Internal Amazon documents show that the caller ’s widely - deride Twitter “ ambassadors ” program was intended to be a dissimilar sorting of laugh riot , according to the Intercept .
Multiple Amazon executives on Twitter , as well as the company ’s @AmazonNews , went weirdly aggro on the site last weekahead of a conjugation voteat a fellowship warehouse in Alabama . Amazon - affiliate business relationship sent out tweet mocking Sens . Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren , while @AmazonNews tweeted to Rep. Mark Pocan with the doubt , “ You do n’t really believe the peeing in bottle affair , do you ? ” ( Beyond numerousmedia accounts , confidential Amazon documentsshow the company is well aware some employees palpate pressured into piss or even pooping outside a can . )
https://gizmodo.com/amazon-execs-apparently-need-to-see-some-pee-pics-1846554400
The Amazon warehouse in Bessemer, Alabama, where workers have cast votes on whether to unionize.Photo: Patrick T. Fallon/AFP (Getty Images)
The strong-growing tonewas reportedlyat theurging ofCEO and world ’s richest military man Jeff Bezos , whose scheme of shit - talking legislator proved perhaps not as relatable to the common man as he might have consider . It was n’t even relatable to Amazon ’s own corporate security chuds , who conceive the tweet were so uncanny they sent memo warning they thought @AmazonNewsmight have been hacked .
Meanwhile , another part of Amazon ’s PR strategy — deploying an army of suspicious Amazon fulfillment center employees on Twitter to explain why they love working for the company so much — locomote just as ill . First make in 2019 but apparently reactivate ahead of the jointure ballot , Amazon ’s lagger swarm has always get off asdisingenuous capitalist doubletalkfrom obvious industrial plant . AsMotherboard reported , the “ FC ambassador ” cadre appears to have been overwhelmed in late weeks by far big number of parody accounts . This made it nearly out of the question for Twitter and the general world to distinguish who really influence for Amazon and who did n’t , and it ’s banned waves of account claiming to be warehouse employees in late hebdomad .
Amazon evidently intended this to go differently . A10 - page documentobtained by the Intercept on the FC ambassador plan , see 2018 , throw off details on the genesis of this clumsy effort at a psyop . The program sum-up include in the papers explain that it would take the mannequin of a coordinated effort to have “ empowered ” Amazon warehouse workers with tenure “ speak in the first individual about their own experiences working in Amazon FCs and coiffe the record directly — leave no lie unchallenged ” :
To sell these all existent and honest anecdote from authorize Amazon ambassadors , the document put forward , it would be great if they can also do it while being hilarious and relatable . ( They nailed at least one of those things , albeit not purposely . ) idealistic candidates for the program would have a “ strong performance background signal and clean house HR phonograph record , be authentic , have a great gumption of humour , and be excited about speaking their head and rebutting our critics in a polite , blunt way , ” consort to the text file .
https://twitter.com/embed/status/1376051062877126657
https://twitter.com/embed/status/1376676350312865801
Checking in on some of the " AmazonFC " accounts ( where Twitter paid its warehouse employees to tweet about how great Amazon is on company prison term ) , and Twitter suspended some of them for dishonour pattern lolMade a spreadsheet of them here : https://t.co / AemKnevHkipic.twitter.com / kpEUcHQ5TG
— Aric Toler ( @AricToler)March 29 , 2021
While other parts of the papers accent the importance of honesty — a department is entitle “ Tell Your Truth”—as the Intercept notice , there are at least three prohibited theme of conversation . Those include requests for comment from media , “ compound issues where PR approval is not get ” such as the company ’s ads on right - wing site Breitbart , and “ contacts about the right to unionize . ”
It ’s unimaginable to take the document ’s exhortations for Amazon ambassadors to be completely honest when it also contains examples of coached talk point they can deploy when counter - attacking critic . Sample training materials paint a picture ambassadors say that anyone who hates their line of work can just quit ( problem resolve ! ) or that Bezos has as much right field to his jillion in wealthiness as poor people do their bit . Per the Intercept :
In one instance , the papers refers to a video recording interview Sanders tweet : “ Bernie Sanders question Seth King on Prime Day . Seth describes feeling so downhearted cultivate at Amazon to take his own life . ”
An ambassador , part - playing , then respond : “ @SenSanders This job has never made me palpate bad personally . If you have a line of work that makes you find sorry , you could get out . ”
At another level , Sanders is described as having “ tweeted about Jeff Bezos ’ wealth . ” The embassador then replies : “ Everyone should be capable to revel the money they ’ve realise / save . It ’s theirs . They should be able to do with it as they please . That include Jeff Bezos . ”
Other gems let in how to treat accounts of Amazon workers feeling compelled to pee in bottles , with a sampling reply from training practice session read , “ I work for Amazon and not sure about other adeptness but I ’ve never feel pressured to pee in a trash can [ … ] As for the smell , Amazon does sell deer urine that Hunter habituate :-) ” . Another , on the subject of whether Bezos ’s workers are “ suffering , ” reads like something someone with a gun to their head would say : “ While I would like raise a ( who wouldn’t:- ) I can assure you , in my personal experience , that I am not suffering . sure enough , it ’s hard piece of work but that ’s the life of working in a warehouse :-) ” .
As for whether the embassador account are freely offered or the result of some kind of bonus by Amazon , the document proffer yet more reasons to be unbelieving . It outlines a plan to staff the syllabus by admit fulfillment center employee to act upon full - time societal media shifts out of “ group discussion rooms or surplus place ” for six to 12 months , which is doubtlessly preferable to physically taxing andpotentially dangerouswarehouse work .
A Plan B discuss in the document would be transferring the ambassadors to an “ elevated title ” on the white - collar customer service squad , which would demand disclosing they no longer work in a warehouse , but does have the tot fillip of ensuring their new part is reliant upon enjoin only nice things about their experience in one .
“ People are really gullible , but it ’s also Amazon ’s fault with hold these bizarre preternatural valley accounts in the first place , plus their whole pee bottle saga , ” Bellingcat investigator Aric Toler told Motherboard of the horde of fake FC embassador account . “ After the initial story of Amazon FC accounts there were interminable bad / obvious parody accounts that kill up . It ’s befall again now with the labor push and the bad Amazon News tweet . ”
The union balloting at the Amazon warehouse in Bessemer , Alabama , has been finish , but the counting unconscious process and any possible appeals to the National Labor Relations Board on the way the vote was direct are expect totake days to weeks to resolve .
[ The Intercept ]
AmazonBernie SandersBreitbartJeff BezosOperating systemssoftwareX ( Twitter )
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