a similar article was up yesterday. I only think it's a problem (edit: the ethics are another story..) if these accounts aren't upfront about being employed by Amazon to do such work. The impression i got from reading yesterdays article is that this is not the case.
'Fake' Amazon workers defend company on Twitter
41–50 of 433 posts
Re: 'Fake' Amazon workers defend company on Twitter
#42Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
Somewhere in another thread someone suggested that amazon had a program and incentives for employees to represent them positively online so maybe it is just poor PR on their part. Still, these days it's hard to take anything at face value.
Re: 'Fake' Amazon workers defend company on Twitter
#43Imagine being worth 185 billion dollars and still obsessing about your workers advocating for better pay and conditions?
What a miserable existence that must be. Bezos has always struck me as a man who cares about nothing else only his own personal wealth and success.
There is no joy in his life.
Re: 'Fake' Amazon workers defend company on Twitter
#44I 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.
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.
I understand it but realized I haven't knowingly seen it. Are there any good examples of Reddit or HN comments that are not genuine? I don't do "posts", but do participate in comment sections / conversations, and would like to see some examples of conversations where one party is confirmed to be a bot or troll.
Re: 'Fake' Amazon workers defend company on Twitter
#45I 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.
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.
not being able to believe anything you see online because you know everything can be fakes isn't super healthy either.
Re: 'Fake' Amazon workers defend company on Twitter
#46Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
Somewhere in another thread someone suggested that amazon had a program and incentives for employees to represent them positively online so maybe it is just poor PR on their part. Still, these days it's hard to take anything at face value.
Yes, that's their ambassador program. But I doubt that the ambassador program would tell the members to create unverified accounts and try to pass them off as official amazon ambassador accounts.
Re: 'Fake' Amazon workers defend company on Twitter
#47Earlier quoted context omitted.
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?
Absolutely amazon. I take your point, but when fighting against a much larger organization this is exactly the kind of guerilla warfare tactic you'd need to come out ahead. This kind of information campaign is exactly the sort of thing that the internet makes accessible for groups of all sizes.
It could also be people behind the cause who aren't affiliated with either party. I think your point is worth noting, though I fully support the workers trying to unionize here.
Re: 'Fake' Amazon workers defend company on Twitter
#48Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
Essentializing all unions based on the behavior of a few of them, vs summarizing a single company's behavior who has a visible and obvious track record of breaking up unionization efforts via nefarious and underhanded tactics, are completely incomparable.
If you want snark, have some back: where did the big bad union boss touch you?
> What other explanation is there?
Hired a shoddy offshore bot-writing and astroturfing outfit who are obviously not up to the job. It's a very simple, and one of the most likely, explanations. Occam's razor comes in handy occasionally if you just take the time to think a bit.
Re: 'Fake' Amazon workers defend company on Twitter
#49This is a problem the Voice.com social platform is attempting to tackle, read more about it here: https://about.voice.com/learn-more/ . I'm not affiliated with Voice in anyway, just someone who is eagerly awaiting open registration.
Meh, social network mixed up with some sort of cryptocurrency bullshit. Hard pass from me.
Re: 'Fake' Amazon workers defend company on Twitter
#50Earlier quoted context omitted.
Might be partially true but young people with no critical thinking skills fall for it just the same.
It's easy to knock people for 'lacking critical thinking' but the truth is we're all predisposed to believe what aligns with our personalities and worldviews. And people like to harp on the idea that we should be teaching critical thinking in schools, but we already do this and we have been teaching it for decades.
> we should be teaching critical thinking in schools, but we already do this and we have been teaching it for decades.
This is news to me. What countries are you referencing?