
Amazon is paying to tweet nice things about warehouse working conditions - kerng
https://www.businessinsider.de/amazon-employs-people-to-tweet-positively-about-warehouse-conditions-2018-8?r=US&IR=T
======
camtarn
Previous discussion (same tweets, different news article):

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17831943](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17831943)

~~~
akshatpradhan
Yeah but all of a sudden this new title seems waaay more interesting
considering the recent journalist describing his experience working as an
Amazon Flex Driver. Just saying.

------
walterbell
How is this different from "influencers" who are required to disclose when
they are paid to advertise a product on social media?

Amazon should be subject to the same disclosure requirement, which would
negate the value of the tweets, which may remove the need for their employees
to be put into this position.

[https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/press-
releases/2017/04/ftc-s...](https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/press-
releases/2017/04/ftc-staff-reminds-influencers-brands-clearly-disclose)

 _> The FTC’s Endorsement Guides provide that if there is a “material
connection” between an endorser and an advertiser – in other words, a
connection that might affect the weight or credibility that consumers give the
endorsement – that connection should be clearly and conspicuously disclosed,
unless it is already clear from the context of the communication. A material
connection could be a business or family relationship, monetary payment, or
the gift of a free product. Importantly, the Endorsement Guides apply to both
marketers and endorsers ... consumers viewing Instagram posts on mobile
devices typically see only the first three lines of a longer post unless they
click “more,” which many may not do. The staff’s letters informed recipients
that when making endorsements on Instagram, they should disclose any material
connection above the “more” button._

~~~
mirimir
Their account names begin with "Amazon", so it's pretty obvious, no?

@AmazonFCPhil

@AmazonFCShaye

@AmazonFCLeo

~~~
ErikVandeWater
Counterpoint: Some people really like Xbox or have followers who like Xbox so
they put Xbox in their twitter account name. It does not mean they work for
Xbox. @AmazonFCPhil could be looking to connect with other people interested
in Amazon. Names on twitter aren't enough to determine where someone works.

~~~
cm2012
They also clearly say they work for Amazon in their titles and descriptions.

~~~
coldtea
How does that solve the problem? It's Amazon employees tweeting good things
about "warehouse working conditions".

That gives more legitimacy to their paid for BS for those reading it, not
less.

("If the very people who work at Amazon say it's good working conditions, then
it must be good")

~~~
cm2012
They post facts about working conditions. Quoting someone else:

"Tweet: Hello! Amazon does pay their employees minimum wage - any less would
be illegal One thing that often gets overlooked are the employee benefits that
Amazon provides for all employees - Health insurance, 401K, career/financial
counseling.

Amazon pays minimum wage is a factual statement. Minimum wage is not a good
wage for the job but its still factual. You either offer them health
insurance, 401K, counseling or you dont. I would say that's also a factual
statement. Whether or not you agree with it is your decision but actually
having transparent facts is refreshing these days."

~~~
coldtea
"Transparent facts" from the "ambassadors"? If only.

They can speak of "employee benefits that Amazon provides for all employees"
because "all employees" only includes a tiny part of their warehouse workers
-- those that are actually employees.

The rest?

"Technically, Amazon does not hire the workers in its warehouses. Instead,
temporary staffing agencies with names like Integrity Staffing Solutions
handle the process of interviewing and hiring workers in Amazon's distribution
centers. This is a method by which Amazon insulates itself from issues
involving unemployment insurance and worker compensation; officially, the
temps don't work for Amazon, they work for the temp agency."

Among tons of other hellish practices (like micro-measuring their position
with GPS trackers, forbidding bathroom breaks, arbitrary raised quotas,
demerit points for discipline, and so on...

------
cm2012
This honestly seems like a pretty wholesome form of marketing to me.

Have customer service reps clearly label themselves as such (All of these guys
have "Amazon FC Ambassador" in their name, username, and profile, it's not
hidden.)

Have reps look for false statements about Amazon.

Reps correct false statement with facts.

It's literally adding truth and facts to the world in a transparent way.

