58 ms·

I feel like im talking to the borg

492 points by louis-paul 7y ago

patientplatypus 7y ago
Amazon is an evil company. Just...stop buying stuff from them! You can find better quality goods on other websites and you won't be paying for employees to be abused. Saving 50 cents on a twenty pack of Charmin isn't worth propping up gross people.
duiker101 7y ago
That was so weird to read. If they are really free to say whatever they want can they talk trash about amazon and keep the ambassador job?
- vinceguidry 7y ago
  They're not real, they're Twitter chat bots. That Amazon thinks this was a good PR move is truly astonishing.
  - maxerickson 7y ago
    It's not astonishing enough to make you doubt your analysis.
  - Reedx 7y ago
    It’s astonishing people are so confident these are bots. No real evidence of that and it’s more likely they’re real. Occam’s razor.
    - vinceguidry 7y ago
      The evidence came a bit further down with one commenter posting a picture of one being male in one post and female in another.
      - Sharlin 7y ago
        That's just evidence that multiple humans share the same account for whatever reason.
        vinceguidry 7y ago
        My guess on how it's happening is that Amazon Turk workers are presented with tweets and then they select from a list of machine-generated responses. I'd still call those bots.
      - rtkwe 7y ago
        I think it's more likely they all use shared computers and one person didn't log out of their account. The same way Ted Cruz's account liked a porn tweet about some incest porn, media guy (because as much as I love the idea of Ted f*ing Cruz trolling twitter for some porn I doubt the man runs his own twitter) forgot to log out of the account he was managing, is probably how we got this multi-aged meta human.
    - mtgx 7y ago
      I think there's a higher chance these as Amazon Mechanical Turk workers rotating behind the same Twitter accounts. Anyone remember that "virtual boyfriend" service that had rotating people behind the "virtual boyfriend" for the same person? It feels like that.
    - tictoc 7y ago
      What about the initial guy that says he has a grandchild when he's like a young guy from the phillipines?
      - Sharlin 7y ago
        There does not exist a 1:1 correspondence between Twitter accounts and individual humans.
    - thearn4 7y ago
      Bots or not, it's not very authentic or honest, and certainly not good PR.
  - PhasmaFelis 7y ago
    They're people (one person?) following a corporate script, but they're clearly not literally chatbots. Chatbots aren't even this coherent.
    - vinceguidry 7y ago
      Maybe not the ones you're used to but Amazon is a tech company at heart. They have the resources to improve on the algorithms. I'd love to meet the engineer responsible for this.
- who-knows95 7y ago
  defo a bot, the fact they are using different account's to reply. super weird.
  - naravara 7y ago
    It seems like they’re using an enterprise account that has a bunch of sub accounts attached to it. It probably brings all replies and subtweets into a single feed that any of the “ambassadors” can have added to their queue to reply to. Text-banking systems for political campaigns work like this, but those interactions are purely informational and aren’t intended to put a human face on anything. Applying it this way is. . . Very bizarre.
    - who-knows95 7y ago
      ahh, that makes more sense!
pmlnr 7y ago
This is a gem. One person vs an army of faces all engaging in the same conversation. Borg indeed.
- dgritsko 7y ago
  Resistance is futile.
- segmondy 7y ago
  Reminds me of the scene in the Matrix where Neo is fighting Smith and more and more of them came into the fight. I actually read it and it's really creepy. How did they all know this discussion was going on. They really all have 0 followers and are actually following very few people.
  - titanomachy 7y ago
    They use a social media management tool (sprinklr?) which lets them track conversations across accounts. It's designed for e.g. customer support.
tus88 7y ago
Holy crap was that creepy or what?
mattxxx 7y ago
Next season on Black Mirror
inanutshellus 7y ago
... imagine this the other way. Imagine that "@rulesObeyer" is the one with the agenda. Imagine RO is paid by a competitor to spread misinformation and "stir the pot", then re-read the thread. Suddenly RO seems incapable of reason or adapting in the face of clear evidence against its assertions. It makes for a fun read. (Similarly, "anyone condemning this comment or defending @rulesObeyer must just be @rulesObeyer in disguise, no matter the evidence to the contrary.")
- pmlnr 7y ago
  Doesn't change the creepiness and pithiness factor of the Amazon FC Ambassador idea at all.
  - inanutshellus 7y ago
    Nice try, @rulesObeyer. You can't fool me. END OF LINE
- pjc50 7y ago
  Does rather show how important it is to have good personal heuristics for "this is a real person's account speaking authentically", which is very difficult to verify for strangers.
  - inanutshellus 7y ago
    Precisely. We're even psychologically inclined to agree with RO because "it" is "fighting the good fight" and "fighting The Man", etc. Whether she's legitimately exactly who she says she is or "it" is just a next-level PR AI whose sole purpose is harming Amazon, we have little way of knowing, especially outside this specific example.
    - pjc50 7y ago
      On the other hand, this obfuscatory conversation and the allegation that random individual accounts are paid anti-corporate is one that adds to the weight for "inanutshellus may be an Amazon shill account, or at least employee"
ptah 7y ago
my favourite FC ambassador for sure https://twitter.com/SvetaPinto https://twitter.com/SvetaPinto
- nacs 7y ago
  I'm pretty sure that's one of the meme accounts that popped up/changed their name after this thread happened and not an actual FC ambassador.
  - ivl 7y ago
    I'd give Amazon a lot more credit if I wasn't certain that account was purely there for the memes. Their twitter bio makes it pretty clear they're not a real... propaganda account? I'm not even sure what to call the other ones in the thread.
axismundi 7y ago
Reminds me of Unity from that Rick and Morty episode https://rickandmorty.fandom.com/wiki/Unity https://rickandmorty.fandom.com/wiki/Unity
- majewsky 7y ago
  That's actually a more fitting comparison. When Starfleet talks to the Borg, it's a singular voice coming from the general direction of the Borg ship. But when Rick talks to Unity, she uses one person at a time to talk, switching seamlessly between people as Rick walks around.
codingdave 7y ago
A real gem in there was the comment of "there is actually an open door policy at the FCs, which allows us to directly communicate with our managers if we have concerns or issues." Think about that for a second. The fact that they feel that is notable to call out, saying they "actually" have that... implies that they believe it is normal to not have an open door policy, and not be allowed to talk to their managers about problems. I have worked warehouse jobs at a couple points in my life, and it was always OK to talk to your manager. It wasn't a perk, it was just how things were.
- dx87 7y ago
  That could also be interpreted as a response to the people who talk about the warehouse workers like they're slave labor with zero rights. It's like saying "Believe it or not, we actually have an open door policy and can talk to our managers if there are any issues."
  - michaelbuckbee 7y ago
    The past reports on Amazon warehouses call out how strict and automated the management is: that the local managers don't have the authority to really do much in the way of providing flexibility (or humanity) to people.
    - dx87 7y ago
      Yeah, I don't doubt the reports about it. I was just commenting about how "we actually have an open door policy" doesn't necessarily mean that the employees are brainwashed into thinking that having basic rights is something to applaud.
      - michaelbuckbee 7y ago
        I think the pushback was that if there's an "open door" policy it is presumed to mean "open communication with the possibility of change or at least suggestions being heard". If the supervisor you have an "open door" to communicate with has zero flexibility in what they can do to help you then you might as well converse with one of the stock-picking robots.
avsteele 7y ago
I see people saying they are 'chat bots'; any evidence of this other than people's general feeling? To me the FCA's came off like normal human beings who actually like their job a bit more than average (these people do exist). The people replying to them come off as infantile.
- tokai 7y ago
  Normal people? They write tweets like they are a single individual, with identical talking point, can't engage with what non-amazonians write to them. And they repeat their tweets.
- scottishfiction 7y ago
  To me they came off as factory floor workers who were offered a switch to 50% desk work saying nice things about Amazon on Twitter and jumped at the chance. The minute any one of these people diverted from the party line, they’d be back to picking boxes or fired.
- enkiv2 7y ago
  They don't seem to be regular FC employees, but I also don't think they're bots. Instead, they appear to be humans with a limited understanding of english who are required to reply based on a manual (like call-center workers). This explains why different accounts swap out -- the manual was designed for a single conversational thread, but employees are supposed to reply to individual tweets (as picked up from some kind of filtering system). This is a sort of common pattern -- basically whenever I mention a brand on twitter, I get replies from somebody with "<brand> ambassador" in their display name, & those accounts never follow anybody or reply to their replies. It's gotta be a whole industry. The only difference is that, unlike the accounts run by Comcast or TD Bank or Steak-Umms, amazon's manual seems to demand that the service workers pretend to be regular warehouse workers (rather than customer service / PR).
  - rtkwe 7y ago
    Yeah with the really weird insistence that they're not being paid to tweet while saying I do this two days a week instead of packing while being paid.
blhack 7y ago
Can somebody explain how to parse the page linked here? This seems like deeplinking Intl the middle of a conversation. Side note: it feels like Twitter specifically has done immeasurable damage to the discourse. Why does the communication have to be presented so confusingly? To an outsider it seems like it’s to create maximum outrage/confusion/dopamine response. That’s much scarier to me than a customer service team.
- pmlnr 7y ago
