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Amazon Uses a Twitter Army of Employees to Fight Criticism of Warehouses
- savrajsingh 7y agoI believe this article was triggered by this tweet: https://twitter.com/rulesobeyer/status/1161820065773182976?s=21 https://twitter.com/rulesobeyer/status/1161820065773182976?s...
- MiloPerkins 7y agoDamn...Diana ripping them a new one
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- komali2 7y agoThat's like a god damned parody. A new response every time from a happy smiling human face. It's ok, Diana, we just want the truth to be heard, Diana, why don't you believe us Diana, I am treated well at work Diana, I am not beaten when I misbehave. Join us Diana. Join us and be free. Edit: oh my God. I made up the beatings comment on the spot. But one of the borg actually said something like this https://twitter.com/antipoetry/status/1162028572929855488?s=20 https://twitter.com/antipoetry/status/1162028572929855488?s=... Edit2: oh whew obvious parody. Hilarious, nearly fell for it!
- brocket 7y agoHis account is violating Twitter's impersonation policy. https://help.twitter.com/en/rules-and-policies/twitter-impersonation-policy https://help.twitter.com/en/rules-and-policies/twitter-imper... > The profile clearly states it is not affiliated with or connected to any similarly-named individuals or brands.
- detuur 7y agoWhat's Twitter's policy on using fake accounts with stock picture avatars for openly astroturfing?
- robjan 7y agoIt's hard to know what's real and fake. Some of the FC Ambassadors are definitely satire accounts.
- anonymousab 7y agoThe more 'real' looking ones seem to be through some application called Sprinklr.
- UperSpaceGuru 7y agoI was amused at how quickly sprinklr picked up my tweet with the word amazon in it, I got a canned response in minutes & actual human contact within a day. https://twitter.com/ahmedrezat/status/1162081845170671616?s=21 https://twitter.com/ahmedrezat/status/1162081845170671616?s=... Update: FYI, my qualm wasn’t about AmazonFCs, but seeing the business end of Amazon try to put a distressed driver back on the road immediately after a very serious accident. The person who contacted me from Amazon told me that the driver was not put back on driving duty that day (so at least someone paid attention). So it’s not all negative.
- 2_listerine_pls 7y ago> Bezos ain't paying me a dime to say I like my job. Instead, I get paid for my effort to educate others about how wonderful it is.
- kl4m 7y agoRelated: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20704138 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20704138
- ilikehurdles 7y agoCompanies have been doing this for at least the last 8 years, just based on my own experience working for a company that provided a solution in this space. Amazon isn’t unique or even remotely the first. They’re just using one of those social media reputation dashboards to manage complaints and support issues before they go viral online.
- sak5sk 7y agoIndeed, solutions for all needs. For example, presidential elections. Tweetattackspro, buyaccs.com anti-captcha.com https://www.thedailybeast.com/i-bought-a-russian-bot-army-for-under-dollar100 https://www.thedailybeast.com/i-bought-a-russian-bot-army-fo... Anyone can start this up. Just get some bitcoin ready.
- Bayart 7y ago>Companies have been doing this for at least the last 8 years Eight years ? To me they just look like good old strikebreakers in a modern context. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strikebreaker https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strikebreaker
- cryptozeus 7y agoI was waiting to see how long it will take for media to find the tweet thread and publish as news. Man what a world we live in.
- Deimorz 7y agoI think this article from bellingcat earlier today is better overall: https://www.bellingcat.com/news/americas/2019/08/15/amazons-online-bezos-brigade-unleashed-on-twitter/ https://www.bellingcat.com/news/americas/2019/08/15/amazons-... Here's the list of account names using Sprinklr that was mentioned in the NYT article: https://twitter.com/AlexBNewhouse/status/1162036960027742209 https://twitter.com/AlexBNewhouse/status/1162036960027742209
- WaxProlix 7y agoThere's a bit to go through here - and I agree Amazon employees are largely treated poorly (I work at amazon and lament the fact more or less daily) but this is linking to some parody accounts. Let's talk about real issues, like how Bezos could end hunger in the US and still be the richest man in the world. Or keep focusing on the weird customer-antagonistic inferior chinese trash importing campaign that's been ongoing for the last few years. This looks like a bunch of joke tweeters that got caught in each others' schticks.
- wildrhythms 7y ago>This looks like a bunch of joke tweeters that got caught in each others' schticks. Amazon PR email to bellingcat.com confirms that the ambassador program is real: https://www.bellingcat.com/news/americas/2019/08/15/amazons-online-bezos-brigade-unleashed-on-twitter/ https://www.bellingcat.com/news/americas/2019/08/15/amazons-...