~~~
themoonbus
It's good they're transparent, but are you arguing that whatever the reps say
is inherently truthful because Amazon is transparent about their role?

I don't consider paid statements to be a good indicator of anything except
that Amazon is trying out different PR tactics.

~~~
cm2012
I'm saying everything they're saying appears to be factual, and also that they
are transparent.

~~~
zzzcpan
In the article there is an example of a tweet talking about great working
conditions. Which is not factual.

~~~
tylerhou
Source?

~~~
themoonbus
Undercover reporting and a survey of 241 workers: [https://www.inc.com/marcel-
schwantes/whats-it-really-like-wo...](https://www.inc.com/marcel-
schwantes/whats-it-really-like-working-for-amazon-a-survey-of-241-warehouse-
employees-says-its-toxic-one-called-it-worse-than-prison.html)

It's not the most comprehensive data, but I would put more stock in this than
in paid tweets from employees.

If they really wanted to address the issue in a transparent way, why not
conduct some independent research and release results to the public? E.g. an
anonymous survey of a representative sample of warehouse workers.

~~~
tylerhou
I mean, that's a survey of one warehouse. I'm not sure if there's enough
information to conclude that all Amazon warehouses have terrible working
conditions.

~~~
themoonbus
That's why I said it's not the most comprehensive. However, there have been
multiple investigative reports. Enough to make it a pattern. And again, nearly
anything is a better source of truth than tweets by employees paid to tweet
positive things, which was my original point.

~~~
tylerhou
Your original point was that the claim that "Amazon working conditions are
great" is not factual, i.e. your original point was "Amazon working conditions
are not great". I don't see any mention that "paid tweets from employees are
not the best source of truth" in your original comment.

I agree that we should take paid tweets by employees with a large grain of
salt, but I also want to point out that you likewise have essentially 0
evidence that they're not telling the truth, apart from random surveys and a
few investigative reports, most of which are about warehouses halfway around
the world.

I think it's import to remember that, like Amazon, journalists also like to
appeal to a certain narrative (how often do they report about the amount of
Good Amazon has done for the world?).

A pattern of a few (potentially based) data points is hardly a pattern.

~~~
themoonbus
Tweets by paid employees don't count as data points. And yes, I do consider
multiple investigative reports finding similar issues throughout the world to
be a pattern

[https://www.theverge.com/2018/4/16/17243026/amazon-
warehouse...](https://www.theverge.com/2018/4/16/17243026/amazon-warehouse-
jobs-worker-conditions-bathroom-breaks)

[https://www.cnbc.com/2018/07/16/amazon-prime-day-
threatened-...](https://www.cnbc.com/2018/07/16/amazon-prime-day-threatened-
by-strikes-at-european-warehouses.html)

[https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/jul/30/accidents...](https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/jul/30/accidents-
at-amazon-workers-left-to-suffer-after-warehouse-injuries)

[https://www.cbsnews.com/news/inside-an-amazon-warehouse-
trea...](https://www.cbsnews.com/news/inside-an-amazon-warehouse-treating-
human-beings-as-robots/)

[https://www.bbc.com/news/business-25034598](https://www.bbc.com/news/business-25034598)

------
tareqak
Isn't the fact that Amazon is going to these lengths to control the narrative
suggestive that even they themselves consider this issue to be a sufficiently
serious problem such that an investigation by a regulatory body (e.g.
Department of Labor) would actually find something. I think the appropriate
saying would be "where there is smoke, there is fire"?

------
nicodjimenez
Amazon has a "we don't like to overpay" attitude about everything that makes
it hard for them to increase wages in their fulfillment centers.

They want even their white collar employees to have blue collar mindsets in
terms of work ethic and cutting costs to benefit customers. If they could
magically increase the wages of the FC employees and have no adverse
consequences other than a slightly smaller profit margin, they might consider
it, as it would be great PR for them. The problem would be that it would
encourage employees to complain about working too hard and how they "deserve"
to be paid more. The risk of employees trying to unionize might even go up.

