Russian biz magazine drops Amazon reference after reporter inquirer

Russian business magazine Vector dropped a reference to a Ukraine-based research lab doing work for Amazon after Intercept reporter Sam Biddle asked Amazon about the work.

Biddle writes, “The author of the article, Dmitry Koshelnik, said that Ring Ukraine, after providing him the quotes directly through its publicity department, ‘asked us to remove the word Amazon [from] my article due to possible legal problems.’ Koshelnik added that the quotes had been sent to him specifically attributed to Vasiliev, who, according to his LinkedIn page, is a three-year veteran of the company. No note was appended to the article acknowledging any changes or that any post-publication editing had taken place, and even Koshelnik himself said he had been unaware of the changes prior to hearing from me. In an email to The Intercept, Vector editor-in-chief Denis Marakin confirmed that the article had been edited at Amazon’s request, and relayed a response from his recent predecessor, Anton Polieskov, who was running the publication at the time:

We published a news about rebranding, later pr-manager of Ring Ukraine called me and asked to take Amazon mention out from the article. Since I had a good relationship with manager, the article got just several dozens of views and I understood that everyone know that Ring is part of Amazon anyway, I didn’t even asked questions, said ok and took Amazon part out

“Contacted by WhatsApp, Polieskov, confirmed that he was asked to remove the quotes during ‘quick phone chat’ with Ring PR: ‘The goal was to delete Amazon mention, I don’t remember reasoning.'”

Read more here.