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So it's okay for a business to treat employees so badly they find they have to piss in bottles?

And it's okay for their official PR twitter account to lie and say it doesn't happen?

But it's not okay that a politician says they're going to do something about it?



Politicians should not be threatening to silence people or companies, regardless of whether the latter are lying or treating people badly.

If Amazon is breaking employment law or anti-monopoly law or anything else it can be fined or broken up. What it should not be is silenced.


https://www.businessinsider.com/elizabeth-warren-amazon-twit...

I've quote the tweets below.

Warren has been campaigning to break up large tech companies.

What is so unprofessional about that? Clearly if she was to try and get them fined or broken up it would be through these laws.

She isn't silencing them. She's saying that there'll be consequences.

And Amazon's PR isn't a small company. They can take the heat.

I don't agree with you. A company that forces employees to piss in bottles and lies about it should have their lies face consequences.

Warren isn't removing their tweets. How are they being silenced?

Here is the quotes:

``` After she posted the video on Twitter, saying that companies like Amazon "pay close to nothing in taxes," the tech giant quickly fired back.

"You make the tax laws @SenWarren; we just follow them," it tweeted from its official news account.

"If you don't like the laws you've created, by all means, change them," it added.

Amazon said that it had paid "billions of dollars" in corporate taxes over the past few years alone.

Warren hit back, saying: "I didn't write the loopholes you exploit, @amazon – your armies of lawyers and lobbyists did.

"But you bet I'll fight to make you pay your fair share," she added. "And fight your union-busting. And fight to break up Big Tech so you're not powerful enough to heckle senators with snotty tweets." ```


The alarming thing is her thinking that power is required to be able to heckle senators.

Anyone should be able to heckle senators on twittwr! From Mark Zuckerberg to the homeless man in the nearby park!


You're being obtuse. You know as well as anyone that it doesn't matter if the homeless man in the park heckles Senators. That's the difference; Amazon has real power behind their words.


The problem is not that Amazon is criticising politicians. The problem is that Amazon doesn't need to care; it'll get loads of money anyway. I need to care about what I say, because if I upset people, they'll stop interacting with me.

If Amazon started running adverts about a giant space monkey that wanted to eat the moon, what would happen?


I would expect more nuance from an HN reader. It's possible for both amazon and warren to be in the wrong.


I don't see where Warren is wrong here.

Care to explain it? Because it seems like the point of view advocated is "Politicans should not express views I don't like on social media"


If Warren tweeted that she was going to break up amazon because they were harming consumers and mistreating workers, etc, that would be one thing.

Instead, she is going after amazon as a personal vendetta because she feels 'heckled'. She is explicitly attacking first amendment rights. It's a textbook case of corruption / abuse of power.


Are you actually serious? She's been going after amazon for years.

Like breaking up big tech companies is pretty much the only thing you hear about her in passing.

A personal vendetta against their twitter account just didn't start now.

Also this is corruption / abuse of power to you? You might want to get a new textbook.


Instead of “Politicans should not express views I don't like on social media” how about “Politicans should not express the view that ‘people shouldn’t be powerful enough to be snotty to/heckle me’ on any platform.”

It’s the “so you’re not powerful enough to heckle senators with snotty tweets” part that’s bad. Regardless of how you feel about her campaign to break up big tech, this is an appalling thing for a government official to say. I hate Twitter and Twitter culture as much as anyone, but “you shouldn’t be powerful enough to be snotty to a senator” is dystopian in my book.


But in this case the Amazon Twitter account is in the wrong while Warren is in the right. Amazon Twitter straight up lied. Warren is actively doing the job she was elected to do of motivating change to make laws and rules that will change the underlying foundation of the business landscape in ways that she and those who voted for her perceive as positive.


Amazon's actions have absolutely nothing to do with this.

US Senators should not be threatening retaliation against a company because of tweets that piss them off.

Why is this only bad when Trump or a Republican does it?


Why can't US Senators do that?

I presume the people that voted for Warren are on her side in this argument so she's being an advocate for their views.

Just because you think Amazon's employees being forced to piss in bottles isn't bad to you doesn't mean that others sees it as an injustice that makes people angry.

>Why is this only bad when Trump or a Republican does it?

Maybe treat each event on a case by case basis rather than a blanket rule?




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