  Scroll up, hit the top, start reading.
  - treerock 7y ago
    Tried that. Top message: Diana Wilde @rulesObeyer 16h16 hours ago Replying to @AmazonFCRafael are you a robot, did they make a bunch of ai to lie for them instead of helping real workers So still diving into the middle of a conversation.
    - mcintyre1994 7y ago
      You might be hitting a twitter bug or having an issue with their slightly weird phased loading, the top message I get is from 'Amazon News': > Come take a free tour at an Amazon fulfillment center and see what our warehouses are really like. Check out the locations and reserve your spot online. #AmazonFCTours Then Diane replies to that and the back-and-forth with Amazon employees begins.
      - jmkni 7y ago
        I got the same as treerock, the news article posted elsewhere in this thread is useful for context
        Izkata 7y ago
        I got the actual start, but there's some scrolljacking going on: it took significantly longer to reach the top than it did to go back down to the "borg" tweet. Maybe you did hit the real top, then were immediately bounced back down?
shiftoutbox 7y ago
You idiots that’s how Brazilian Portuguese gets mangled by google translate. The round poetry in the language gets hammered into a square hole by google .
tropicalia 7y ago
Come take a free tour at an Amazon fulfillment center and see what our warehouses are really like. Check out the locations and reserve your spot online. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Potemkin_village https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Potemkin_village
imglorp 7y ago
The interesting part here was an assertion that the Ambassador accounts were managed by Sprinklr for Amazon, a marketing platform. Is that true? Edit, also - https://aws.amazon.com/solutions/case-studies/sprinklr-support/ https://aws.amazon.com/solutions/case-studies/sprinklr-suppo...
- gvx 7y ago
  Yes, and you can easily verify it by clicking on any of the tweets by any of the @AmazonFC* accounts.
PedroBatista 7y ago
They are NOT bots. They are people getting paid a few bucks to spew the Word of the Lord ( in this case Jeff Bezos ) It's the corporate version of troll farms.
- mcphage 7y ago
  So they're just people who are paid to mimic chatbots.
- mentalpiracy 7y ago
  human-powered automata, how novel.
- PaulRobinson 7y ago
  Could you explain https://twitter.com/TheKenChilds/status/1161847717397696512 https://twitter.com/TheKenChilds/status/1161847717397696512 then?
  - TazeTSchnitzel 7y ago
    Account mistakenly reused?
  - rtkwe 7y ago
    Person forgets to log out of the shared computer they tweet from/grandma poster messes up in whatever app they use to manage the tweets and uses the wrong profile.
kpennell 7y ago
This is such a gem of a creepy thread!
grenoire 7y ago
As mentioned before, these are likely tweets managed by a centralised messaging system. What is really creepy, however, are the tweets on the accounts themselves.
luzjh 7y ago
Related: employees sing the Walmart song https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JOkQJm_UGM4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JOkQJm_UGM4
leftyted 7y ago
I doubt these are bots. One of them says: > I don't get compensated per tweet. I get paid $15/hr whether I am answering tweets or out on the floor stowing. I do this 2 days a week and 2 days a week I stow. While I think it's weird that Amazon is doing this, I also doubt that the warehouse jobs are bad jobs. I've done manual labor for less than $15/hr and I'd much rather have a job like that than, say, a job in a restaurant. I also think it's ironic that the instigator here claims to care about "the working class": > really like? cause your workers are liars? you’re not going to convince the working class that everything is fine by telling us where to avert our eyes, we already know what it’s really like. why don’t you really treat your workers better, you can afford it She's talking to working class people and when they disagree with her, she accuses them of literally not being human. If people want to advocate for the working class, they need to step outside of the simplistic fiction that "evil corporations are ruining people's lives by employing them and not treating them well". The truth is much more complicated and jobs don't grow on trees.
- scrozart 7y ago
  > I also doubt that the warehouse jobs are bad jobs I agree that these folks are probably real people, but you must have missed the last several month's worth of very public information about the conditions in their warehouses. https://www.businessinsider.com/amazon-employees-describe-peak-2019-2 https://www.businessinsider.com/amazon-employees-describe-pe... https://www.vox.com/the-goods/2019/3/11/18260472/amazon-warehouse-workers-911-calls-suicide https://www.vox.com/the-goods/2019/3/11/18260472/amazon-ware... https://www.newsweek.com/amazon-drivers-warehouse-conditions-workers-complains-jeff-bezos-bernie-1118849 https://www.newsweek.com/amazon-drivers-warehouse-conditions... https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2019/jan/01/amazon-fulfillment-center-warehouse-employees-union-new-york-minnesota https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2019/jan/01/amazon-fu... https://www.theverge.com/2019/7/16/20696154/amazon-prime-day-2019-strike-warehouse-workers-inhumane-conditions-the-rate-productivity https://www.theverge.com/2019/7/16/20696154/amazon-prime-day... https://slate.com/technology/2019/07/amazon-prime-day-fulfillment-center-working-conditions.html https://slate.com/technology/2019/07/amazon-prime-day-fulfil...
  - 7y ago
dceddia 7y ago
It’s like one person was given control over multiple accounts, but forgot that every time they replied they’d appear to be a different person. It’s funny because every now and then they appear to remember, like the person halfway down saying “Hey it’s me again”.
castlecrasher2 7y ago
This is a striking example of someone being so concerned about a group that they don't listen to members of that group.
- all_factz 7y ago
  Is it? I think the concern is that the members of the group are paid to share a certain message. They’re not allowed to share how they really feel, since they’re tweeting on the clock.
  - rtkwe 7y ago
    And the tweeting about loving your job is a pretty cushy job compared to warehouse picking and packing so they're 100% disincentivized to share anything even slightly negative or 'off script.'
- deleted 7y ago
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- lm28469 7y ago
  I mean, we're talking about amazon here... In a David vs Goliath situation always pay more attention to the side that has nothing to lose (hint: not amazon). Should you listen to these Ambassadors™️ or to the thousands of current/ex amazon employees expressing things that are going in the complete opposite direction ?
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blaser-waffle 7y ago
Does this mean we're going to more of the Žižek FC Ambassador? I imagine it like Chompskybot but more flamboyant.
yk 7y ago
My theory is, that all of these people are actually part of the same art project.
jeremycw 7y ago
I don't get this. There's a reason why they make AstroTurf green. If you're Amazon and you're trying to generate realistic good buzz about your work conditions don't name the accounts "AmazonDrone643278" or similar.
- jordigh 7y ago
  Twitter will shut out deceptive bots, so they have to say that they're paid shills in their account name.
- rtkwe 7y ago
  What they're trying to do is a bit of false transparency thinking if they show the people they're paying to tweet are associated with the brand it'll look less fake because "if they were being fake we'd hide it" or something similar. If it was paired with something less artificial and hyper cheery it might have worked but the relentless positivity and the fact that no one person replies more than twice it feel real fake real fast.
  - jordigh 7y ago
    No, it's not that, it's really so that Twitter won't shut them down. Maybe being "honest" is some side-effect, but they wouldn't be doing it if Twitter didn't have a history of deleting Russian troll accounts (for example).
mark212 7y ago
Not one single misspelled word in a dozen tweets from 6-8 different accounts? BORG
hacknat 7y ago
This was very unsettling to read.
deleted 7y ago
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runn1ng 7y ago
The “ambassadors” are so bad it’s embarrassing. Which leads me to think they are not actually PR professionals (they would actually not talk in such a robotic way), but really low level employees that are paid extra to talk good on social media, and are repeating from some officially sanctioned book of “what you should and shouldn’t say” they don’t sound like Borg, they sound like McDonald’s cashiers, just doing their assignments
- blaser-waffle 7y ago
  Most online shill-bots are 1) bots, 2) outsourced to india/china/russia/rural US/etc. They sound like real people who aren't PR execs because that's what they are. They're just hired by [3rd Party Marketing Firm] cuz they're stay at home moms or making use of Mechanical Turk for cash on the side.
  - jordigh 7y ago
    According to this article, they're actual warehouse employees who tweet one day and work on the warehouse three other days: https://techcrunch.com/2018/08/23/what-is-this-weird-twitter-army-of-amazon-drones-cheerfully-defending-warehouse-work/ https://techcrunch.com/2018/08/23/what-is-this-weird-twitter...
    - imglorp 7y ago
      Is a normal warehouse schedule 4 tens?
      - liveoneggs 7y ago
        shift work comes in all kinds of splits; it's pretty normal anywhere
- purple_ducks 7y ago
  Quoting one of the ambassadors: > Sure some dont like it here, but they may just dont like to work. Ignoring the grammar.. How stupid or naive do you have to be to a) believe that and b) repeat it. A not so subtle attempt at saying anyone who has a problem here is actually themselves the problem.
fuzz4lyfe 7y ago
What's the problem? they are just correcting the record[0] [0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Correct_the_Record https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Correct_the_Record
joaomacp 7y ago
This is full-on dystopia. I'm shocked this isn't fiction.
solotronics 7y ago
I want to play the devils advocate here. If these jobs were gotten rid of with automation would these workers be better or worse off? I know the essential argument is that the job should pay more and also not be automated away but due to the competitive nature of capitalism there is a tipping point where it becomes cheaper to have robots do the work. Should all these jobs be replaced by robots? What would society look like then? I don't think anybody in charge is answering these important questions.
