February 12, 2025

Leggo My Finance

Will Amazon Ban “Ethics”? | The Business Ethics Blog

A new report from The Intercept implies that a new in-residence messaging application for Amazon staff could ban a extended string of words, such as “ethics.” Most of the text on the checklist are types that a disgruntled worker would use — phrases like “union” and “compensation” and “pay increase.” In accordance to a leaked doc reviewed by The Intercept, 1 aspect of the messaging application (nonetheless in enhancement) would be “An automatic phrase monitor would also block a selection of terms that could characterize likely critiques of Amazon’s operating circumstances.” Amazon, of training course, is not particularly a enthusiast of unions, and has spent (once more, for each the Intercept) a whole lot of dollars on “anti-union consultants.”

So, what to say about this naughty checklist?

On a single hand, it is simple to see why a organization would want not to deliver workers with a software that would assistance them do something not in the company’s fascination. I necessarily mean, if you want to manage — or even simply just complain — employing your Gmail account or Signal or Telegram, which is one particular thing. But if you want to reach that objective by employing an application that the firm supplies for inside business functions, the business it’s possible has a teensy little bit of a genuine grievance.

On the other hand, this is evidently a negative search for Amazon — it is unseemly, if not unethical, to be literally banning staff from making use of words and phrases that (perhaps?) suggest they are executing something the corporation does not like, or that maybe just show that the company’s work requirements are not up to snuff.

But really, what strikes me most about this strategy is how ham-fisted it is. I signify, keywords? Very seriously? Never we presently know — and if we all know, then definitely Amazon knows — that social media platforms make probable considerably, a lot far more sophisticated means of influencing people’s behaviour? We have now observed the use of Facebook to manipulate elections, and even our feelings. As opposed to that, this intended record of naughty words and phrases seems like Dr Evil making an attempt to outfit sharks with laser-beams. What unions need to actually be apprehensive about is employer-provided platforms that never explicitly ban terms, but that subtly condition user working experience centered on their use of all those text. If Cambridge Analytica could plausibly endeavor to influence a nationwide election that way, couldn’t an employer quite believably intention at shaping a unionization vote in comparable fasion?

As for banning the term “ethics,” I can only shake my head. The capacity to speak brazenly about ethics — about values, about ideas, about what your firm stands for, is regarded by most scholars and consultants in the realm of company ethics as very elementary. If you can’t discuss about it, how possible are you to be to be capable to do it?


(Thanks to MB for pointing me to this tale.)