Hey guys, listen up. The scraps Amazon is giving me are insufficient to make ends meet. UNIONS ARE THE PROBLEM!
Jesus, when you put it like that, even if Darla isn’t a robot or a paid astroturfer, she’s still making the case for unions.
Yeah the argument itself is so transparently dumb that no legitimate person would hold it; and I think the dunk tweet is pointing out that in addition to having no good argument, Amazon thinks we’re too stupid to notice the astroturf.
There are people who genuinely believe this, sadly. I’ve encountered them here where I live in South Dakota where we’re propagandized against unions from a very young age. These are people who would easily fall for obvious astroturfing like Darla above. It’s one reason I think basic tech and media literacy are so important.
Amazon pays me SO LITTLE I can BARELY Squeak by! And that’s why UNIONS are bad!
Jesus fuck how can they be this pathetically transparent?
Amazon probably outsourcing to a PR that specializes in union busting.
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But the PR firm that has little technical expertise - they just know they need bots to do some astroturfing.
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So the PR firm outsources to an IT consulting firm.
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But the IT consulting firm only bids on contracts, they don’t do the actual work, so they find a subcontractor.
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The subcontractor may hire subcontractors. Continue this step for however many iterations the value of the contract will allow.
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Eventually the subcontractor hires a gig worker or an underpaid staffer to do the minimal amount of work possible.
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The gig worker avoids as much effort as possible, because they’re paid by volume rather than time.
At this point the requirements may or may not be fulfilled, but the admins of each org are satisfied, so they move on to the next contract without verifying the work.
Edit: I wrote this facetiously, but u/SpaceNoodle found a news article suggesting at least some of these accounts are legit, as backed up by a Belling Cat investigation.
No, they rolled their own in-house program to get real brainwashed dolts to be “brand ambassadors.”
Not saying I don’t believe you at all, but would love to read about this if you have a source?
There’s no reason to try any harder than this. Most people who will see this tweet won’t look at the handle or the replies - they’re read the tweet, then move on. And if they see enough of these tweets, they may just internalize the notion that unions aren’t worth it. It’s better for Amazon to make more tweets than it is for them to make better tweets. And it’s not like they’re going to see any repercussions for trying to maliciously influence their employees.
As a gay black man…
