Amazon agreed to allow only five-star reviews for Xi’s book in China

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/amazon-agreed-to-scrub-poor-reviews-of-xi-on-chinas-site-7tzgjhmt6

by malshe • 5 years ago

196 43 5 years ago

thetimes.co.uk

malshe• 5 years ago

Reviews are meaningless, they have been for a long time now. The right way to do reviews is off site because that is the only way to guarantee impartiality.

One of my reviews was removed once because it mentioned the author lacked expertise in the domain he was commenting on. It was about AI and the author was a historian. I recommended people skip the chapters about AI but apparently that was too critical.

spiderice• 5 years ago

do reviews is off site because that is the only way to guarantee impartiality.

Yelp begs to differ

informationally2• 5 years ago

Yelp is a social network that also happens to have business reviews. So I don't mean a social network, I mean a site specifically focused on reviewing books and other consumer products. I don't mean some rando opening an app and writing their opinion about the food they just ate.

wdr1• 5 years ago

Reviews are meaningless, they have been for a long time now.

That doesn't make this okay.

JohnFen2• 5 years ago

If the off-site review is on a product review blog or website, then I don't think it's likely to be any better than the ones on Amazon.

trash3• 5 years ago

Amazon be like we removed not 5 star reviews (down votes) to protect feelings of our content creators.

Spivak2• 5 years ago

I mean I honestly expect that Amazon will eventually end up realizing that asking people to rate products on a 0-5 or even a 0-1 scale produces garbage data (like every other site before it) and switch to metrics like number of sales and number of people who recommend it.

JohnFen2• 5 years ago

switch to metrics like number of sales and number of people who recommend it.

Which is also largely meaningless.

killingtime74• 5 years ago

Even with 5 stars is anyone going to read this? I would only if I was at the party school and my job depended on it

rdtwo2• 5 years ago

I’m sure a lot of careers depend on it

throway453sde• 5 years ago

dude i spilled my coffee. Funny and true at the same time.

ashwagary• 5 years ago

Most powerful man in the world has a book. I think it will end up being popular.

rdtwo2• 5 years ago

Why not just do this for all products and save everyone the hassle

Proven• 5 years ago

Amazon is a dictator-friendly business.

celestialpeasan2• 5 years ago

Reminds me of the good'ol dynasties, those who "criticize the imperial court rashly" are getting lynched. The males in the family would be beheaded, while females and kids would be sold as slaves.

And in order to show the mercy of his imperial majesty, the execution of the males would be delayed to autumn.

Rebelgecko• 5 years ago

A few months ago I read some excerpts from "Annals of the Warring States". It's a treatise kinda similar to Sun Tzu's infamous Art of War but arguably more useful and less trendy (might have something to do with length).

One parable I enjoyed went something like this (paraphrasing extensively because I don't remember details/names).

Mr. Lao was the personal secretary of the king in one of the titular warring states. This gave him a lot of power and influence, in particular because he managed the king's schedule and chose who would receive an audience. One day, a wealthy merchant named Mr. Hsu requested an audience. Mr. Lao was curious, because Mr. Hsu had a reputation for being the handsomest dude in the land. So he goes to his wife and is like "do you think I'm more handsome than Mr. Hsu?" and she said "Of course you are darling". Then he goes to visit his concubine and is like "do you think in more handsome than Mr. Hsu? And the concubine is like "of course you are!". The next day, a merchant like Mr Hsu was waiting in the crowd to request an audience with the king. Mr. Lao asked the same question, and the merchant told him that of course Lao was better looking. The time for Mr. Hsu's audience came, and when he stepped into the room Mr. Lao was like "Damn, that guy is way more handsome than I am".

After the audience, he cleared the room and spoke to the king. "Your majesty, before seeing Mr. Hsu with my own eyes I asked 3 people who they thought was more handsome. My wife said me, because she loves me. My side-chick said me, because she fears me. A petitioner said me, because he wanted something from me. Nevertheless, my appearance is nothing compared to the good looks of Mr. Hsu"

The king pondered this for a few moments before speaking. "My trusted servant, I see your point. From here on out, have our guards and spies give a $10 reward to anyone who criticizes me in private. Give a $100 reward to any petitioner who justifiably thinks I've made a mistake, even if I eventually rule against them. Give $1,000 to any of my advisors who talks shit about me behind my back. Give $10,000 to the ones that have the balls to speak criticisms to me directly."

