Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

'Fake' Amazon workers defend company on Twitter

bbc.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 433 posts

Re: 'Fake' Amazon workers defend company on Twitter

#21

Post by oh_sigh »

darkerside wrote: post #19
amelius wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quotes are not the appropriate tool to denote uncertainty.

It is a way to indicate that you are not asserting the label, somebody else is. So it is actually a very useful way to indicate uncertainty. Amazon has deep pockets, and people don't want to be sued.

Amazon's own spokesperson called them fake. From the article:

> “It appears that this is a fake account that violates Twitter’s terms,” the spokesperson said. “We’ve asked Twitter to investigate and take appropriate action.”

Re: 'Fake' Amazon workers defend company on Twitter

#23

Post by kleer001 »

seneca wrote: post #8
skohan wrote: post #3

I feel like authenticity of online communication is an unsolved problem. The web was supposed to be a democratizing platform: all you need to communicate with the world is an ISP and a keyboard. But if there's no way to control for authenticity, online sentiment will just be an arms race for who can pay for the best astroturfing.

Disagreed. Authenticity is incompatible with Anonymity. All the surveillance companies would love to tell you you can authenticate your identity with them and be anonymous elsewhere, but they, and Governments, are the exact entities we should be hiding out identities from. People need to be trained to be skeptical of voices online.

I agree with your main point.

> People need to be trained

But, hmmm, I don't think a call for education is a solution. That's basically whack-a-mole. Stupid people are born every minute, there's no stopping stupid. Better to put bumpers on them and keep the rest of us safe.

Re: 'Fake' Amazon workers defend company on Twitter

#24

Post by tablespoon »

This old TechCrunch article from 2018 (https://techcrunch.com/2018/08/23/what-is-this-weird-twitter...) posted at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26636153 has a former "Amazon Ambassador" actually explain that job:

> An actual former ambassador and three year Florida warehouse veteran Chris Grantham explained it in more detail to Yahoo Finance’s Krystal Hu, who shared the information with TechCrunch:

>> When I was there they just got an extra paid day off and a gift card after Peak [pre-holiday season]. This is what I got. A paid day off (that expired in 3 weeks lol) and a $50 Amazon gift card. Plus, they gave us lunch. Coldcuts and sandwich bread. I absolutely did not get paid more to train people.

>> Ambassador isn’t a ‘job’ you do every day, its just something you are trained to do. You go to a 4 hour class and they teach you how to teach others to tie a knot using a set of instructions. This is how new hires a supposed to be taught. You are supposed to teach them right from a script using a set protocol. Becoming an ambassador was a way to get out of loading trucks, or packing boxes for 10 to 12 hrs. You may ambassador 1 day then unload trucks for the next 3.

>> I stopped doing it after the first year I was there because it didn’t pay more. It’s voluntary. Your manager picks them. Generally speaking ambassadors are the “kiss asses” of the department.

> In case it isn’t obvious, Chris is no longer at Amazon and is happy to speak his mind. Thanks for helping us clear this up, Chris.

Re: 'Fake' Amazon workers defend company on Twitter

#25

Post by Bukhmanizer »

blackearl wrote: post #16
mox1 wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, and if you are somewhat tech savvy OR "grew up" on the internet (say 40 and younger) you understand this. The problem is previous generations who don't really understand this. Perhaps one angle to tackle the problem is to educate the group(s) of people who continue to believe whatever they read on Twitter, Facebook, etc.

Might be partially true but young people with no critical thinking skills fall for it just the same.

My feeling is that everyone falls for it. Maybe not to the same extent, but most of us probably only notice when we disagree with what’s being said.

Re: 'Fake' Amazon workers defend company on Twitter

#26

Post by 2pEXgD0fZ5cF »

skohan wrote: post #3

I feel like authenticity of online communication is an unsolved problem. The web was supposed to be a democratizing platform: all you need to communicate with the world is an ISP and a keyboard. But if there's no way to control for authenticity, online sentiment will just be an arms race for who can pay for the best astroturfing.

The worst is that the problem is twofold:

a) You can mobilize/pay people to astroturf and create very vocal minorities

b) You can dismiss and discredit actual movements/majorities as a)

At the same time though authenticity (as in no anonimity) is also undesirable given how the companies in charge can't be trusted with it.

Re: 'Fake' Amazon workers defend company on Twitter

#27

Post by [deleted] »

seneca wrote: post #8
skohan wrote: post #3

I feel like authenticity of online communication is an unsolved problem. The web was supposed to be a democratizing platform: all you need to communicate with the world is an ISP and a keyboard. But if there's no way to control for authenticity, online sentiment will just be an arms race for who can pay for the best astroturfing.

Disagreed. Authenticity is incompatible with Anonymity. All the surveillance companies would love to tell you you can authenticate your identity with them and be anonymous elsewhere, but they, and Governments, are the exact entities we should be hiding out identities from. People need to be trained to be skeptical of voices online.

[deleted]

Re: 'Fake' Amazon workers defend company on Twitter

#28

Post by oh_sigh »

uoaei wrote: post #20
ruste wrote: post #10

Is it possible this is some galaxy brain plan by those promoting amazon unions to undermine amazon's credibility?

Who do you think has more time and money to contribute to this kind of thing? Union organizers who are already overwhelmed just trying to reach the people they're trying to help, or the company which delivers almost everything to almost everyone and made more money than most countries' GDPs?

That's a good point. Unions have never done anything shady, they're too busy feeding the poor and rescuing kittens in trees.

Snark aside, OP never said it was the union doing it. It could just be someone outside the potential union members who just supports unions in general, or doesn't support Amazon, who is doing it.

What other explanation is there? Do you think there is some die-hard Amazon supporter who goes out of their way to generate fake profiles and then post messages that wouldn't sway anyone?

Re: 'Fake' Amazon workers defend company on Twitter

#29

Post by dralley »

ruste wrote: post #10

Is it possible this is some galaxy brain plan by those promoting amazon unions to undermine amazon's credibility?

Is it possible? Yes.

It's about as plausible as you being a galaxy brain suggesting that the unions are behind the posts in order to undermine amazon's credibility, in order to undermine the union's credibility.

Re: 'Fake' Amazon workers defend company on Twitter

#30

Post by ecnerwala »

ruste wrote: post #10

Is it possible this is some galaxy brain plan by those promoting amazon unions to undermine amazon's credibility?

What credibility has Amazon got? (The Amazon experience is typically good for a customer, but bad for an employee. My question is in that context.)
Post reply on HN