Amazon’s pullout
Posted by James Zhang
February 14, on Valentine’s day, a tech giant company was on the headline of the press. Facing an unexpected backlash from lawmakers, progressive activists, and union leaders, Amazon has canceled its plan on establishing a large headquarter campus in Queens, New York City. E-commerce giant’s decision has been arguably viewed as controversial. How people on social media across the nation reacted to Amazon’s exit? Let’s figure it out.
Over the past week, about Amazon’s withdraw decision, the overall volume of social media conversation is 931,000 posts. The social media conversation reached its peak on Thursday, Valentine’s day when Amazon announced its decision. The number of social media posts was almost 300, 000. This large number indicates that people across the nation are very concerned about Amazon’s decision on withdrawing its plan of building a headquarter campus in New York City.
The one who is leading the social media conversation is traditional news media outlets such as ABC news, CNN breaking news, or Finance News. On Twitter, ABC news has been continually informing social media audiences about Amazon’s announcement. For instance, ABC news tweeted the governor of the State of New York’s statement on Amazon’s pullout. In a most recent tweet, ABC news focused on New York City’s bookstores’ reaction to Amazon’s decision.
Regarding Amazon’s decision, social media conversation has been around the following keywords such as “Amazon,” “tax,” “jobs,” “billion,” and “infrastructure.” For instance, one tweet went on political. It argued that only progressive congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez would be happy about a loss of 25,000 jobs in New York City resulting from Amazon’s decision.
In terms of the keyword “tax,” some tweet showing sarcasm by revealing Amazon’s profit vis-à-vis how much taxes it paid, while a tweet from Alyssa argued that Amazon’s plan of building a headquarter campus in New York City would generate both jobs and tax revenues.
The overall sentiment on social media towards Amazon’s pullout is positive. More than sixty percent of tweets reflected positivity. However, since there might be some sarcasm involved in, the actual number of positive tweets might be lower.
People across the nation from a different side of aisles have been talking differently about Amazon’s announcement on Thursday. Social media platforms are a good reflection of that for sure.
