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Amazon Uses a Twitter Army of Employees to Fight Criticism of Warehouses

nytimes.com

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Re: Amazon Uses a Twitter Army of Employees to Fight Criticism of Warehouses

#41

Post by wpietri »

sn41 wrote: post #12

There'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/116191039733676851...

It 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

Re: Amazon Uses a Twitter Army of Employees to Fight Criticism of Warehouses

#42

Post by [deleted] »

Jerry2 wrote: post #9

Whenever 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/ama…

[deleted]

Re: Amazon Uses a Twitter Army of Employees to Fight Criticism of Warehouses

#43

Post by calcifer »

hooande wrote: post #19

Do 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 m…

So you really imagine a bunch of lowest paid blue collar workers came together, out of the goodness of their hearts, to help the richest man alive improve his company's public image?

Re: Amazon Uses a Twitter Army of Employees to Fight Criticism of Warehouses

#44

Post by WaxProlix »

wildrhythms wrote: post #14
WaxProlix wrote: post #8

There'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 ongoi…

>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-...

I 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.

Re: Amazon Uses a Twitter Army of Employees to Fight Criticism of Warehouses

#45

Post by wpietri »

lacker wrote: post #11

The 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.

That's conspiracy thinking. The NYT covers a lot of negative stuff about a lot of prominent companies because it's interesting to readers. You haven't even demonstrated that Amazon gets coverage out of proportion to its scale [1], let alone that it's unduly negative. And if you did, you still wouldn't have any evidence that it's part of some sort of high-level conspiracy.

[1] Which is huge; they're #5 on the Fortune 500 and employ 647,000 people: https://fortune.com/fortune500/2019/amazon-com

Re: Amazon Uses a Twitter Army of Employees to Fight Criticism of Warehouses

#46

Post by thomasz »

tiagobraw wrote: post #18

most of these Twitter accounts are parody accounts, Amazon has the embassador program but don't believe in every thing you read on Twitter

The parody accounts are pretty obvious. The really disturbing stuff comes from the real ones.

Re: Amazon Uses a Twitter Army of Employees to Fight Criticism of Warehouses

#47

Post by inflatableDodo »

wilg wrote: post #28
umeshunni wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can be biased without being inaccurate.

You can also be biased without it being a bad thing.

I 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?

Re: Amazon Uses a Twitter Army of Employees to Fight Criticism of Warehouses

#48

Post by pochamago »

calcifer wrote: post #43
hooande wrote: post #19

Do 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 m…

So you really imagine a bunch of lowest paid blue collar workers came together, out of the goodness of their hearts, to help the richest man alive improve his company's public image?

I can. There are a lot of Amazon employees. Many are probably happy with their job and unhappy to be constantly told that they shouldn't be. I think that I would personally be annoyed by all the think pieces unilaterally claiming that the job I chose was a sucker's game and I'm too dumb to realize, especially since Amazon is distinctly better than average as warehouse jobs go

Re: Amazon Uses a Twitter Army of Employees to Fight Criticism of Warehouses

#49

Post by AlexMuir »

moksly wrote: post #15

I 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 place…

I 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.

Re: Amazon Uses a Twitter Army of Employees to Fight Criticism of Warehouses

#50

Post by pochamago »

wildrhythms wrote: post #13
lacker wrote: post #11

The 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.

Do you think NYT's article is inaccurate in some way?

I 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
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