Amazon ends program that paid employees to praise company on social media
Amazon has quietly eânded a program that paid employeesęŚ to post nice things about the company on social media.
The three year-old program was meant to counter negative perceptions about the working conditions at its massive warehouses, where workers had complained about the high speeds at which they were expected to work and the injuries they were sustaining as a result.
But senior Amazon executives nixed the payment-for-reviews program in December because it had been ineffective and had, in fact, backfired — causing more negative publicity, according to a Financial Times report that cites anonymous sources.
The program relied on âhandpicked workers,ââ according to the report, who would tweet rebuttals to statements made by politicians, labor rights officials and any other critics ofđ the company, according to the report.
A typical post might say that the employee âfeels proud to work for Amazonâ or that Amazđ˝on has âtaken good care of meâ or refute a frequent criticism that employees arenât given enough time to take toilet breaks.
According to another report last year from The Intercept, so called fulfillment ambassadors received training on how to address allegations with responses including âno, thatâs not right. I worked in an Amazon FC for over four years and never saw anyone urinate in a bottle.â
Itâs not clear how many ambassadors Amazon paid as part of this program, FT reported, with some news outlets estiđđŻmating that 50 had been recruited in 2019.
The compaęŚny has scrubbed any evidence that the program even existed, according to the đŚpublication.
âThe ambassador program was always a laughablđ§e attempt to minimise the abuses unfolding inside Amazon warehouâses,â Sheheryar Kaoosji of the non-profit Warehouse Worker Resource Center told FT.
Amazon did not immediately respond for comment.