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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 actua

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.
PhasmaFelis 7y ago
They're clearly not literal bots, but they're just as clearly following a loose corporate script while claiming it's their own honest opinion.
deckar01 7y ago
One comment pointed out that they often tweet via an app called Sprinklr. They are probably real employees being randomly assigned tweets that need user engagement. Sprinklr is a social media advertising service. Paying employees to tweet about their employer is advertisement.
gvx 7y ago
Not "chat bots", "bots". Which is a bit of a misnomer but has come to mean astroturf accounts on Twitter. A single person or a small group of people manages a large number of social media accounts in order to pretend to represent a certain group of people. Because so many accounts are managed by so few people (whose full-time job it is to engage with others online to try and change their mind), these accounts tend to not have distinguishable voices or viewpoints, when you're talking to one it's like talking to a robot, or, like the linked tweet says, to the borg.
tyingq 7y ago
It's employees that like sitting down answering tweets two days a week versus busting their ass in the warehouse.
albedoa 7y ago
> To me the FCA's came off like normal human beings Oh come on, this is contrarianism for the sake of contrarianism. The overwhelming consensus is that their behavior is bizarre.
wildrhythms 7y ago
>I see people saying they are 'chat bots'; any evidence of this other than people's general feeling? https://twitter.com/TheKenChilds/status/1161847717397696512 https://twitter.com/TheKenChilds/status/1161847717397696512 https://twitter.com/null_fruit/status/1161992893957099520 https://twitter.com/null_fruit/status/1161992893957099520

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.

PhasmaFelis 7y ago

They're clearly not literal bots, but they're just as clearly following a loose corporate script while claiming it's their own honest opinion.

deckar01 7y ago

One comment pointed out that they often tweet via an app called Sprinklr. They are probably real employees being randomly assigned tweets that need user engagement. Sprinklr is a social media advertising service. Paying employees to tweet about their employer is advertisement.

gvx 7y ago

Not "chat bots", "bots". Which is a bit of a misnomer but has come to mean astroturf accounts on Twitter. A single person or a small group of people manages a large number of social media accounts in order to pretend to represent a certain group of people. Because so many accounts are managed by so few people (whose full-time job it is to engage with others online to try and change their mind), these accounts tend to not have distinguishable voices or viewpoints, when you're talking to one it's like talking to a robot, or, like the linked tweet says, to the borg.

tyingq 7y ago

It's employees that like sitting down answering tweets two days a week versus busting their ass in the warehouse.

albedoa 7y ago

> To me the FCA's came off like normal human beings Oh come on, this is contrarianism for the sake of contrarianism. The overwhelming consensus is that their behavior is bizarre.

wildrhythms 7y ago

>I see people saying they are 'chat bots'; any evidence of this other than people's general feeling? https://twitter.com/TheKenChilds/status/1161847717397696512 https://twitter.com/TheKenChilds/status/1161847717397696512 https://twitter.com/null_fruit/status/1161992893957099520 https://twitter.com/null_fruit/status/1161992893957099520