior scholars may well be on insecure or zero hour contracts, on £14k PhD stipends (if they're lucky) or else unfunded. If you are expecting a student to run an official social media account for the day, or to take photos or to provide admin assistance and customer service to delegates, then you are expecting them to do jobs which in other circumstances would be paid. And you are giving the opportunities you describe to a student who does not need to use the day to get other paid work outside the university to afford their fees/living expenses. There is no way that this isn't a grey area ethically. This was obvious to me as I volunteered at a major conference as a doctoral student around the time of the UCU strikes. If it had fallen on a strike day, I would have withdrawn my labour so as not to cross a picket line, and if all the student volunteers had done the same (they wouldn't have, because they're not unionised) the conference would have very much struggled to run smoothly (tech would not have been set up, delegates not registered, questions not answered, posters not put up). However, it is clear that it had not occurred to the organisers to budget in to pay their students for their labour, and that is because of the culture and expectation that you describe in your piece.