- imustbeevil 7y ago
  These jobs will be automated. Amazon doesn't have human workers because they like people more than robots; they have human workers because some work today still needs human workers.
- owenmarshall 7y ago
  > I don't think anybody in charge is answering these important questions. https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/01/30/doomsday-prep-for-the-super-rich https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/01/30/doomsday-prep-... Oh, they absolutely are thinking about these questions.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- velcrovan 7y ago
  Are people better off since we outlawed child labor? I mean, don't child workers help poor people get more money?
- projektfu 7y ago
  This is a relative of the “lump of work” fallacy. These workers are currently hired by amazon and its contractors because amazon has already displaced other forms of work (retail, logistics, call centers). Experience shows that increases in productivity caused increases in living standards and work conditions across the board. So, usually, one would expect people to be better off with automation even if there’s some “friction” in reducing an automated workforce. It’s worth pointing out that productivity growth has been low for years and shows no sign of rapid acceleration in the Information Age.
duxup 7y ago
I feel like this is twitter in a nutshell, and that goes for everyone involved. The very first response is "eally like? cause your workers are liars?" There we go, now the entire conversation is everything or nothing, you're either with them or against them. Then it's off into personal attacks and arguments about followers and etc. Nobody is talking to each other in any of that. They're just posting for everyone else to see. The medium is the message and twitter is dumb, and it makes everyone on it dumb.
- qwsxyh 7y ago
  The important thing is you've found a way to feel superior to everyone. Ten points to you for being so immensely smart.
  - paideic 7y ago
    This is a parroted response used every time someone attempts to meta-analyze the method that allows discourse to propagate. Someone going "ha, you just want to feel superior," is pretty ironic, isn't it? Examining and critizicing communication mediums is an important and valuable thing to do, especially with respect to the internet. Do you truly believe that sound-bite length tweets that focus more on trying "burn" the opposing side instead of making cogent points are the best way of having rational discussions? If not, then what the OP mentioned is important - the format of Twitter just _doesn't_ lend itself to good discussions as much as it does to fanning flames and coming up with good quips. It promotes the worst parts of discourse, and viewing everything that comes out of it through that lens isn't an attempt to feel superior - it's a _necessary_ thing to keep in mind. In order to fully appreciate a message, you have to fully understand its medium. And Twitter is a shitty medium.
    - bairrd 7y ago
      Yet I find the discussion focusing on the meta level of the conversation medium, and not on the higher-order level of society in general, and how a paid collective of actors can overwhelm the power of the individual, to be disingenuous, and potentially a distractionary measure from the far more important conversation around the role of large corporations controlling narratives in our society. It reeks to me of the same debate-club nonsense, where someone can be arguing about some human atrocity, but the second someone makes some sort of named argumentative slip up, the conversation gets recentered completely on semantics or the medium of debate, completely destroying the discussion of the actual higher-order issue effecting the meta-connections between humans and the structures we deem permissible in governing us all...
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Ajedi32 7y ago
While I understand the idea behind this program, it still feels kinda hypocritical to pay employees to talk about their job on social media when Amazon doesn't allow companies to pay people to review their products on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=201967050 https://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=...
jordigh 7y ago
Oh, wow, "FC" means "fulfillment centre". Doesn't that sound a lot like... an enrichment centre? Certainly sounds nicer than "warehouse".
- rtkwe 7y ago
  It's a fairly standard dress up name for shipping warehouse. Sounds better the same way personal/executive assistant has replaced secretary.
- whamlastxmas 7y ago
  Never noticed that before, good call
drngdds 7y ago
Amazon's paid shill program is incredibly creepy and I have no idea how anyone thought it was a good idea, but it seems kind of mean to dunk on them like this. Either (a) they actually like their job and you're being a jerk or (b) they actually agree with you that their job sucks but they have to pretend they don't and you're making them aggressively defend their shitty employer.
jaimex2 7y ago
Fantastic bots, when is AWS opening access to their chat bot AI?
scythe 7y ago
Has she considered that the reason a different employee responds every time is that she’s being unnecessarily rude and nobody wants to talk to her, so they keep asking each other to take over? Because that’s what it looks like to me.
cat199 7y ago
umm... from the thread: https://twitter.com/SvetaPinto/status/1161889174808596481 https://twitter.com/SvetaPinto/status/1161889174808596481 "Žižek - Amazon FC Ambassador ‏ @SvetaPinto Replying to @rulesObeyer @curry_nyc @AmazonFCCarol We are happy to work at the glory hole of capitalism."
- brodie78382 7y ago
  This was my favorite response in the whole Twitter thread.
Circuits 7y ago
I am trying to imagine a world where one of these workers replies: "Oh yes actually, working conditions here are terrible. In fact, I hate my job and so does everyone else." What happens to that employee? Back in the day I worked for Fedex in a warehouse organizing mail and I did it for like $9/hr and tbh, even at $15/hr I wouldn't have been able to stay for more than a year or so. The conditions weren't terrible but the job itself is. I can't speak for Amazon workers but if it's anything like what I was doing then I understand why they are frustrated. Then again, it's sort of like a plumber complaining about the smell. If you lift and organize boxes for a living and you do that 8 hours a day 5 days a week then eventually those paper cuts are going to start to feel like serrated knives.
umvi 7y ago
Well when you come out of the gate swinging, what do you expect? She didn't seem reasonable either. Her mind was set on Amazon warehouse conditions = universally bad, and wouldn't take any other answer.
- rtkwe 7y ago
  I think her response would be the existence of some people who haven't experienced the issues other people have come forward with, different locations will have different conditions, and enjoy (or are willing to say so to get paid to tweet instead of walking 10-20 miles a day) doesn't address the actual concerns and issues that have been reported. @rulesObeyer basically says exactly that "you don't speak for those who have been wronged."
- gowld 7y ago
  Ok so we have a single person and a trillion dollar company's PR team both being dufuses. That's guerilla warfare and the company is failing harder.
imgabe 7y ago
What's the endgame here? What is this person hoping to accomplish by harassing the Twitter-jockeys at Amazon? Is Amazon supposed to say "Oh, someone was snarky to our employees on Twitter, now all warehouse employees make six figures and only work 20 minutes a day"? Instead of wasting time by publicly mocking someone who either A. is actually having a good experience working at Amazon B. isn't but doesn't want to lose the job that pays their rent and allows them to eat how about: - harassing your Congressional representative on Twitter, so they pass labor laws that might actually improve working conditions - organizing a union so Amazon workers can collectively bargain for better conditions - start a competing logistics company, increasing the demand for warehouse employees so that wages and working conditions have to improve to attract more workers Unless of course this is just about scoring retweets and fake Internet points and isn't an attempt to produce any real meaningful change
- stnmtn 7y ago
  Should people not complain about a company's poor work conditions on a public forum? I'm really confused, because what you're arguing here is that there is no reason to say anything ever unless you are taking immediate action to fix that. I mean, by your logic, couldn't I ask you why you are making this post and not instead making lasting change by starting a competing social media site where no non-impactful conversations happen?
  - imgabe 7y ago
    By all means, complain. Complain to the perpetrators of the injustice and complain to the government that is supposed to regulate them. Don't complain to the victims that they are not acting sufficiently victim-like to confirm your preconceived notions of what their lives are like based on that 10 minute John Oliver segment you watched.
    - stnmtn 7y ago
      I mean the people she's complaining to are part of the problem, they are people who are being paid to post pro-amazon content on twitter that share accounts, most likely using something like sprinklr. If these were real people just saying this, then sure, but you can not actually look at this exchange and think amazon doesn't come out looking even worse.
citilife 7y ago
Frankly, I find it appalling that this person is being aggressive towards the people she is supposidly trying to "help". This isn't a "let's fight the man" kind of mentality, but a "You're not getting what you deserve, and I'll tell you what you need" kind of mentality - quite pretentious". Having worked for a far lower minimum wage at 10 hours a day, I can understand Amazon employees plight. I also know two people working at the fulfillment centers and they were and are insanely grateful for the job(s). It was the first time in their lives they had real, solid employment and took advantage of trainings, saved, etc. After seeing this and living my own experiences, honestly $15 / hour is probably overpaying for their labor. They are happy to have the job over paying them. I think really only the employees should have a voice here. I don't think people from the outside really understand the situation. Unless you've lived that kind of life, it's difficult to relate. Same for the ultra-rich, I have no ability to empathize or comprehend their lives, living in the rat-race.
- stnmtn 7y ago
