'Fake' Amazon workers defend company on Twitter • Hacker News Board

Re: 'Fake' Amazon workers defend company on Twitter

#311

Post by alienthrowaway » Tue, Mar 30, 2021, 9:23 PM UTC

cecida wrote: post #43

Imagine 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.

> 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.

On the contrary, he is probably very happy with the way things are. You may be buying into the "Just World fallacy"; there are plenty of people you may find despicable who are leading happy, fulfilling lives, by their standards.

I think the antipathy towards workers a combination of 2 things: it takes a fair amount of conceit/self-belief to dare think you can change the world (statistically speaking). The second thing is, even if you didn't start of with that mindset, success usually brings a certain post-hoc justification in the vein of "Clearly, I have been successful, therefore I'm better than most", which easily morphs into "My needs are more important; the little people are too focused on short-term goals and yet I have to compete with them for the same resources to achieve even more important goals I have planned". As someone from a low-income background, I have noticed that the more successful I have been, the less empathy I have, and I'm only middle-class. I don't know if it's because of my increasing income, increasing age, or combination of both.

Re: 'Fake' Amazon workers defend company on Twitter

#312

Post by asdff » Tue, Mar 30, 2021, 9:24 PM UTC

tgsovlerkhgsel wrote: post #247

disabled wrote: post #87

Some bots producing fake reviews on Amazon are just too funny to write off. My favorite ( https://www.amazon.com/Evaluation-Astroskin-Behavioral-Self-... ): "Wow!!!!! this product exceeded all my expectations. When I travel through space, I have always wished there was a way to measure my vital signs without bulky hardware and uncomfortable wires! Arun's project report taught me everything I needed to know about the…

What makes you think it's a bot or paid shill, not a human that found it funny that someone is selling such bullshit and making fun of that fact?

Because you can find an example of these ridiculously artificial reviews on every single product on the Amazon store.

Re: 'Fake' Amazon workers defend company on Twitter

#313

Post by asdff » Tue, Mar 30, 2021, 9:26 PM UTC

hooande wrote: post #71

No way a company with the resources of Amazon is using several day old twitter accounts with first google result profile pictures. This is the equivalent of someone spray painting "We hate workers! signed, Amazon" on a wall I don't think even twitter can verify who made those accounts because it's so easy to vpn and use google voice numbers. You can choose what to believe, though

What's not believable about that? These several day old twitter accounts with stock image profile pictures have been influencing the masses for years now on twitter. You don't need a clever deception here. People are emotional enough on issues that they never vet a source or fact check something that validates their own world view already. Making a more clever burner account would take more time and money for little benefit.

Re: 'Fake' Amazon workers defend company on Twitter

#314

Post by asdff » Tue, Mar 30, 2021, 9:31 PM UTC

SyzygistSix wrote: post #273

ruste wrote: post #10

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

Maybe I'm giving Amazon too much credit but I would think they would do a better job or more likely outsource this out to a group that would do a better job. And I'm on the side of the employees, hoping they unionize (effectively!). I'd guess it's neither Amazon or pro-union employees but rather random people trying to make Amazon look bad.

I don't think you need to do a better job to get good results with twitter/internet propaganda. No one vets their sources and hardly anyone reads past the headline. The only people up in arms on this story are people who already know Amazon is a toxic environment for the worker. People who have been sipping the Bezos Koolaid aren't going to be shaken by this, because you can't reason someone out of a position they didn't reason themselves into. It's a cheap way to amplify a message and exhaust opposition, and it works wonders as we've seen these last 5 years or so.

Re: 'Fake' Amazon workers defend company on Twitter

#315

Post by mimischi » Tue, Mar 30, 2021, 9:32 PM UTC

asdff wrote: post #312

tgsovlerkhgsel wrote: post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What makes you think it's a bot or paid shill, not a human that found it funny that someone is selling such bullshit and making fun of that fact?

Because you can find an example of these ridiculously artificial reviews on every single product on the Amazon store.

What makes you think it's a bot or paid shill, not a human that found it funny that someone is selling such bullshit and making fun of that fact?

Re: 'Fake' Amazon workers defend company on Twitter

#316

Post by asdff » Tue, Mar 30, 2021, 9:37 PM UTC

ezekg wrote: post #297

barbacoa wrote: post #196

I am looking forward to the day that twitter is nothing more than Russian bots arguing with CIA bots arguing with Chinese bots arguing with corporate shill bots. And the only people being fooled are advertisers and twitter investors.

Welcome to that day! except it's not bots as you imagined -- it's programmed people.

I read an article where Russia's Internet Research Agency learned it was easier to just take existing propaganda and memes, amplify them past the long tail of engagement with their bots, and let the racist hateful online population snowball that message organically for them.