- WaxProlix 7y agoI mean, yeah it's real - that's not under suspicion. Is Jordan - Amazon FC Ambassador (with a free stock photo as his avatar) real? Replying to "I also am required to enjoy things. I like laughing and having fun. It is agreeable to me." with "I like smiling!" Or "Post literally anything from this account if you're being forced to do so against your will by your boss." with "My boss is awesome! He’s great. I asked him if I could do this and he said sure!" all seems really tongue-firmly-in-cheek.
- Jerry2 7y agoWhenever I see a news story about Amazon workers and robots, I'm reminded of Amazon's "workers in a cage" patent [1]. It has spawned a bunch of funny (or sad?) "Amazon Wagie Cage" memes as a result [2][3]... and even an art exhibit of a real-sized patent drawing [4]. Needless to say, I shop a lot less on Amazon these days and try to buy from other shops whenever possible. [1] https://www.seattletimes.com/business/amazon/amazon-has-patented-a-system-that-would-put-workers-in-a-cage-on-top-of-a-robot/ https://www.seattletimes.com/business/amazon/amazon-has-pate... [2] https://i.imgur.com/QGeNley.png https://i.imgur.com/QGeNley.png [3] https://i.imgur.com/LuEpNL4.jpg https://i.imgur.com/LuEpNL4.jpg [4] https://i.imgur.com/EhoEHqG.jpg https://i.imgur.com/EhoEHqG.jpg
- cperciva 7y agoAmazon's "workers in a cage" patent You do realize that the cage is there to protect the worker, right? If you think "worker in a cage, on top of a robot" is terrible, have you ever seen a construction crane? It is literally a robot with a cage in which a worker sits -- and just like the (never implemented!) patent from Amazon, the point of the cage is to protect the worker.
- im3w1l 7y agoHaving a comfy chair instead of a metal bench and glass instead of wire net makes cranes look a lot nicer than that concept art.
- iamaelephant 7y ago
- lacker 7y agoThe NYT sure writes a lot of anti-Amazon stuff. I guess the Washington Post is their main competitor and it’s owned by Jeff Bezos so it makes sense.
- wildrhythms 7y agoDo you think NYT's article is inaccurate in some way?
- umeshunni 7y agoYou can be biased without being inaccurate.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- wilg 7y agoYou can also be biased without it being a bad thing.
- inflatableDodo 7y agoI am biased towards hot chocolate and duvet nests and against TV programs presented by people with sunglasses on the top of their head. Am I a monster?
- pochamago 7y agoI think they do a poor job of considering more than one viewpoint on some issues. Even on issues that only have one correct answer, I expect nominally neutral outlets to help me understand the thought process driving the people I disagree with, instead of being forced to conjure strawmen
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- harry8 7y ago
- sn41 7y agoThere's this tweet that I find strange. One side effect of the oversold mindfulness-stoicism outlook is that people do not raise genuine concerns and instead say "the problem is within me, I just need to breathe right": https://twitter.com/AmazonFCHannah/status/1161910397336768512 https://twitter.com/AmazonFCHannah/status/116191039733676851...
- wpietri 7y agoIt reminds me of a favorite quote: “It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends on his not understanding it.” -- Upton Sinclair A genre I used to read a lot of is the cult escapee autobiography. Humans are incredibly good at believing whatever they need to believe to get by. And, presumably as with Amazon, there's a strong selection bias. The people who won't blame themselves like this don't work at Amazon for long, and if they do, they don't get selected to be "ambassadors". The first step for which is surely a "thank you sir may I have another" relationship [1] with their boss. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qdFLPn30dvQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qdFLPn30dvQ
- moksly 7y agoI recently watched a Danish documentary about Israel, it’s a whole series on the Middle East, and one of the things they talked about in it was how Israel is never in the Danish media for anything positive. That same day I read an article about the youngest Dane to visit every country in the world, something he finished recently, talk about how there is peace and security in every country if you go to the right places. Now this is anecdotal of course, but it does seem extremely rare to see a positive story about Israel, and positive stories about minor countries around the world don’t exist. Small countries only make the news when some warlord does something horrendous, there is an outbreak of some terrible disease or climate change is sinking their country. You may be wondering what my point is, but maybe the media brought this on themselves? I’m as appalled as you are by Amazon workers wearing diapers, and I personally think the way they utilise the gig-economy to avoid giving workers rights is bordering wage-slavery (I’m a socialist Dane, so I hope you’ll forgive me for that), but Amazon is a huge company and I’m betting a lot of people there are genuinely happy. Imagine being those people. I work in public sector digitalisation, I think I know a thing or two about how it feels when everyone has a negative opinion on what you do. I makes you want to post like these Amazon employees, especially because onlookers almost never have a clue about actually what’s going on because the world is way too complicated to fit into a few 3-6 paragraph articles on the web.