  The accounts that she is replying to are people literally paid to post pro-amazon things on social media. Also there is something else very fishy about the accounts, check this out. What do you think about this? https://mobile.twitter.com/TheKenChilds/status/1161847717397696512 https://mobile.twitter.com/TheKenChilds/status/1161847717397...
- tveita 7y ago
  It looks to me like a wall of talking points designed to shut down criticism, weirdly speaking in unison across multiple accounts. And even assuming, against appearances, that these are real workers, they are certainly not free to say what they want. This is Amazon's corporate voice, it can't possibly represent "the people she is supposidly trying to "help", and it's weird to me that people are conflating them. > I think really only the employees should have a voice here. Then let's give them a soap box free from the threat of repercussion and hear what they have to say. Maybe from an union representative?
pmikesell 7y ago
I used to work a hard labor job. People got injured. I got injured more than once. Some people died. It was part of the job and we knew what we were getting into in exchange for money. It was the best way we had to make a living. I don't know if conditions were as hard as working in an Amazon FC, but it was definitely hard work. We needed the money and appreciated the opportunity to earn a living. If the media had decided that we were some kind of downtrodden worker class cause and had descended upon us to ask these kinds of antagonizing questions our answers would have been very much the same. I'm sure we would have answered back with our employers talking points when ridiculed for the type of work we were doing. People in tech do this all the time when they explain why they work at some tech company "changing the world". This whole thing is in very poor taste. This public Amazon FC bashing feels very much like virtue signaling and I find it disgusting.
- 40four 7y ago
  Amen. I worked a similar job when I was out of college at FedEx. I unloaded trailers by hand, usually just 2 of us. We were expected to go nonstop until it was done, and our boxes per minute thru-put was closely monitored. It was hard, back breaking work & it paid minimum wage. I did it at the time because I didn't have many other opportunities. I imagine this is one of the best jobs available to these people, for one reason or another, otherwise they wouldn't voluntarily work there. Should this be the larger issue we are discussing? I did find the whole exchange very gross. Some girl who thinks she knows everything about what it's like working at Amazon from reading a few news articles. She was very rude and mean to those people. Kind of ironic she's 'fighting' to improve those peoples working conditions, meanwhile (while they are working) she's actively directing nasty comments and leading others to do the same. We all know it feels bad when people give negative comments on social media. How does she think those folks will feel when they go home after a full day of negativity directed at them from strangers on the internet?
  - 9HZZRfNlpR 7y ago
    It doesn't matter to her so since she is not doing the back breaking jobs anyway. Part of the equality movements should be directed to the fact that there are not enough women doing dangerous and physical labor.
muzani 7y ago
Borg customer service is a cousin to chum box advertising. For those who aren't familiar with 'chum ads', they simply optimize for what gets the most clicks and longest views. Of course, the thing with the highest click through rate would be pornography, but since pornography is banned, it selects the closest thing to that. As well as things that trigger raw emotion like miracle cures and lots of weird holes. This kind of Borg service also sounds like an abuse of data analytics. They have a system that identifies angry people. They find an optimum thing to say in response to a certain kind of reaction (say, Amazon worker treatment). They assign $15/hour workers to respond to this tweet and give an optimum response. The service person then sits around responding to thousands of tweets per day, forgetting what conversations they've had, and it results in this experience.
apatters 7y ago
If you feel like you're talking to a drone, why keep talking? If you're not talking to the Queen, the only effective course of action you've got is to fire on the Cube.
c3534l 7y ago
This is everything wrong with the internet from every side. The creepy Amazon workers, the echo chamber, the unreasonable Twitterer. Just everything.
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apo 7y ago
Can someone just summarize the thread? No desire to scroll through to figure out what the hubbub is about. Grammar is a mess, which makes it even harder to make heads or tails of it.
- TheLastPass 7y ago
  It's a conversation with Amazon "Fulfillment Center" ambassadors, who defend Amazon and say they're very happy. But their Twitter accounts don't follow anyone, they're corporate-branded, they all recite near-identical messages, and they're being paid to represent what it's like working for Amazon, and they "happen to like working for Amazon". The way they speak sounds very scripted and forced, a la The Borg.
WhompingWindows 7y ago
Can someone explain why the warehouse workers have to walk 10-20 miles per day? Wouldn't it be faster to give them rollerskates or a scooter? Is it a safety concern?
- papreclip 7y ago
  If you spend all day walking, you rack up miles. As a furniture mover I was walking 8-10 miles a day, carrying furniture for a significant fraction of that. If these workers are walking across giant warehouses they should definitely have bikes laying around. Rollerskates seem dangerous
cryptozeus 7y ago
Great thing about this os that they really have some people thinking they are not bots so they already won. Even here in the thread people are saying they are not bots. How crazy !
cryptozeus 7y ago
Twist, she is also a bot created by amazon and this blew up as side effect. Ex machina !
einpoklum 7y ago
If you can wade through the Twitter noise it's actually humorous. But - why have I wasted 50 seconds of my life on this? Damn you Bezos! :-(
radmuzom 7y ago
Not sure if anyone saw the tweet by Ken Childs - https://twitter.com/TheKenChilds/status/1161847717397696512/photo/1 https://twitter.com/TheKenChilds/status/1161847717397696512/... These Amazon ambassadors are complete fakes; and the top comment is about shutting down a conversation?
simonebrunozzi 7y ago
This thread is so interesting, and so sad, at the same time. It also seems that Amazon is using Sprinklr as an "enterprise marketing platform" to handle these FC ambassadors [0]. [0]: https://twitter.com/GarrettShorr/status/1161881614256705536 https://twitter.com/GarrettShorr/status/1161881614256705536
jdkee 7y ago
That exchange was Orwellian.
spapas82 7y ago
Are these account really related to Amazon? How could anybody confirm this? Can't all these answering accounts be a part of a parody that wants to ridiculise Amazon? I am asking honestly because the other possibility seems too absurd to believe.
- stagger87 7y ago
  Only a few of them are. Several other people are jumping in with fake Amazon FC accounts.
- sidibe 7y ago
  Yeah this seems like the obvious thing here. It's disturbing that the conversation here is not about that because the lack of doubts people have shows this an easy way to sabotage any organization
wonderwonder 7y ago
Kind of reminded me of the short novel The Santaroga Barrier by Frank Herbert for some reason.
Zenst 7y ago
The swarm mentality in the depth of posters would be indicative of a hive mentality at play. Borg is a most apt definition as they were once individuals, but are now part of the Amazon collective. Who knew "resistance is futile, you will be fulfilled" was a thing, not even George Orwell saw that one coming.
whalabi 7y ago
Well that was bizarre, creepy, dystopian. For those who missed it: The tweets are labelled "Sprinklr" which is enterprise social media management software. So I don't think Britney is sitting in the warehouse on her lunch break helping to spread the word about how lovely Amazon is. I think it's a marketing drone sending marketing tweets from fake accounts, possibly tied to to people. The replies are coming from accounts which all follow no one (so they're not legit accounts being used the way people use Twitter - they're just used to spray pro-Amazon tweets) Is Amazon actually behind these accounts? It's legitimately disturbing and my I'm feeling a boycott coming on.
peu4000 7y ago
This is just cheap twitter advertising -- the only thing different about this(from Wendy's twitter advertising) is that Amazon is harnessing Twitter's outrage lust to get more eyeballs on their ambassador's nice words and it looks like it works. Don't interact with advertisements, folks.
- pas 7y ago
  It might work, but it's creepy as fuck.
settsu 7y ago
What I find most unfortunate in these situations is the number of people with a response to the effect of: > "I worked at [physically-demanding job] for $n/hr [where n≤other person's/current minimum wage] and I didn't [complain/think it was that bad/die], so what is the problem?" The problem with this is: 1) In the absence of any addl. context, it's a poor means of objectively determining employee well-being. All else being equal, shouldn't "we" (humans, as a species) be using an ever-increasing bar of basic well-being in context to historical norms and improvements as the measure? Besides, there's any number of factors that influence what is "reasonable" (regional cost of living, changes to inflation/buying power, an individual's capacity to work, etc.) 2) People can simultaneously feel grateful AND discouraged in their current circumstances. To be glad you have a job and to feel stung by two generations of stalled economic mobility are not mutually exclusive emotions. 3) Both sides can experience entirely sincere feelings of "rightness". That does not prove, deny, or change any underlying facts. 4) Being (AKA feeling) "right" bears little or no benefit to anyone. It means a temporary rush of dopamine and adrenaline. No ones life has usually been materially improved by that event.
- wildrhythms 7y ago
  >"I worked at [physically-demanding job] for $n/hr [where n≤other person's/current minimum wage] and I didn't [complain/think it was that bad/die], so what is the problem?" I call these types of comments "disciplinary blinders" (we've always done it this way...) but there's probably a better name for them. They might as well be prefixed with "back in my day..." That's aside from the fact that those comments are redirecting the conversation away from the main point, which is Amazon's questionable PR tactics.

