Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge
Amazon is covertly monitoring private social media groups used by Amazon Flex workers to discuss their working conditions. According to what appear to be official company documents discovered online by Vice, the retailing giant employs staff to track and categorize discussions in closed Facebook groups, public subreddits, and on Twitter. Some posts are then “escalated” to internal Amazon teams and company leadership.
As Vice notes, these reports are seemingly compiled primarily to identify and respond to complaints from Flex delivery drivers about things like bugs in the company’s app. But Amazon also appears to be keeping tabs on more sensitive discussions. Those compiling the reports are instructed to note the apparent sentiment of…