- AlexMuir 7y agoI think you’ve been downvoted here because there isn’t really a clear point to your comment. Perfectly written but having read I don’t know what you are actually saying.
- moksly 7y agoI was trying to say, that maybe the media is seeing this backlash, not because of some Amazon marketing army, but instead because a lot of people are genuinely happy working for Amazon.
- skinnymuch 7y agoIf they wanted to do any of this, why are they only posting while getting paid, lying about who they are (many accounts have various different names used), and have limited guidelines on what they can say?
- drawkbox 7y agoNearly all entities in products and politics astroturf heavily. In the end it is a massive critical thinking lesson and adds much needed skepticism to the populace. The truth is the internet is teaching the biggest lesson ever in critical thinking and getting your information from many sources across spectrums, individuals, companies, countries, divides and more. Let's hope that people see it as a lesson and not somewhere they can bask in their confirmation bias all day, or make decisions based on fear, in those cases the populace is easy to manipulate.
- westoque 7y ago> Let's hope that people see it as a lesson and not somewhere they can bask in their confirmation bias all day While I agree that internet does teach critical thinking, it's also the the most dangerous. If you watch a video of Alex Jones on YouTube for example, I bet the recommendation engine would feed you similar items and would ultimately feed your confirmation bias. The machine learning is optimized for engagement and not necessarily to give you other views/perspectives.
- lacampbell 7y agoThe truth is the internet is teaching the biggest lesson ever in critical thinking and getting your information from many sources across spectrums, individuals, companies, countries, divides and more. I just did a quick check: 5% of the top 100 submissions on hacker news right now are from one information source - The New York Times. Hacker news does have some technical content as well, so the percentage would be higher if we only count political submissions.
- buyx 7y agoIt’s great to talk about lessons in critical thinking for sophisticated first-world countries, but in third-world, poorly educated countries, people with poor literacy are being exposed to a firehose of propaganda. The critical thinking lessons you mention are likely to come at the price of a massive loss of human life.
- iamaelephant 7y ago
- tiagobraw 7y agomost of these Twitter accounts are parody accounts, Amazon has the embassador program but don't believe in every thing you read on Twitter
- thomasz 7y agoThe parody accounts are pretty obvious. The really disturbing stuff comes from the real ones.
- hooande 7y agoDo we know if this is a corporate social media team, or actual employees who volunteered? Many of the accounts claim to be warehouse workers. It's rare for a major corporation to lie about something like that so blatantly. I imagine that amazon employees didn't like the bad rep their company was getting for working conditions, and volunteered to respond on social media in an organized way. IF this is the case, then media organizations probably shouldn't be attacking them
- alanbernstein 7y agoI imagine... Not that.
- Topgamer7 7y agoIf you read through the chain of tweets. There is one account that says "I'm Michelle", from a non-Michelle account.
- iamaelephant 7y agoIf you read the actual article you'll find this is a common theme.
- mbrameld 7y agoSupposedly it's normal warehouse employees that can opt to spend a portion of their shift responding to tweets. They're still getting paid their normal wage while they do this, and supposedly they're not provided with taking points, but their responses are universally positive. My guess is that it they were critical of Amazon while they're doing it then they probably won't be doing it much longer.
- anonymousab 7y agoIt is somewhat more likely that the employees are doing it for the gift card and paid day(s?) off instead of any particular exemplary loyalty and love for their employer.
- calcifer 7y ago
- ramphastidae 7y agoReading the Amazon employees’ responses in the Twitter thread made me feel physically ill. It’s pure propaganda, straight out of Russia’s 2016 playbook. If companies like Amazon will dominate in the future I don’t want to have kids.
- wastman 7y agoI seriously doubt there's anything remotely grassroots about this. I find it unlikely that Amazon is lying about the fact that the employees running these twitter accounts are low level, but I also find it hard to believe that they wouldn't be instantly taken off for going off script. Also notice that each tweet is sent out by sprinklr.
- AlexDragusin 7y ago"Amazon FC Ambassadors" seriously? Reminds me of the missionaries carrying bibles, in this case spreading the Lord Bezos word.
- heimatau 7y agoI've seen Amazon's sponsored tweets on Twitter. Didn't realize they are going so hard to work on their public image.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- MikeGale 7y agoI don't really see the issue. These appear to be real humans. I see so many fake accounts, sock puppets etc. just about any place I look, that I just accept that to not be an idiot myself I need to spend time thinking through everything. I don't understand writing that seems to assume that anybody, or their analysis, can be automatically believed.
- nerder92 7y agoI'm wondering how this even makes sense from a PR prospective. Workers (?) that are paid for talking good about their employer? What's the interesting bit here?