This was an expensive program, because people will always find something to complain about. But every week, Mr. Lao found himself distributing fewer and fewer bounties. The kingdom ran smoother and smoother as the king heard criticisms that people were afraid to levy before.

dumb1224• 5 years ago

I read it when I was little. it's interesting because I feel in china these story are regarded 'fairy tale' like and it gears towards individual virtue education. We read these classics but it's more for teaching people kindness. But I guess people have different interpretations anyway.

celestialpeasan2• 5 years ago

It's 鄒忌諷齊王納諫 (Zou Ji use his satirical admonishment to King of Qi).

It happened during the Warring States period (475 BC - 221 BC). The culture was very different compared to later imperial dynasties. It's more like medieval Europe - consisting of a lot of feudal states rather than being a powerful empire. Ethics drastically varies from person to person, where we can find people truly living with their virtue, and people most cunning.

Original names in case anyone was curious: Mr.Lao -> Zou Ji Mr.Hsu -> Duke Xu King -> King Might of Qi

renewiltord• 5 years ago

Seems reasonable. After all, no one will believe it except the true believers. You might even get away with giving it 5 stars after “received this for no charge in exchange for an honest and unbiased review” which would be rather fun.

pydry2• 5 years ago

https://www.amazon.com/Xi-Jinping-Governance-English-Version... I can see some non 5 star reviews here.

stingraycharles• 5 years ago

I assume the limitation is only in China, and doesn’t affect the rest of the world?

pydry2• 5 years ago

I guess. I'm honestly more surprised that Xi Jinping's book reviews in the US have reviews calling him winnie the pooh than I am that his reviews in China are all 5 stars.

I'd have thought his economic might would have extended to at least getting one or two of those deleted.

sparky_z• 5 years ago

You aren't in China.

lobocinza2• 5 years ago

Score is 3.7 but it has 4 1-star reviews and 2 5-star reviews so real score should be 2,3. It's inflated somehow.

LorenPechtel• 5 years ago

Amazon ratings never match the reviews--the problem is you can have ratings without reviews. I dislike it but it's common with most places that allow reviews.

Generally I don't care too much about the rating, I look at the negative reviews and see what they are complaining about. If there is a pattern of apparently legitimate gripes avoid. If it's a bunch of garbage ignore them. (I've seen many, many a one-star review because the buyer didn't understand what they were getting and the "fault" with product is that it won't do something it was never intended to do and in no way implies that it will do.)

k_sze• 5 years ago

I don’t know whether it’s just Amazon.cn serving up different content according to my IP. I just opened Amazon.cn from Hong Kong and what I saw is not that there are only 5-star reviews, but that there is no rating at all.

londgine• 5 years ago

original source which thetimes graciously refuses to link to https://www.reuters.com/world/china/amazon-partnered-with-ch...

Symbiote• 5 years ago

The Times pays Reuters for providing the news used as a basis for their article.

lokimedes• 5 years ago

When in Rome…

Why are we assuming that a commercial entity is supposed to carry our tacit values to any market it enters? It actually feels like imperial domination to me, more than a story about some country trying to retain its own ideology.

simonh2• 5 years ago

Xi’s book only getting 5 star reviews isn’t part of the ideology of China. There’s no policy or principle requiring it. No clause of the constitution, or law, or regulation of the country or even the party addresses it. In fact the Chinese constitution and legal system guarantees freedoms and its judges, police officers and government officials swear oaths to protect the people’s liberties.

Unless the star ratings for Xi’s book is covered by national security regulations of course.

engineer_22• 5 years ago

-> the Chinese constitution and legal system guarantees freedoms and its judges, police officers and government officials swear oaths to protect the people’s liberties.

There are many recent examples that run counter to your claim.

-Most recently a talented female tennis player disappeared. -Ongoing genocide of Uighurs. -Disappearance of Jack Ma. -Repression of political freedom in Hong Kong. -etc.

edit: Maybe we need to start with a common definition of liberty?

hulitu• 5 years ago

Taking into account that i was not allowed to make a negative review for a HP laptop whose keys were falling due to "your review does not meet the guideline" , i do not see what's special about Xi. Since then i actively avoid Amazon and its products.

laurent123456• 5 years ago

Looks like the book is being review bombed on Amazon.com probably in part because of this news (and probably in part because it's a rubbish book).

codeddesign• 5 years ago

“Amazon has noticed unusual reviewing activity on this product. Due to this activity, we have limited this product to verified purchase reviews.”

mrkramer• 5 years ago

This is something else!

vaxman• 5 years ago

Keep everything distributed thru Amazon bc it will make it easier to incrementally swap out the producers with new ones setting up in Mojave/Sonora, Ohio Valley, etc. Next 3T biz is recreating the Chinese supply chain in America bc there is no cure for what China has.

gigama• 5 years ago

https://www.wikihow.com/Delete-an-Amazon-Account

Amazon agreed to allow only five-star reviews for Xi’s book in China

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