Amazon has reportedly shut down its “ambassador” program that paid warehouse workers to tweet positively about the e-commerce giant.
The Financial Times reports that at the end of last year, Amazon shut down its Ambassador Program that paid warehouse workers to tweet positive things about their experience working at the company. Sources reportedly said that senior Amazon executives felt that the program was not having as much of an impact as expected.
Breitbart News previously reported that Amazon’s army of employees defending the company across social media was conceived under an internal project codenamed “Veritas,” which aimed to train and dispatch select employees to social media to fight for the company.
People hold placards during a protest in support of Amazon workers in Union Square, New York on February 20, 2021. – New York state’s attorney general on February 17, 2021 sued Amazon, claiming the e-commerce giant failed to adequately protect its warehouse workers from risks during the Covid-19 pandemic. The move comes days after Amazon filed its own legal action seeking to block New York state Attorney General Letitia James from taking steps to enforce federal workplace safety regulations. (Photo by Kena Betancur / AFP) (Photo by KENA BETANCUR/AFP via Getty Images)
Amazon admitted in 2018 that the ambassadors were employees paid to “honestly share the facts,” about working at the company’s warehouses. Many Twitter users initially accused the accounts of being “bots” due to their almost identical account bios and name formats, but this format was specifically mandated by Amazon according to internal documents. The document states: “We could also add an emoji to the username to give personality, for example a small box emoji.”
Amazon said in a recent statement: “It’s important that we do a good job of educating people about the actual environment inside our fulfillment centers.”
The FC Ambassador Program appeared to still be active up until March 2021 with new employee accounts appearing and responding to tweets about Amazon.
Sheheryar Kaoosji from the non-profit Warehouse Worker Resource Center, commented: “The ‘ambassador’ programme was always a laughable attempt to minimise the abuses unfolding inside Amazon warehouses. The fact that Amazon is now trying to hide the fact that the programme ever existed shows that the company is taking yet another page out of the authoritarian playbook to guide its management.”
Read more at the Financial Times here.
Lucas Nolan is a reporter for Breitbart News covering issues of free speech and online censorship. Follow him on Twitter @LucasNolan or contact via secure email at the address lucasnolan@protonmail.com