Amazon cares a lot more about customers than employees, and the truth is most
customers don't really care about where their products came from. When people
go to a restaurant, they don't ask how much the line looks or dishwashers get
paid, they just want good food.

~~~
troupe
I think most people that go into a restaurant assume that just as they were
not coerced into buying a meal, the employees chose to work there from their
available employment options.

------
legohead
Amazon has the reputation of being terrible to work for, even as a software
engineer. "It pays well, but work is hell" is the sentiment I get after
interviewing developers from Amazon.

At this point I don't know what they can do with the reputation. Just roll
with it and accept it.

------
sincerely
It's weird that the person who originally found the accounts thought they were
bots - how advanced do people think chatbots are?

~~~
freehunter
You might be surprised at what the state of the art is in very limited fields
like this. They wouldn't be able to engage in back-and-forth, but seeing a
tweet that says "@amazon just pay your workers more", a bot can churn out a
response of "Did you know that Amazon pays warehouse workers 30% more than
other retailers?" pretty easily. One human just writes 1,000 responses and
maps them to various keywords. Scan for those keywords and pick a response
that fits the keywords best and boom, done. Completely automated.

~~~
aisofteng
Using keywords isn’t accurate enough; you’d use a classifier for this.

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jacob9706
Just another reason not to ever work for Amazon...

------
rev_jones
Judging by the comments in this thread I think people just want to be angry at
Amazon. I don't think I would want to work for an Amazon fulfillment center
but most of these tweets are just facts. If you don't think these facts are
correct you should debate them and find sources to back up the claims. Amazon
wouldn't have employees do this if they weren't confident with the information
they were providing. I don't think it excuses the working conditions but I
think its good to see actual facts instead of biased information that is full
of shady wording.

------
obulpathi
Used to buy lots of things from Amazon. About couple of years ago, shifted to
buying things from Costco and it's been a great experience. Everything I get
is authentic, they only sell the best products and heard they treat their
employees nicely. I stopped doing hours of review research to find out if the
products are legit and if reviews were not fabricated.

------
ajsharp
Wow this is a tremendously bad look.

~~~
jhall1468
Yes, it's horrible that employees of Amazon, with their titles, the Amazon log
and @Amazon as their usernames are trying to hide the fact that their Amazon
employees.

5 minutes of research would tell you this isn't a bad look at all. It's public
and transparent PR.

~~~
ghostly_s
The part that looks bad is not the approach to disclosure. It's the part where
Amazon is responding to well-sourced reports of inadequate working conditions
by coercing counter-anecdata from other staff, rather than denying or refuting
the reports.

~~~
rev_jones
Perhaps its time to refute these tweets with those sources then? Have a debate
with them instead of just accepting one side of the equation.

~~~
mintplant
You expect people to "have a debate" with a paid representative barging into
their conversations? One whose paycheck depends on sticking to Amazon's side
of the issues?

[http://wondermark.com/1k62/](http://wondermark.com/1k62/)

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Rotdhizon
Is this not illegal?

~~~
CodeCube
It should be

~~~
kcbanner
How is this any different from paid reviews.

~~~
CodeCube
My comment stands, "it should be" ... a paid review is tainted from jump
street. At a very minimum, disclosure should be mandated (is this already the
case?)

~~~
jhall1468
It is disclosed. They have their titles (Amazon FC Ambassador) the Amazon box
logo and their names are all @Amazon*. It's completely transparent, which
you'd know had you read the article rather than the title.

Don't mean to sound harsh, but the amount of comments on here from people that
CLEARLY didn't read any of the article is astounding.

------
amelius
Ok, I just stopped trusting Amazon reviews.

~~~
cm2012
You could just ignore reviews posted by people named Amazon Ambassador Pete,
like these are clearly labeled.

------
zzzcpan
Isn't use of propaganda illegal in marketing pretty much anywhere in the
world?

I guess being that big means it's all about power, rules don't apply to you
anymore.

~~~
mirimir
Advertising is propaganda, almost by definition.

