Amazon Ends Widely Mocked Scheme That Turned Workers Into Twitter 'Ambassadors'

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Amazon has killed a program under which it paid warehouse employees to say nice things about the company on social media. "Amazon quietly shut down and removed all traces of the influence campaign at the end of last year, people with direct knowledge of the decision told the Financial Times," FT reported today. FT noted that the social media program suffered from "poor reach and embarrassing backfires."

Amazon began paying workers to tweet in 2018 in a widely mocked effort to counter negative perceptions about the company. As Business Insider reported in August 2018, "The company now has a small army of 'FC Ambassadors' saying nice things about the company online and engaging in dialogue with average Twitter users. The ambassadors are full-time employees, according to an Amazon spokesperson, and it is their job to share their experiences working at a fulfillment center."

"FC" stands for fulfillment centers, and the "ambassadors" worked in the Amazon warehouses before being paid to tweet, and in at least some cases, they split duties between the warehouse and Twitter. "I get paid $15/hr whether I am answering tweets or out on the floor stowing. I do this 2 days a week and 2 days a week I stow," one Amazon employee explained in 2019, as seen in a Bellingcat report that found 53 Amazon FC Ambassador accounts on Twitter. "The 'ambassador' program was always a laughable attempt to minimize the abuses unfolding inside Amazon warehouses," Warehouse Worker Resource Center Executive Director Sheheryar Kaoosji told the Financial Times.

I think the person who wrote this headline

[rsilvergun]

Misspelled shill.

Thing is mission accomplished. They prevented the unionization effort from going through and yeah they'll be a second vote thanks to all the shenanigans but if you know anything about how elections and voting works you know that if you have to do an election or a vote a second time it's much easier for the people in charge of everything to game.

I've said it before and I will say it again, the way you know unions work and the way you know they benefit workers is how much people like Amazon fight tooth and nail to prevent you from getting one.

Re:

[youngone]

The person quoted in the article above works for Amazon, and get paid $15 per hour, which is terrible.
You claim $18 per hour minimum, as if that is a reasonable amount to pay someone, but it is not.
Unions have only ever been good for workers, despite all the propaganda your ruling class has pumped out over the years.

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

> I've said it before and I will say it again, the way you know unions work and the way you know they benefit workers

As a former union member who actually went on strike multiple with unions, I'm not sure what you mean by this.

I'm not sure what you mean, because I'm telling you now, unions are as corrupt as any mega-corporation and any benefit to members is at best a result of coincidence in union leaders using their members as a tool to push their own personal agenda. If a union pushes for salary rises

Re:

[sonamchauhan]

This fantasy as to what unions are and how they work is driven by idealists who have never participated in them. The times I went on strike the union accepted offers that benefited the highest paid who didn't even go on strike, not the lowest paid, because it was precisely about the same cosy relationship between people at the top of unions and politicians and business leaders as it is between business leaders and politicians and so forth. Union bosses are often incredibly well paid, so even if they're not seeking kickbacks, stirring shit for the sake of it without any care about any actual outcome is a great way to pretend you give a shit whilst getting paid a lot for not really doing anything.

[ ... ]

Next time there's a dispute between unions and government watch more closely, watch how conclusions are reached, look at how it's all handled with backroom deals and the unions come out with a typically incredibly poor result but the union bosses negotiating have a massive grin on their face and spin it as a "win", that's not because they've won for you, it's because they've won for themselves.

Amazon didn't prevent unionization, unions prevented unionization, because people who have been in unions like myself, like those works, know full well what a fucking con it is and that's why unions have been in decline.

You live in a union (I am assuming you live in the US). You may as well be describing politicians and the rich. The solution in both cases is the same -- you elect people with good character to displace leaders with poor character.

I can think of only one fitting quote

[Miles_O'Toole]

"O cruel, needless misunderstanding! O stubborn, self-willed exile from the loving breast! Two gin-scented tears trickled down the sides of his nose. But it was all right, everything was all right, the struggle was finished. He had won the victory over himself. He loved Big Brother."

Problems in all warehouses...

[The New Guy 2.0]

Uh, trouble goes on in any warehouse, the difference is Amazon lets their rare stories leak out. Unions at OTHER PLACES want Amazon to unionize... union votes keep failing at Amazon.

Brain farts from the PR department

[Alain Williams]

is the source of this sort of stupidity.

They should have just hired pros

[hdyoung]

if their goal was to artificially crank up their positive internet press. There are lots of people willing to generate positive spin for $$$.

But warehouse workers are NOT the people for that. Warehouse work is blue collar, manual labor. Just because the word "amazon" is on the front of the building, and maybe there are a few more robots and the equipment is a tad shinier, that doesn't change the nature of it. We need to automate warehousing work completely out of existence if possible. Humans acting as robots on an assembly line - that was state-of-the-art 200 years ago. Now it's just crappy work better done by machines.

Re: They should have just hired pros

[Malays2 bowman]

And when that "crappy job" is the only thing between you and homelessness and losing everything, it does not seem so crappy.

Re:

[hdyoung]

Still better off done by machines. I’m all in favor of making sure that NOBODY falls through the cracks in the system, but the sooner we automate away the jobs that amount to “person does same task 20,000 times/ day” the better.

Re: They should have just hired pros

[Malays2 bowman]

"Still better off done by machines. Iâ(TM)m all in favor of making sure that NOBODY falls through the cracks in the system, but the sooner we automate away the jobs that amount to âoeperson does same task 20,000 times/ dayâ the better"

I've heard "we won't let anybody fall through the cracks" a million times, but without fail people do fall through the cracks.

I can see why employers want to automate things as soon as possible. It's become an employees job market, and bosses can

Re: They should have just hired pros

[Malays2 bowman]

I expect someone to reply with the old "horse buggy whip" argument, but the buggy whip sellers moved on to selling tires.

  Someone who did the thankless job of packing boxes has nothing new or added to the world to move on to. There is no replacing one type of product with another here.

Enough

[Malays2 bowman]

This, and the degrading "Walmart cheer", among other things.

  I expect clock in, do the work (pushing around boxes in this case), clock out.

  We really don't need any more social creep into these workplaces.

Re:

[Miles_O'Toole]

I once had the misfortune to be in a Walmart first thing in the morning, where I witnessed the "Walmart Cheer". It is not a pleasant thing to watch people have a measure of their dignity stolen by a vile little man in a shirt and tie.

Re: Enough

[Malays2 bowman]

Supposedly it's to "boost morale", yada yada.

  Except, I imagine the employees feel like they are in the "special school", and being forced to do a corporate mandated silly dance (or else!) drafted up by some anonymous suit sitting around somewhere at HQ does not make this any better.

Worse than who or what?

[clay_buster]

Taking a bit of the contrarian view here will get me abused let's try anyway. I do not work for and have never been employed by Amazon.

Amazon is far from the worst in that space. They pay a higher wage than most with full benefits immediately. In the US that is a big deal. They don't play the 26 hours per week game that Target or some of the retailers do. Amazon has a promotion path. They used to have a good stock program that set up early workers for retirement. They have a tuition program. They have

Re:

[King_TJ]

I'd agree that they're far from the "worst in their space", especially if you're focusing on the warehouse portion of the business.

But with them, it really falls apart because the management team is only one of multiple layers of management involved. You might have a great manager at your particular warehouse, but he or she probably answers to 5 more layers of management above them. It's always someone in that upper-middle strata of managers there who is out of touch with what the daily job is like, and jus

Quite a task

[NadNad]

"removed all traces" from the internet? Good luck with that.