Amazon is paying to tweet nice things about warehouse working conditions

https://www.businessinsider.de/amazon-employs-people-to-tweet-positively-about-warehouse-conditions-2018-8?r=US&IR=T

by kerng • 8 years ago

131 79 8 years ago

businessinsider.de

Rotdhizon• 8 years ago

Is this not illegal?

CodeCube2• 8 years ago

It should be

kcbanner• 8 years ago

How is this any different from paid reviews.

frostwhale• 8 years ago

I believe it is not illegal if they're not withholding who they are or their motivations.

lainga• 8 years ago

Well, they didn't really try to hide it.

The Twitter accounts have a standardised format, all bearing the Amazon smile logo as their background ... identical structures to their bios and the title "FC Ambassador" in their name, followed by a cardboard box emoji.

cm201211• 8 years ago

You think it's illegal for companies to transparently respond to customers and critics online?

walterbell4• 8 years ago

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...

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.

mirimir2• 8 years ago

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

@AmazonFCPhil

@AmazonFCShaye

@AmazonFCLeo

ErikVandeWater• 8 years ago

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.

walterbell4• 8 years ago

Should that be interpreted as Amazon customer service, public relations, marketing, management, warehouse workers, warehouse marketing, warehouse public relations, warehouse management or another department?

cm201211• 8 years ago

They have the words "Amazon FC Ambassador" in their title (shows with every post) and the Amazon logo in their image. That looks a lot like disclosure.

walterbell4• 8 years ago

Is there an industry standard usage of that term that is recognizable by the average social media consumer? E.g. what does "FC" mean?

If it were obvious, this story and reaction would not exist.

siruncledrew• 8 years ago

What are the penalties for violating this?

I feel like this is something that doesn't get taken seriously, as I see it violated a lot by companies of all sizes using influencers as a marketing/product awareness strategy. Especially with things like sponsored blog posts, Tweets, and Youtube reviews.

pnathan• 8 years ago

the header image is the amazon logo, in amazon colors. the name is Amazon<foo>

I think it passes the clear and conspicuous test.

coldtea6• 8 years ago

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

It's not, except a social media influencer is not a multi billion dollar company exploiting it workers, they just advertise crap to people.

That said, both practices should be banned.

drcursor• 8 years ago

Hi Walterbell, I want to contact you regarding an old thread here in HN, would you mind reaching out ? https://twitter.com/drcursor

walterbell4• 8 years ago

If you post a link here to the old thread, we can discuss there.

sincerely• 8 years ago

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

freehunter• 8 years ago

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• 8 years ago

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

xnxn• 8 years ago

Some folks use "bot" as a synonym for "sockpuppet". I wouldn't read into it too much

zzzcpan2• 8 years ago

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.

mirimir2• 8 years ago

Advertising is propaganda, almost by definition.

jmcgough• 8 years ago

There are no rules preventing them from doing this. I've seen far more (still legal) egregious astroturfing, like corporations funneling money into shell companies with vague names that campaign against soda tax etc.

jacob9706• 8 years ago

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

cm201211• 8 years ago

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.

CobrastanJorji• 8 years ago

I'm with you. If they were doing the same thing but without the labeling, it'd be much creepier in practice but much harder to notice. This is definitely better.

themoonbus7• 8 years ago

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.

cm201211• 8 years ago

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

falcolas• 8 years ago

One bit of transparency sorely missing is that these people are employed full time by Amazon's marketing division - they are not current FC employees. They are only expected to have some FC experience in their background.

A lot of folks who have worked for Amazon have FC background; even I could qualify since I helped with some Christmas rush packing back in the mid 00's (I worked at an attached call center).

txru• 8 years ago

I don't think that's the case. I work at Amazon currently, so I can see employee profiles. One of the Twitter accounts with a unique first name is the only person with that first name in the company, and she works at the FC in Florida, as her profile says. Her title is normal for an FC associate as well.

gthtjtkt• 8 years ago

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

It's literally not.

How can you call opinions about working conditions "facts"?

Even some of the objective information they post is misleading according to the article, specifically the "we pay 30% more" bit.

amelius• 8 years ago

Ok, I just stopped trusting Amazon reviews.

cm201211• 8 years ago

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

camtarn• 8 years ago

Previous discussion (same tweets, different news article):

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17831943

akshatpradhan• 8 years ago

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.

ajsharp• 8 years ago

Wow this is a tremendously bad look.

jhall14685• 8 years ago

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• 8 years ago

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.

Nasrudith• 8 years ago

The really bad look is that they are willing to pay money to sling "PR" but aren't willing to spend that money on even cheaper measures that could actually help the root problem like plopping down more watercoolers, fans and vents in the walls, or even dividing it into more breaks. That says "We are doing wrong, know it and not only don't care but we actively prefer it that way."

tareqak• 8 years ago

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"?

obulpathi• 8 years ago

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.

legohead• 8 years ago

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.

rev_jones3• 8 years ago

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.

nicodjimenez• 8 years ago

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• 8 years ago

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.

Amazon is paying to tweet nice things about warehouse working conditions

Related Stories