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FAKE! Truth behind Darla: Woman posing as Amazon employee who defended union row exposed

There is a face. There is a name. But the real person behind the account remains a mystery... Here's the story behind the ‘Darla at GYR1’ account

Real or fake? It isn't easy to set the two apart on social media. In one such bizarre case, a woman who goes by the name Darla at GYR1 with the Twitter handle @AmazonFCDarla went viral. As tweets from that account started circulating, more people agreed that it was fake. 

Take, for example, the very first tweet from the account that was created only in March 2021: “So glad to be on Twitter! Feel free to ask my anything about my experiences as a member of the Amazon family, I'm an open book!” Sounds fishy, eh? Not convinced? Steal a glance at the bio: “Picking customer orders since April 2020. Big fan of watching movies and proud mom of two boys!” The bio also has pronouns “she/her” mentioned right there.

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So, how can you tell if the account is real or fake? Let's analyze all the tweets and what people on Twitter seem to think. 

Who is Darla at GYR1?

There is a face. There is a name. But the real person behind the account remains a mystery. Darla at GYR1 — a woman claiming to be an Amazon worker — joined Twitter on March 26, 2021, according to the profile. That is just after the recent Amazon controversy around workers being ‘forced to urinate in plastic bottles because they cannot go to toilet on shift’. Quite convenient, isn't it?

After the sweet message on how “glad” she is to be on Twitter, she urges everyone to ask her about the experiences while working for Amazon. So kind! The second tweet then reads: “One thing that’s become obvious to me in my short time on Twitter is how willing people are to shout down and be cruel to a fellow member of the working class who disagrees with them, even when they think that person is brainwashed. The cruelty I’ve had directed at me!!!” 

The third tweet — again about Amazon — goes on to say: “I've already received my second dose, but so glad to see another example of Amazon making our safety a priority.” Sweet! Either she LOVES her job and company to death or... well you know what! 

Darla's love for Amazon and its CEO

Is Darla a workaholic? No, no, Darla is more than that... She might just be an Amazon worshipper because, in the very next three tweets, she again talks about the company and its CEO. 

“What bothers me most about unions is there's no ability to opt out of dues! As a single mother with two boys I'm barely scraping by as it is, and now unions want to come to Amazon and make pay them a piece of my salary. No thanks!” another tweet reads. 

When she gets a barrage of trolls attacking her for the tweet, “I love everyone's passion about this important issue and I apologize if any of my rhetoric has reflected poorly on Amazon. Of course, Amazon understands the value of unions and is not anti-union in any way. @davehclark is a tremendous CEO and cares deeply about workers' rights,” another follows, “Ok this tweet has been VERY misunderstood, Amazon takes great care of me! It isn't anyone's fault that I have children to take care of, which makes my personal expenses higher than most. I apologize to anyone on our team this tweet has unintentionally caused controversy for.” 

So is the account real or fake?

Hundreds of tweets surfaced on the micro-blogging website as many people called out Darla's profile, which was suspiciously created in the middle of a union fight in Alabama.

“A short thread about Darla, who really really loves working for Amazon! Her account was created on Mar 26--curiously, right in the middle of a union fight in Alabama. But take a look at her profile pic...” one Twitter user wrote and continued, “Darla's profile photo--it's a little odd. It shows signs of being GAN-generated. There are little flaws to the eye (hair, teeth, earring) but when I line her up with a GAN image I generated using https://thispersondoesnotexist.com the eyes line up perfectly. One indicator of a potential GAN.”

“Versions of this have been going on since at least 2018. Is Darla just a troll on all this?”

Mocking her, one wrote, “Husband to Darla. Father to McKenzie and Ashleigh. Happy Amazon employee. Christ-follower. Not liable for tweets before I've had my coffee!” Another added, “Darla can you post a picture of yourself holding today's newspaper.” A third pointed out, “This who you follow Darla? Surely the market research could have generated a more human-looking collection?”

Interestingly, the fact that the account followed Bernie Sanders struck many eyeballs.

Karen Weise of The New York Times then confirmed, “Amazon just told me that the Darla account, in particular, is fake and they have reported it to Twitter. FWIW, ‘her’ tweets are posted via the Twitter Web App, and Amazon's other FC tweets are typically posted via Sprinklr.”

Whew! So, that's busted right there. But what about the other such accounts floating on the Internet — posing as Amazon employees? Beware! It's all too fishy.