People aren't rational, we are inherently emotional. Reason and logic need to be taught, and controlling your emotions is one of the hardest things you can do as a human. These propaganda just play into our basic primal fears of safety and the unknown at its root. It's not hard to engage with these emotions, especially if what you are sharing already goes along with this established worldview that some have, cultivated by years of past propaganda.

I'm not sure how you reset this, given so many people live in lives where they aren't exposed to other perspectives nor seek them out.

Re: 'Fake' Amazon workers defend company on Twitter

#317

Post by Ar-Curunir » Tue, Mar 30, 2021, 9:38 PM UTC

hooande wrote: post #71

No way a company with the resources of Amazon is using several day old twitter accounts with first google result profile pictures. This is the equivalent of someone spray painting "We hate workers! signed, Amazon" on a wall I don't think even twitter can verify who made those accounts because it's so easy to vpn and use google voice numbers. You can choose what to believe, though

Er this is the company that made a tweet saying "Our workers don't piss in bottles"

Re: 'Fake' Amazon workers defend company on Twitter

#318

Post by ActorNightly » Tue, Mar 30, 2021, 9:40 PM UTC

throwyetanother wrote: post #200

ActorNightly wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Imagine building a company from the ground up that is succesfull solely because it produces a lot of value to people, and yet random people on the internet still think all you care about is hoarding money and think they can make better decisions than you. Here is the summary of the issue. Firstly, pre-pandemic, unemployment was at an alltime low (and its trending that way to as places are reopening), very close to fr…

>So Bezos is doing the correct thing by being anti union. Unionization is messing with the free market, which never leads to good outcomes historically. Tell that to Sweden, with its 80% unionization rate and productivity (GDP per hour worked) at 97% of that of the United States. And since you said "historically" - it's not a recent change of affairs. In the 1970s Sweden's productivity (GDP per hour) was 90% of that…

Looking at a narrow metric like GPD/hour as support of unionzation is very selective.

Sweeden also has more homeless people per capita than US, and higher unemployment, and lower GDP/capita, and different labor laws.

Its also not really a good excersize to compare against other countries. With full analysis, you quickly get into weeds of things like cultural values, homogeneity, hysteresis in policy, all of which affect the economy.

Saying that an economic policy works in one country has no relation to whether it works in another. For example (albeit a dumb one, but it illustrates the point) - in most of EU, there aren't really 24 hour grocery stores or food places, unlike in US. Is it better to enact a policy stop economic trade in late hours, with the assumption that people are more productive if they have time with their families, or would you rather have a free market that allows the night owls to make money if they want to?

The answer is that it solely depends on the population. General labor class with more traditional values would probably prefer the former. Younger techies that aren't concerned with families and love what they do and willingly work into later hours would prefer the latter. E.t.c and so on.

Re: 'Fake' Amazon workers defend company on Twitter

#319

Post by ActorNightly » Tue, Mar 30, 2021, 9:41 PM UTC

marricks wrote: post #187

Matticus_Rex wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do you assume it's people leaving because of cruel conditions and not people being fired, especially given that they're open about firing lots of people and encouraging many to quit? They don't hide the ball on that.

Do they create high turn over because they’re selecting for the best people to exploit? It’s a gestalt, you can see it two ways and I have no clue why someone would want to see it as a “good practice” unless that view was beneficial to their job and career advancement.

Exploit is a loaded word. Employment is fully at will. And again, 3% unemployment rate.

Re: 'Fake' Amazon workers defend company on Twitter

#320

Post by ActorNightly » Tue, Mar 30, 2021, 9:42 PM UTC

marricks wrote: post #173

ActorNightly wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Imagine building a company from the ground up that is succesfull solely because it produces a lot of value to people, and yet random people on the internet still think all you care about is hoarding money and think they can make better decisions than you. Here is the summary of the issue. Firstly, pre-pandemic, unemployment was at an alltime low (and its trending that way to as places are reopening), very close to fr…

Amazon warehouses have a far, far, higher turn over rate than other warehouses, probably because the conditions are so cruel. It’s really sad how many people get super invested in defending mega corporations. I hope it’s just employees trying to move up but you never know. https://labor411.org/411-blog/warehouse-worker-turnover-rate...

>Amazon warehouses have a far, far, higher turn over rate than other warehouses

True

>probably because the conditions are so cruel.

Ugh, thats the crap I am talking about in the last sentence of my original post.

There is nothing wrong with high turnover at a minimum wage manual labor job. Amazon hires seasonal workers that happily work overtime for $30 and then quit. Nobody is making a career out of being a warehouse associate.