492 points by louis-paul 7y ago

Amazon is an evil company. Just...stop buying stuff from them! You can find better quality goods on other websites and you won't be paying for employees to be abused. Saving 50 cents on a twenty pack of Charmin isn't worth propping up gross people.

duiker101 7y ago

That was so weird to read. If they are really free to say whatever they want can they talk trash about amazon and keep the ambassador job?

vinceguidry 7y ago
They're not real, they're Twitter chat bots. That Amazon thinks this was a good PR move is truly astonishing.
- maxerickson 7y ago
  It's not astonishing enough to make you doubt your analysis.
- Reedx 7y ago
  It’s astonishing people are so confident these are bots. No real evidence of that and it’s more likely they’re real. Occam’s razor.
  - vinceguidry 7y ago
    The evidence came a bit further down with one commenter posting a picture of one being male in one post and female in another.
    - Sharlin 7y ago
      That's just evidence that multiple humans share the same account for whatever reason.
      - vinceguidry 7y ago
        My guess on how it's happening is that Amazon Turk workers are presented with tweets and then they select from a list of machine-generated responses. I'd still call those bots.
    - rtkwe 7y ago
      I think it's more likely they all use shared computers and one person didn't log out of their account. The same way Ted Cruz's account liked a porn tweet about some incest porn, media guy (because as much as I love the idea of Ted f*ing Cruz trolling twitter for some porn I doubt the man runs his own twitter) forgot to log out of the account he was managing, is probably how we got this multi-aged meta human.
  - mtgx 7y ago
    I think there's a higher chance these as Amazon Mechanical Turk workers rotating behind the same Twitter accounts. Anyone remember that "virtual boyfriend" service that had rotating people behind the "virtual boyfriend" for the same person? It feels like that.
  - tictoc 7y ago
    What about the initial guy that says he has a grandchild when he's like a young guy from the phillipines?
    - Sharlin 7y ago
      There does not exist a 1:1 correspondence between Twitter accounts and individual humans.
  - thearn4 7y ago
    Bots or not, it's not very authentic or honest, and certainly not good PR.
- PhasmaFelis 7y ago
  They're people (one person?) following a corporate script, but they're clearly not literally chatbots. Chatbots aren't even this coherent.
  - vinceguidry 7y ago
    Maybe not the ones you're used to but Amazon is a tech company at heart. They have the resources to improve on the algorithms. I'd love to meet the engineer responsible for this.
who-knows95 7y ago
defo a bot, the fact they are using different account's to reply. super weird.
- naravara 7y ago
  It seems like they’re using an enterprise account that has a bunch of sub accounts attached to it. It probably brings all replies and subtweets into a single feed that any of the “ambassadors” can have added to their queue to reply to. Text-banking systems for political campaigns work like this, but those interactions are purely informational and aren’t intended to put a human face on anything. Applying it this way is. . . Very bizarre.
  - who-knows95 7y ago
    ahh, that makes more sense!

pmlnr 7y ago

This is a gem. One person vs an army of faces all engaging in the same conversation. Borg indeed.

dgritsko 7y ago
Resistance is futile.
segmondy 7y ago
Reminds me of the scene in the Matrix where Neo is fighting Smith and more and more of them came into the fight. I actually read it and it's really creepy. How did they all know this discussion was going on. They really all have 0 followers and are actually following very few people.
- titanomachy 7y ago
  They use a social media management tool (sprinklr?) which lets them track conversations across accounts. It's designed for e.g. customer support.

tus88 7y ago

Holy crap was that creepy or what?

mattxxx 7y ago

Next season on Black Mirror

inanutshellus 7y ago

... imagine this the other way. Imagine that "@rulesObeyer" is the one with the agenda. Imagine RO is paid by a competitor to spread misinformation and "stir the pot", then re-read the thread. Suddenly RO seems incapable of reason or adapting in the face of clear evidence against its assertions. It makes for a fun read. (Similarly, "anyone condemning this comment or defending @rulesObeyer must just be @rulesObeyer in disguise, no matter the evidence to the contrary.")

pmlnr 7y ago
Doesn't change the creepiness and pithiness factor of the Amazon FC Ambassador idea at all.
- inanutshellus 7y ago
  Nice try, @rulesObeyer. You can't fool me. END OF LINE
pjc50 7y ago
Does rather show how important it is to have good personal heuristics for "this is a real person's account speaking authentically", which is very difficult to verify for strangers.
- inanutshellus 7y ago
  Precisely. We're even psychologically inclined to agree with RO because "it" is "fighting the good fight" and "fighting The Man", etc. Whether she's legitimately exactly who she says she is or "it" is just a next-level PR AI whose sole purpose is harming Amazon, we have little way of knowing, especially outside this specific example.
  - pjc50 7y ago
    On the other hand, this obfuscatory conversation and the allegation that random individual accounts are paid anti-corporate is one that adds to the weight for "inanutshellus may be an Amazon shill account, or at least employee"

ptah 7y ago

my favourite FC ambassador for sure https://twitter.com/SvetaPinto https://twitter.com/SvetaPinto

nacs 7y ago
I'm pretty sure that's one of the meme accounts that popped up/changed their name after this thread happened and not an actual FC ambassador.
- ivl 7y ago
  I'd give Amazon a lot more credit if I wasn't certain that account was purely there for the memes. Their twitter bio makes it pretty clear they're not a real... propaganda account? I'm not even sure what to call the other ones in the thread.

axismundi 7y ago

Reminds me of Unity from that Rick and Morty episode https://rickandmorty.fandom.com/wiki/Unity https://rickandmorty.fandom.com/wiki/Unity

majewsky 7y ago
That's actually a more fitting comparison. When Starfleet talks to the Borg, it's a singular voice coming from the general direction of the Borg ship. But when Rick talks to Unity, she uses one person at a time to talk, switching seamlessly between people as Rick walks around.

codingdave 7y ago

A real gem in there was the comment of "there is actually an open door policy at the FCs, which allows us to directly communicate with our managers if we have concerns or issues." Think about that for a second. The fact that they feel that is notable to call out, saying they "actually" have that... implies that they believe it is normal to not have an open door policy, and not be allowed to talk to their managers about problems. I have worked warehouse jobs at a couple points in my life, and it was always OK to talk to your manager. It wasn't a perk, it was just how things were.

dx87 7y ago
That could also be interpreted as a response to the people who talk about the warehouse workers like they're slave labor with zero rights. It's like saying "Believe it or not, we actually have an open door policy and can talk to our managers if there are any issues."
- michaelbuckbee 7y ago
  The past reports on Amazon warehouses call out how strict and automated the management is: that the local managers don't have the authority to really do much in the way of providing flexibility (or humanity) to people.
  - dx87 7y ago
    Yeah, I don't doubt the reports about it. I was just commenting about how "we actually have an open door policy" doesn't necessarily mean that the employees are brainwashed into thinking that having basic rights is something to applaud.
    - michaelbuckbee 7y ago
      I think the pushback was that if there's an "open door" policy it is presumed to mean "open communication with the possibility of change or at least suggestions being heard". If the supervisor you have an "open door" to communicate with has zero flexibility in what they can do to help you then you might as well converse with one of the stock-picking robots.

avsteele 7y ago

I see people saying they are 'chat bots'; any evidence of this other than people's general feeling? To me the FCA's came off like normal human beings who actually like their job a bit more than average (these people do exist). The people replying to them come off as infantile.

tokai 7y ago
Normal people? They write tweets like they are a single individual, with identical talking point, can't engage with what non-amazonians write to them. And they repeat their tweets.
scottishfiction 7y ago
To me they came off as factory floor workers who were offered a switch to 50% desk work saying nice things about Amazon on Twitter and jumped at the chance. The minute any one of these people diverted from the party line, they’d be back to picking boxes or fired.
enkiv2 7y ago
They don't seem to be regular FC employees, but I also don't think they're bots. Instead, they appear to be humans with a limited understanding of english who are required to reply based on a manual (like call-center workers). This explains why different accounts swap out -- the manual was designed for a single conversational thread, but employees are supposed to reply to individual tweets (as picked up from some kind of filtering system). This is a sort of common pattern -- basically whenever I mention a brand on twitter, I get replies from somebody with "<brand> ambassador" in their display name, & those accounts never follow anybody or reply to their replies. It's gotta be a whole industry. The only difference is that, unlike the accounts run by Comcast or TD Bank or Steak-Umms, amazon's manual seems to demand that the service workers pretend to be regular warehouse workers (rather than customer service / PR).
- rtkwe 7y ago
  Yeah with the really weird insistence that they're not being paid to tweet while saying I do this two days a week instead of packing while being paid.

