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Well, they didn't really try to hide it.

The Twitter accounts have a standardised format, all bearing the Amazon smile logo as their background ... identical structures to their bios and the title "FC Ambassador" in their name, followed by a cardboard box emoji.

You think it's illegal for companies to transparently respond to customers and critics online?

I believe it is not illegal if they're not withholding who they are or their motivations.

It should be

How is this any different from paid reviews.

My comment stands, "it should be" ... a paid review is tainted from jump street. At a very minimum, disclosure should be mandated (is this already the case?)

whether disclosure should be mandated, or already is mandated, these accounts were not hiding the fact that they were amazon representatives. disclosure was done.

so what exactly should be illegal? Companies interacting with people on social media? PR in general?

It is disclosed. They have their titles (Amazon FC Ambassador) the Amazon box logo and their names are all @Amazon*. It's completely transparent, which you'd know had you read the article rather than the title.

Don't mean to sound harsh, but the amount of comments on here from people that CLEARLY didn't read any of the article is astounding.