Twitter swamped with fake Amazon workers defending the company

In short: A surge of faux Twitter accounts claiming to be Amazon staff has flooded the microblogging website with anti-union sentiment and reward for the corporate’s working situations. The deluge of tweets arrives simply as votes are being tallied on the firm’s Bessemer, Alabama, warehouse that can determine if its employees unionize.

Twitter has suspended many of those accounts, most of which had been created in the previous few days. They use handles that start with “AmazonFC,” adopted by a primary identify and a warehouse designation.

“What bothers me most about unions is there is not any capacity to decide out of dues,” @AmazonFCDarla tweeted, although Alabama state regulation prohibits this. “Amazon takes nice care of me,” she added.

The BBC highlights one other account that wrote, “Unions are good for some corporations, however I do not wish to need to shell out a whole lot a month only for legal professionals!” It later modified its profile image after being uncovered as a faux.

Amazon didn’t even actually strive with this one lol pic.twitter.com/Q9dyTzKqns

— Tim Sullivan 🐋 (@timjsully) March 29, 2021

The format of those faux accounts’ handles can also be utilized by Amazon’s ambassadors. In 2018, the corporate began the ambassador program, which entails staff sharing optimistic experiences of working on the agency on social media—you are unlikely to see them point out urinating in bottles.

With out revealing particular numbers, Amazon confirmed “many” of the accounts do not belong to its staff. “Many of those usually are not Amazon FC Ambassadors—it seems they’re faux accounts that violate Twitter’s phrases. We have requested Twitter to research and take applicable motion,” mentioned an Amazon spokesperson.

That is so nice. Bear in mind these extraordinarily actual Amazon employees who had been tweeting good issues about working there? Nicely Leo is now Ciera, Michelle is now Sarah, Rick is now James, and so on. pic.twitter.com/q5LgITjMQ4

— Karen Weise (@KYWeise) January 30, 2019

Twitter informed the BBC that Amazon ambassadors are topic to the location’s guidelines on spam and platform manipulation. It added that any non-parody accounts impersonating or falsely claiming to be affiliated with an organization may be briefly suspended or eliminated; parody accounts should embody disclaimers of their bios.

Amazon discovered itself in the midst of one other PR catastrophe final week after claiming its employees do not urinate in bottles and that it was a “progressive office.”

Picture credit score: Sheila Fitzgerald