blhack 7y ago

Can somebody explain how to parse the page linked here? This seems like deeplinking Intl the middle of a conversation. Side note: it feels like Twitter specifically has done immeasurable damage to the discourse. Why does the communication have to be presented so confusingly? To an outsider it seems like it’s to create maximum outrage/confusion/dopamine response. That’s much scarier to me than a customer service team.

pmlnr 7y ago
Scroll up, hit the top, start reading.
- treerock 7y ago
  Tried that. Top message: Diana Wilde @rulesObeyer 16h16 hours ago Replying to @AmazonFCRafael are you a robot, did they make a bunch of ai to lie for them instead of helping real workers So still diving into the middle of a conversation.
  - mcintyre1994 7y ago
    You might be hitting a twitter bug or having an issue with their slightly weird phased loading, the top message I get is from 'Amazon News': > Come take a free tour at an Amazon fulfillment center and see what our warehouses are really like. Check out the locations and reserve your spot online. #AmazonFCTours Then Diane replies to that and the back-and-forth with Amazon employees begins.
    - jmkni 7y ago
      I got the same as treerock, the news article posted elsewhere in this thread is useful for context
      - Izkata 7y ago
        I got the actual start, but there's some scrolljacking going on: it took significantly longer to reach the top than it did to go back down to the "borg" tweet. Maybe you did hit the real top, then were immediately bounced back down?

shiftoutbox 7y ago

You idiots that’s how Brazilian Portuguese gets mangled by google translate. The round poetry in the language gets hammered into a square hole by google .

tropicalia 7y ago

Come take a free tour at an Amazon fulfillment center and see what our warehouses are really like. Check out the locations and reserve your spot online. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Potemkin_village https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Potemkin_village

imglorp 7y ago

The interesting part here was an assertion that the Ambassador accounts were managed by Sprinklr for Amazon, a marketing platform. Is that true? Edit, also - https://aws.amazon.com/solutions/case-studies/sprinklr-support/ https://aws.amazon.com/solutions/case-studies/sprinklr-suppo...

gvx 7y ago
Yes, and you can easily verify it by clicking on any of the tweets by any of the @AmazonFC* accounts.

PedroBatista 7y ago

They are NOT bots. They are people getting paid a few bucks to spew the Word of the Lord ( in this case Jeff Bezos ) It's the corporate version of troll farms.

mcphage 7y ago
So they're just people who are paid to mimic chatbots.
mentalpiracy 7y ago
human-powered automata, how novel.
PaulRobinson 7y ago
Could you explain https://twitter.com/TheKenChilds/status/1161847717397696512 https://twitter.com/TheKenChilds/status/1161847717397696512 then?
- TazeTSchnitzel 7y ago
  Account mistakenly reused?
- rtkwe 7y ago
  Person forgets to log out of the shared computer they tweet from/grandma poster messes up in whatever app they use to manage the tweets and uses the wrong profile.

kpennell 7y ago

This is such a gem of a creepy thread!

grenoire 7y ago

As mentioned before, these are likely tweets managed by a centralised messaging system. What is really creepy, however, are the tweets on the accounts themselves.

luzjh 7y ago

Related: employees sing the Walmart song https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JOkQJm_UGM4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JOkQJm_UGM4

leftyted 7y ago

I doubt these are bots. One of them says: > I don't get compensated per tweet. I get paid $15/hr whether I am answering tweets or out on the floor stowing. I do this 2 days a week and 2 days a week I stow. While I think it's weird that Amazon is doing this, I also doubt that the warehouse jobs are bad jobs. I've done manual labor for less than $15/hr and I'd much rather have a job like that than, say, a job in a restaurant. I also think it's ironic that the instigator here claims to care about "the working class": > really like? cause your workers are liars? you’re not going to convince the working class that everything is fine by telling us where to avert our eyes, we already know what it’s really like. why don’t you really treat your workers better, you can afford it She's talking to working class people and when they disagree with her, she accuses them of literally not being human. If people want to advocate for the working class, they need to step outside of the simplistic fiction that "evil corporations are ruining people's lives by employing them and not treating them well". The truth is much more complicated and jobs don't grow on trees.

scrozart 7y ago
> I also doubt that the warehouse jobs are bad jobs I agree that these folks are probably real people, but you must have missed the last several month's worth of very public information about the conditions in their warehouses. https://www.businessinsider.com/amazon-employees-describe-peak-2019-2 https://www.businessinsider.com/amazon-employees-describe-pe... https://www.vox.com/the-goods/2019/3/11/18260472/amazon-warehouse-workers-911-calls-suicide https://www.vox.com/the-goods/2019/3/11/18260472/amazon-ware... https://www.newsweek.com/amazon-drivers-warehouse-conditions-workers-complains-jeff-bezos-bernie-1118849 https://www.newsweek.com/amazon-drivers-warehouse-conditions... https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2019/jan/01/amazon-fulfillment-center-warehouse-employees-union-new-york-minnesota https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2019/jan/01/amazon-fu... https://www.theverge.com/2019/7/16/20696154/amazon-prime-day-2019-strike-warehouse-workers-inhumane-conditions-the-rate-productivity https://www.theverge.com/2019/7/16/20696154/amazon-prime-day... https://slate.com/technology/2019/07/amazon-prime-day-fulfillment-center-working-conditions.html https://slate.com/technology/2019/07/amazon-prime-day-fulfil...
- 7y ago

dceddia 7y ago

It’s like one person was given control over multiple accounts, but forgot that every time they replied they’d appear to be a different person. It’s funny because every now and then they appear to remember, like the person halfway down saying “Hey it’s me again”.

castlecrasher2 7y ago

This is a striking example of someone being so concerned about a group that they don't listen to members of that group.

all_factz 7y ago
Is it? I think the concern is that the members of the group are paid to share a certain message. They’re not allowed to share how they really feel, since they’re tweeting on the clock.
- rtkwe 7y ago
  And the tweeting about loving your job is a pretty cushy job compared to warehouse picking and packing so they're 100% disincentivized to share anything even slightly negative or 'off script.'
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
lm28469 7y ago
I mean, we're talking about amazon here... In a David vs Goliath situation always pay more attention to the side that has nothing to lose (hint: not amazon). Should you listen to these Ambassadors™️ or to the thousands of current/ex amazon employees expressing things that are going in the complete opposite direction ?

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

blaser-waffle 7y ago

Does this mean we're going to more of the Žižek FC Ambassador? I imagine it like Chompskybot but more flamboyant.

yk 7y ago

My theory is, that all of these people are actually part of the same art project.

jeremycw 7y ago

I don't get this. There's a reason why they make AstroTurf green. If you're Amazon and you're trying to generate realistic good buzz about your work conditions don't name the accounts "AmazonDrone643278" or similar.

jordigh 7y ago
Twitter will shut out deceptive bots, so they have to say that they're paid shills in their account name.
rtkwe 7y ago
What they're trying to do is a bit of false transparency thinking if they show the people they're paying to tweet are associated with the brand it'll look less fake because "if they were being fake we'd hide it" or something similar. If it was paired with something less artificial and hyper cheery it might have worked but the relentless positivity and the fact that no one person replies more than twice it feel real fake real fast.
- jordigh 7y ago
  No, it's not that, it's really so that Twitter won't shut them down. Maybe being "honest" is some side-effect, but they wouldn't be doing it if Twitter didn't have a history of deleting Russian troll accounts (for example).

mark212 7y ago

Not one single misspelled word in a dozen tweets from 6-8 different accounts? BORG

hacknat 7y ago

This was very unsettling to read.

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

runn1ng 7y ago

The “ambassadors” are so bad it’s embarrassing. Which leads me to think they are not actually PR professionals (they would actually not talk in such a robotic way), but really low level employees that are paid extra to talk good on social media, and are repeating from some officially sanctioned book of “what you should and shouldn’t say” they don’t sound like Borg, they sound like McDonald’s cashiers, just doing their assignments

blaser-waffle 7y ago
Most online shill-bots are 1) bots, 2) outsourced to india/china/russia/rural US/etc. They sound like real people who aren't PR execs because that's what they are. They're just hired by [3rd Party Marketing Firm] cuz they're stay at home moms or making use of Mechanical Turk for cash on the side.
- jordigh 7y ago
  According to this article, they're actual warehouse employees who tweet one day and work on the warehouse three other days: https://techcrunch.com/2018/08/23/what-is-this-weird-twitter-army-of-amazon-drones-cheerfully-defending-warehouse-work/ https://techcrunch.com/2018/08/23/what-is-this-weird-twitter...
  - imglorp 7y ago
    Is a normal warehouse schedule 4 tens?
    - liveoneggs 7y ago
      shift work comes in all kinds of splits; it's pretty normal anywhere
purple_ducks 7y ago
Quoting one of the ambassadors: > Sure some dont like it here, but they may just dont like to work. Ignoring the grammar.. How stupid or naive do you have to be to a) believe that and b) repeat it. A not so subtle attempt at saying anyone who has a problem here is actually themselves the problem.

