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TikTok users want to see parcel carriers dance – trend triggers debate

2022-02-05T14:07:50.515Z


American homeowners are asking couriers to dance or say thank you in front of their door cameras. The TikTok trend has sparked debate about working conditions for Amazon employees.


Enlarge image

Often under pressure to avoid bad reviews: parcel drivers

Photo: Yellow Dog Productions/Getty Images

In the background is an Amazon delivery van, the courier has just left a package in front of the door.

But before he leaves the front yard, the delivery man fulfills a request that the homeowner left on a note at the entrance: he looks directly into the digital door camera and begins to dance.

The video of the dancing parcel driver has already been viewed more than six million times on the TikTok video platform and has been marked "Like" more than 600,000 times.

The user, who uploaded the clip almost three weeks ago and accompanied it with the hip-hop song "Teach Me How To Dougie", fades in the text: "I put up a sign asking the drivers to dance .

This guy was great!

Anyone know him?'

In addition to posts such as "So great" and "He deserves a raise," there is also a post from the official Amazon account on TikTok below the video, which comments on the clip with the rhyme "Poppin' and lockin' while box dropping."

The driver also seems to be happy about his network fame, a few days later he identifies himself as a DJ from Tacoma in the US state of Washington and advertises his performances.

fear of devaluation

Some TikTok users, on the other hand, can hardly believe what is happening. One user described the clip as "disgusting". Another writes, "Thank you for this new form of capitalism where every single customer can tell that driver what to do under the pressure of a bad review that can cost them a living." The TikTok user who uploaded the video added that she gave the driver five stars and that she rates the parcel carriers badly if they don't dance.

But the risk of a devaluation does not seem to want to be taken by the drivers and they bow to the requests of the customers.

Such dance videos have appeared on TikTok again and again in recent years.

The operator of the TikTok channel with the dancing DJ has also announced that she wants to add more videos recorded by her door camera.

In addition to signs in the entrance area, according to a report by »Motherboard«, drivers are also asked to dance via an app for this »dystopian Tiktok trend«, as the magazine writes.

The suppliers see corresponding notes from the recipients on their smartphones when they scan the package upon delivery.

The field for comments is actually intended for leaving notes, for example about the desired storage location.

But apparently this possibility is also misused for humiliating requests.

For example, asking drivers to say “Thank you for securing my job” into a doorbell camera.

Surveillance from the warehouse to the front door

Rafael Shimunov from the US civil rights movement Athena calls on Amazon to intervene.

“Anything recorded on Amazon is for punishment.

Stop it,” the activist wrote on Twitter.

He asked Amazon drivers several times about this trend.

Many workers have "felt compelled" by such signs to dance or do other humiliating requests "so customers don't leave bad reviews."

Also interesting

  • Stolen shipping goods: internship in the plunder paradise A column by Margarete Stokowski

  • Legal rules for door cameras: When the lawyer rings twiceBy Jörg Breithut

Last year, Athena asked the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) in an open letter to ban surveillance with doorbell cameras in order to protect personal rights.

According to the civil rights activists, Amazon employees are constantly monitored anyway, be it by cameras in Amazon's warehouses, in the delivery vans and now also on some front doors.

In Germany, such door camera videos violate personal rights.

The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) sets strict limits on door cameras such as those from Amazon Ring or Google Nest.

Privacy advocates go so far as to say that doorstep recordings are illegal once stored.

Amazon and TikTok did not respond to a request from SPIEGEL on Friday morning.

Source: spiegel

All tech articles on 2022-02-05

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