Opinion Amazon’s plan to ban words on internal chat app shows insecure authoritarians aren’t to be found only in govts

There’s an easy way to figure out what authoritarian regimes fear. Usually, the dictator/party’s followers will demonise or ban that which threatens them the most: Anti-state activities in China, jokes against the ruling clan in North Korea and the practices of certain communities and political groups in more diverse societies. But the insecurity of the powerful isn’t limited to governments alone.

Amazon’s revenues exceed the GDP of most countries. Its founder takes flights of fancy all the way to outer space with his celebrity friends. And now,  in the fashion of all great dictatorships, it’s going after inconvenient words. The company is set to launch an internal chat app for its employers on which words such as “union”, “fire”, “compensation”, “plantation”, “slave labour”, “diversity”, “robots”, “grievance” and “injustice” will be banned. A common thread runs through these examples: These are words that appear to belie the purpose of management-approved communication on the proposed app, which is to keep workers happy, and use the platform to praise colleagues.

Advertisement

Amazon delivers. But not always for its workers. There have been several reports about its staff being denied bathroom breaks and being paid abysmally low wages. It has fought tooth and nail to prevent its workers from unionising – Amazon’s New York employees became the first to successfully form a union recently. The words it seeks to ban are those associated with poor working conditions, descriptions of and metaphors for employees’ grievances. According to Amazon, the company “want(s) to lean towards being restrictive on the content that can be posted to prevent a negative associate experience”. Perhaps the way to avoid “negative associate experiences” is not to engender them. But that’s much more difficult than silencing the messenger.