fuzz4lyfe 7y ago

What's the problem? they are just correcting the record[0] [0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Correct_the_Record https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Correct_the_Record

joaomacp 7y ago

This is full-on dystopia. I'm shocked this isn't fiction.

solotronics 7y ago

I want to play the devils advocate here. If these jobs were gotten rid of with automation would these workers be better or worse off? I know the essential argument is that the job should pay more and also not be automated away but due to the competitive nature of capitalism there is a tipping point where it becomes cheaper to have robots do the work. Should all these jobs be replaced by robots? What would society look like then? I don't think anybody in charge is answering these important questions.

imustbeevil 7y ago
These jobs will be automated. Amazon doesn't have human workers because they like people more than robots; they have human workers because some work today still needs human workers.
owenmarshall 7y ago
> I don't think anybody in charge is answering these important questions. https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/01/30/doomsday-prep-for-the-super-rich https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/01/30/doomsday-prep-... Oh, they absolutely are thinking about these questions.
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velcrovan 7y ago
Are people better off since we outlawed child labor? I mean, don't child workers help poor people get more money?
projektfu 7y ago
This is a relative of the “lump of work” fallacy. These workers are currently hired by amazon and its contractors because amazon has already displaced other forms of work (retail, logistics, call centers). Experience shows that increases in productivity caused increases in living standards and work conditions across the board. So, usually, one would expect people to be better off with automation even if there’s some “friction” in reducing an automated workforce. It’s worth pointing out that productivity growth has been low for years and shows no sign of rapid acceleration in the Information Age.

duxup 7y ago

I feel like this is twitter in a nutshell, and that goes for everyone involved. The very first response is "eally like? cause your workers are liars?" There we go, now the entire conversation is everything or nothing, you're either with them or against them. Then it's off into personal attacks and arguments about followers and etc. Nobody is talking to each other in any of that. They're just posting for everyone else to see. The medium is the message and twitter is dumb, and it makes everyone on it dumb.

qwsxyh 7y ago
The important thing is you've found a way to feel superior to everyone. Ten points to you for being so immensely smart.
- paideic 7y ago
  This is a parroted response used every time someone attempts to meta-analyze the method that allows discourse to propagate. Someone going "ha, you just want to feel superior," is pretty ironic, isn't it? Examining and critizicing communication mediums is an important and valuable thing to do, especially with respect to the internet. Do you truly believe that sound-bite length tweets that focus more on trying "burn" the opposing side instead of making cogent points are the best way of having rational discussions? If not, then what the OP mentioned is important - the format of Twitter just _doesn't_ lend itself to good discussions as much as it does to fanning flames and coming up with good quips. It promotes the worst parts of discourse, and viewing everything that comes out of it through that lens isn't an attempt to feel superior - it's a _necessary_ thing to keep in mind. In order to fully appreciate a message, you have to fully understand its medium. And Twitter is a shitty medium.
  - bairrd 7y ago
    Yet I find the discussion focusing on the meta level of the conversation medium, and not on the higher-order level of society in general, and how a paid collective of actors can overwhelm the power of the individual, to be disingenuous, and potentially a distractionary measure from the far more important conversation around the role of large corporations controlling narratives in our society. It reeks to me of the same debate-club nonsense, where someone can be arguing about some human atrocity, but the second someone makes some sort of named argumentative slip up, the conversation gets recentered completely on semantics or the medium of debate, completely destroying the discussion of the actual higher-order issue effecting the meta-connections between humans and the structures we deem permissible in governing us all...

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Ajedi32 7y ago

While I understand the idea behind this program, it still feels kinda hypocritical to pay employees to talk about their job on social media when Amazon doesn't allow companies to pay people to review their products on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=201967050 https://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=...

jordigh 7y ago

Oh, wow, "FC" means "fulfillment centre". Doesn't that sound a lot like... an enrichment centre? Certainly sounds nicer than "warehouse".

rtkwe 7y ago
It's a fairly standard dress up name for shipping warehouse. Sounds better the same way personal/executive assistant has replaced secretary.
whamlastxmas 7y ago
Never noticed that before, good call

drngdds 7y ago

Amazon's paid shill program is incredibly creepy and I have no idea how anyone thought it was a good idea, but it seems kind of mean to dunk on them like this. Either (a) they actually like their job and you're being a jerk or (b) they actually agree with you that their job sucks but they have to pretend they don't and you're making them aggressively defend their shitty employer.

jaimex2 7y ago

Fantastic bots, when is AWS opening access to their chat bot AI?

scythe 7y ago

Has she considered that the reason a different employee responds every time is that she’s being unnecessarily rude and nobody wants to talk to her, so they keep asking each other to take over? Because that’s what it looks like to me.

cat199 7y ago

umm... from the thread: https://twitter.com/SvetaPinto/status/1161889174808596481 https://twitter.com/SvetaPinto/status/1161889174808596481 "Žižek - Amazon FC Ambassador ‏ @SvetaPinto Replying to @rulesObeyer @curry_nyc @AmazonFCCarol We are happy to work at the glory hole of capitalism."

brodie78382 7y ago
This was my favorite response in the whole Twitter thread.

Circuits 7y ago

I am trying to imagine a world where one of these workers replies: "Oh yes actually, working conditions here are terrible. In fact, I hate my job and so does everyone else." What happens to that employee? Back in the day I worked for Fedex in a warehouse organizing mail and I did it for like $9/hr and tbh, even at $15/hr I wouldn't have been able to stay for more than a year or so. The conditions weren't terrible but the job itself is. I can't speak for Amazon workers but if it's anything like what I was doing then I understand why they are frustrated. Then again, it's sort of like a plumber complaining about the smell. If you lift and organize boxes for a living and you do that 8 hours a day 5 days a week then eventually those paper cuts are going to start to feel like serrated knives.

umvi 7y ago

Well when you come out of the gate swinging, what do you expect? She didn't seem reasonable either. Her mind was set on Amazon warehouse conditions = universally bad, and wouldn't take any other answer.

rtkwe 7y ago
I think her response would be the existence of some people who haven't experienced the issues other people have come forward with, different locations will have different conditions, and enjoy (or are willing to say so to get paid to tweet instead of walking 10-20 miles a day) doesn't address the actual concerns and issues that have been reported. @rulesObeyer basically says exactly that "you don't speak for those who have been wronged."
gowld 7y ago
Ok so we have a single person and a trillion dollar company's PR team both being dufuses. That's guerilla warfare and the company is failing harder.

imgabe 7y ago

What's the endgame here? What is this person hoping to accomplish by harassing the Twitter-jockeys at Amazon? Is Amazon supposed to say "Oh, someone was snarky to our employees on Twitter, now all warehouse employees make six figures and only work 20 minutes a day"? Instead of wasting time by publicly mocking someone who either A. is actually having a good experience working at Amazon B. isn't but doesn't want to lose the job that pays their rent and allows them to eat how about: - harassing your Congressional representative on Twitter, so they pass labor laws that might actually improve working conditions - organizing a union so Amazon workers can collectively bargain for better conditions - start a competing logistics company, increasing the demand for warehouse employees so that wages and working conditions have to improve to attract more workers Unless of course this is just about scoring retweets and fake Internet points and isn't an attempt to produce any real meaningful change

stnmtn 7y ago
Should people not complain about a company's poor work conditions on a public forum? I'm really confused, because what you're arguing here is that there is no reason to say anything ever unless you are taking immediate action to fix that. I mean, by your logic, couldn't I ask you why you are making this post and not instead making lasting change by starting a competing social media site where no non-impactful conversations happen?
- imgabe 7y ago
  By all means, complain. Complain to the perpetrators of the injustice and complain to the government that is supposed to regulate them. Don't complain to the victims that they are not acting sufficiently victim-like to confirm your preconceived notions of what their lives are like based on that 10 minute John Oliver segment you watched.
  - stnmtn 7y ago
    I mean the people she's complaining to are part of the problem, they are people who are being paid to post pro-amazon content on twitter that share accounts, most likely using something like sprinklr. If these were real people just saying this, then sure, but you can not actually look at this exchange and think amazon doesn't come out looking even worse.

citilife 7y ago

Frankly, I find it appalling that this person is being aggressive towards the people she is supposidly trying to "help". This isn't a "let's fight the man" kind of mentality, but a "You're not getting what you deserve, and I'll tell you what you need" kind of mentality - quite pretentious". Having worked for a far lower minimum wage at 10 hours a day, I can understand Amazon employees plight. I also know two people working at the fulfillment centers and they were and are insanely grateful for the job(s). It was the first time in their lives they had real, solid employment and took advantage of trainings, saved, etc. After seeing this and living my own experiences, honestly $15 / hour is probably overpaying for their labor. They are happy to have the job over paying them. I think really only the employees should have a voice here. I don't think people from the outside really understand the situation. Unless you've lived that kind of life, it's difficult to relate. Same for the ultra-rich, I have no ability to empathize or comprehend their lives, living in the rat-race.

