Racial Bias in Amazon Driver Reviews Can Lead to Lower Pay and Layoffs

Amazon drivers have it pretty hard already, but the delivery companies they work for are warning the retail giant of another issue with the algorithm: racism.

The problem lies with the customer review feature. Amazon allows customers to give drivers either a thumbs up or a thumbs down, and then allows very limited reasons for the thumbs down. Some delivery contractors are ringing the alarm, telling Bloomberg the system is rigged against Black, Hispanic and Asian drivers. They say they’ve warned Amazon both directly and through a web forum dedicated to contractors:

In interviews, eight current and former Amazon delivery contractors operating in Los Angeles, Seattle, Georgia, Northern California and the Northeast all described the same pattern: lower ratings for drivers of color, especially when deployed to neighborhoods where their race or ethnicity stand out. The contractors’ suspicions dovetail with decades of academic research documenting how racial, gender and age bias all influence customer impressions of service workers, from waiters to taxi drivers. Companies have been accused for years of doing too little to prevent bias from affecting customer feedback but are harvesting more of this kind of data all the time.

“To give your customer that much power over the delivery process itself, you’re assuming that customer is coming from a good-natured position,” said an Amazon contractor in Northern California, who, like other delivery firm owners, requested anonymity to avoid harming his relationship with the company. “That’s the flaw.”

A spokesperson for Amazon told Bloomberg they were aware of the problem and were “…reviewing all available information, then taking appropriate action based on the facts available to us.” They specifically highlighted blacklisting customers who are abusive to drivers or pose a threat, but this kind of racism is far more subtle than that.

When a customer metes out a thumbs-down, a list of checkable options pops up, including such vague choices as “driver did not follow my delivery instructions” and “driver was unprofessional” that don’t require any substantiation. But when Amazon aggregates the feedback to calculate scores, the racial divide is undeniable, the business owners say.

This kind of feedback is prone to “implicit bias” from customers who may be more forgiving of minor mistakes from people who look like them and judge those perceived as outsiders more critically, said NiCole Buchanan, a psychology professor at Michigan State University. “It’s rarely someone overtly racist trying to do harm,” she said. “It’s all done very subtly.”

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It’s certainly dangerous to leave hiring, raises and even firing decisions up to the metrics of a wonky algorithm. This is the company that was found to be firing Flex drivers automatically via email a few years ago. Artificially low customer scores can cause good workers to miss out on pay raises or even lose their jobs.

The life of an Amazon driver is already extremely tough. Amazon already hires some delivery contractors with abysmal safety records. They are subjected to laughably strict surveillance from a company that told drivers to shut off their safety tracking app in order to meet delivery quotas. They can’t even stop driving for violent natural disasters. Amazon is even suspected of taking driver’s tips to cover pay roll. That’s just sick.

The entire article by Bloomberg is well worth your time, as is all of their reporting on Amazon delivery drivers.