Thread by @theintercept

Amazon’s Twitter army was handpicked for “great sense of humor,” leaked document reveals interc.pt/3fupkwC by @kenklippenstein

Amazon's Twitter army was quietly conceived in 2018 under the codename “Veritas,” which sought to train and dispatch select employees to defend Amazon and its CEO, Jeff Bezos, according to an internal description of the program obtained exclusively by The Intercept.

Anticipating criticisms of worker conditions at their fulfillment centers in particular, Amazon designed Veritas to train fulfillment center workers chosen for their “great sense of humor” to confront critics — including policymakers — on Twitter in a “blunt” manner.

In 2018, Amazon admitted ambassadors were employees paid to “honestly share the facts” about what working in its fulfillment centers is like.

Many Twitter users initially believed ambassadors were automated “bot” accounts due to the nearly identical format of their account bios.

Amazon ambassadors drew attention this week as they responded to a wave of online criticism for the company’s treatment of workers amid a union drive at an Amazon warehouse in Bessemer, Alabama.

Among the program’s tenets is the promise not to offer misleading or false messages, instead exhorting ambassadors to “Tell Your Truth.” But there are some subjects they are forbidden to discuss.

The document instructs employees not to respond to “contacts about the right to unionize” — one of only three cases in which they’re told not to respond.

The document obtained by The Intercept also includes a Twitter account bio format specifically mandated by Amazon for its ambassadors.

“We could also add an emoji to the username to give personality, for example a small box emoji,” the document suggests.