Amazon recruits ‘ambassador’ Twitter accounts for ‘educating’ people on working conditions

Amazon has recruited approximately 15 ‘ambassador’ Twitter accounts for “educating” people on working conditions in the online retailer’s fulfillment centres.

The accounts frequently reply to tweets criticising the company with all replies featuring similar messages regarding issues such as working hours, toilet breaks and wages.

https://twitter.com/AmazonFCAdam/status/1033121029391085568

https://twitter.com/AmazonFCJeremy/status/1033586444688941057

Business marketing application Sprinklr is being used to post the tweets instead of the Twitter website, it was found by The Telegraph. One of Sprinklr’s features allows managers to give approval for tweets before they are posted to Twitter. It is unclear if the Amazon ‘ambassador’ accounts have their tweets approved by someone else in the company.

All accounts bare the same branding with an orange Amazon logo as their cover photo, a link to the Amazon fulfilment centre tour website and a bio explaining how long they have worked for the company.

None of the accounts use full names and many do not show a face with the majority of accounts using the face of an animal or a stock photo of an Amazon worker.

In addition, Retail Sector also found that the accounts cannot follow anyone with only tweets and followers displayed in their account information.

In Tweets the accounts claim they want to dispel “misinformation” about the company and are repeatedly forced to deny that they are not bots.

https://twitter.com/AmazonFCShaunJ/status/1032984501671157760

An Amazon spokesperson said: “FC ambassadors are employees who have experience working in our fulfilment centers. It’s important that we do a good job of educating people about the actual environment inside our fulfillment centers, and the FC ambassador program is a big part of that along with the fulfilment center tours we provide.

“Those tours enable thousands of customers every year to come and see for themselves what it’s like to work inside one of our fulfilment centers.”

Many on Twitter have since set up parody accounts Tweeting criticisms of the company and even conversing with the real “ambassadors”.