stnmtn 7y ago
The accounts that she is replying to are people literally paid to post pro-amazon things on social media. Also there is something else very fishy about the accounts, check this out. What do you think about this? https://mobile.twitter.com/TheKenChilds/status/1161847717397696512 https://mobile.twitter.com/TheKenChilds/status/1161847717397...
tveita 7y ago
It looks to me like a wall of talking points designed to shut down criticism, weirdly speaking in unison across multiple accounts. And even assuming, against appearances, that these are real workers, they are certainly not free to say what they want. This is Amazon's corporate voice, it can't possibly represent "the people she is supposidly trying to "help", and it's weird to me that people are conflating them. > I think really only the employees should have a voice here. Then let's give them a soap box free from the threat of repercussion and hear what they have to say. Maybe from an union representative?

pmikesell 7y ago

I used to work a hard labor job. People got injured. I got injured more than once. Some people died. It was part of the job and we knew what we were getting into in exchange for money. It was the best way we had to make a living. I don't know if conditions were as hard as working in an Amazon FC, but it was definitely hard work. We needed the money and appreciated the opportunity to earn a living. If the media had decided that we were some kind of downtrodden worker class cause and had descended upon us to ask these kinds of antagonizing questions our answers would have been very much the same. I'm sure we would have answered back with our employers talking points when ridiculed for the type of work we were doing. People in tech do this all the time when they explain why they work at some tech company "changing the world". This whole thing is in very poor taste. This public Amazon FC bashing feels very much like virtue signaling and I find it disgusting.

40four 7y ago
Amen. I worked a similar job when I was out of college at FedEx. I unloaded trailers by hand, usually just 2 of us. We were expected to go nonstop until it was done, and our boxes per minute thru-put was closely monitored. It was hard, back breaking work & it paid minimum wage. I did it at the time because I didn't have many other opportunities. I imagine this is one of the best jobs available to these people, for one reason or another, otherwise they wouldn't voluntarily work there. Should this be the larger issue we are discussing? I did find the whole exchange very gross. Some girl who thinks she knows everything about what it's like working at Amazon from reading a few news articles. She was very rude and mean to those people. Kind of ironic she's 'fighting' to improve those peoples working conditions, meanwhile (while they are working) she's actively directing nasty comments and leading others to do the same. We all know it feels bad when people give negative comments on social media. How does she think those folks will feel when they go home after a full day of negativity directed at them from strangers on the internet?
- 9HZZRfNlpR 7y ago
  It doesn't matter to her so since she is not doing the back breaking jobs anyway. Part of the equality movements should be directed to the fact that there are not enough women doing dangerous and physical labor.

muzani 7y ago

Borg customer service is a cousin to chum box advertising. For those who aren't familiar with 'chum ads', they simply optimize for what gets the most clicks and longest views. Of course, the thing with the highest click through rate would be pornography, but since pornography is banned, it selects the closest thing to that. As well as things that trigger raw emotion like miracle cures and lots of weird holes. This kind of Borg service also sounds like an abuse of data analytics. They have a system that identifies angry people. They find an optimum thing to say in response to a certain kind of reaction (say, Amazon worker treatment). They assign $15/hour workers to respond to this tweet and give an optimum response. The service person then sits around responding to thousands of tweets per day, forgetting what conversations they've had, and it results in this experience.

apatters 7y ago

If you feel like you're talking to a drone, why keep talking? If you're not talking to the Queen, the only effective course of action you've got is to fire on the Cube.

c3534l 7y ago

This is everything wrong with the internet from every side. The creepy Amazon workers, the echo chamber, the unreasonable Twitterer. Just everything.

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apo 7y ago

Can someone just summarize the thread? No desire to scroll through to figure out what the hubbub is about. Grammar is a mess, which makes it even harder to make heads or tails of it.

TheLastPass 7y ago
It's a conversation with Amazon "Fulfillment Center" ambassadors, who defend Amazon and say they're very happy. But their Twitter accounts don't follow anyone, they're corporate-branded, they all recite near-identical messages, and they're being paid to represent what it's like working for Amazon, and they "happen to like working for Amazon". The way they speak sounds very scripted and forced, a la The Borg.

WhompingWindows 7y ago

Can someone explain why the warehouse workers have to walk 10-20 miles per day? Wouldn't it be faster to give them rollerskates or a scooter? Is it a safety concern?

papreclip 7y ago
If you spend all day walking, you rack up miles. As a furniture mover I was walking 8-10 miles a day, carrying furniture for a significant fraction of that. If these workers are walking across giant warehouses they should definitely have bikes laying around. Rollerskates seem dangerous

cryptozeus 7y ago

Great thing about this os that they really have some people thinking they are not bots so they already won. Even here in the thread people are saying they are not bots. How crazy !

cryptozeus 7y ago

Twist, she is also a bot created by amazon and this blew up as side effect. Ex machina !

einpoklum 7y ago

If you can wade through the Twitter noise it's actually humorous. But - why have I wasted 50 seconds of my life on this? Damn you Bezos! :-(

radmuzom 7y ago

Not sure if anyone saw the tweet by Ken Childs - https://twitter.com/TheKenChilds/status/1161847717397696512/photo/1 https://twitter.com/TheKenChilds/status/1161847717397696512/... These Amazon ambassadors are complete fakes; and the top comment is about shutting down a conversation?

simonebrunozzi 7y ago

This thread is so interesting, and so sad, at the same time. It also seems that Amazon is using Sprinklr as an "enterprise marketing platform" to handle these FC ambassadors [0]. [0]: https://twitter.com/GarrettShorr/status/1161881614256705536 https://twitter.com/GarrettShorr/status/1161881614256705536

jdkee 7y ago

That exchange was Orwellian.

spapas82 7y ago

Are these account really related to Amazon? How could anybody confirm this? Can't all these answering accounts be a part of a parody that wants to ridiculise Amazon? I am asking honestly because the other possibility seems too absurd to believe.

stagger87 7y ago
Only a few of them are. Several other people are jumping in with fake Amazon FC accounts.
sidibe 7y ago
Yeah this seems like the obvious thing here. It's disturbing that the conversation here is not about that because the lack of doubts people have shows this an easy way to sabotage any organization

wonderwonder 7y ago

Kind of reminded me of the short novel The Santaroga Barrier by Frank Herbert for some reason.

Zenst 7y ago

The swarm mentality in the depth of posters would be indicative of a hive mentality at play. Borg is a most apt definition as they were once individuals, but are now part of the Amazon collective. Who knew "resistance is futile, you will be fulfilled" was a thing, not even George Orwell saw that one coming.

whalabi 7y ago

Well that was bizarre, creepy, dystopian. For those who missed it: The tweets are labelled "Sprinklr" which is enterprise social media management software. So I don't think Britney is sitting in the warehouse on her lunch break helping to spread the word about how lovely Amazon is. I think it's a marketing drone sending marketing tweets from fake accounts, possibly tied to to people. The replies are coming from accounts which all follow no one (so they're not legit accounts being used the way people use Twitter - they're just used to spray pro-Amazon tweets) Is Amazon actually behind these accounts? It's legitimately disturbing and my I'm feeling a boycott coming on.

peu4000 7y ago

This is just cheap twitter advertising -- the only thing different about this(from Wendy's twitter advertising) is that Amazon is harnessing Twitter's outrage lust to get more eyeballs on their ambassador's nice words and it looks like it works. Don't interact with advertisements, folks.

pas 7y ago
It might work, but it's creepy as fuck.

settsu 7y ago

What I find most unfortunate in these situations is the number of people with a response to the effect of: > "I worked at [physically-demanding job] for $n/hr [where n≤other person's/current minimum wage] and I didn't [complain/think it was that bad/die], so what is the problem?" The problem with this is: 1) In the absence of any addl. context, it's a poor means of objectively determining employee well-being. All else being equal, shouldn't "we" (humans, as a species) be using an ever-increasing bar of basic well-being in context to historical norms and improvements as the measure? Besides, there's any number of factors that influence what is "reasonable" (regional cost of living, changes to inflation/buying power, an individual's capacity to work, etc.) 2) People can simultaneously feel grateful AND discouraged in their current circumstances. To be glad you have a job and to feel stung by two generations of stalled economic mobility are not mutually exclusive emotions. 3) Both sides can experience entirely sincere feelings of "rightness". That does not prove, deny, or change any underlying facts. 4) Being (AKA feeling) "right" bears little or no benefit to anyone. It means a temporary rush of dopamine and adrenaline. No ones life has usually been materially improved by that event.

wildrhythms 7y ago
>"I worked at [physically-demanding job] for $n/hr [where n≤other person's/current minimum wage] and I didn't [complain/think it was that bad/die], so what is the problem?" I call these types of comments "disciplinary blinders" (we've always done it this way...) but there's probably a better name for them. They might as well be prefixed with "back in my day..." That's aside from the fact that those comments are redirecting the conversation away from the main point, which is Amazon's questionable PR tactics.