Amazon partnered with China propaganda arm to win Beijing's favour: Report

To sell Kindle and cloud services in China, Amazon promoted Xi's books as 'best sellers', allowed censoring reviews of propaganda films, provided dissident's IP address to authorities, reports Reuters

Amazon.com Inc was marketing a collection of President Xi Jinping's speeches and writings on its Chinese website about two years ago, when Beijing delivered an edict, according to two people familiar with the incident. The American e-commerce giant must stop allowing any customer ratings and reviews in China.

A negative review of Xi's book prompted the demand, one of the people said. "I think the issue was anything under five stars," the highest rating in Amazon's five-point system, said the other person.

Copies of the book

Ratings and reviews are a crucial part of Amazon's e-commerce business, a major way of engaging shoppers.