Amazon has reportedly closed down a scheme that paid staff “ambassadors” to paint a positive image of working in its warehouses on social media.

The campaign, which began in 2018 as the online retailer faced hostility over safety and conditions at its so-called fulfilment centres, was quietly stopped and all traces erased at the end of last year, according to the Financial Times.

The paper said that a number of sources at the company had confirmed the move though Amazon had refused to comment.

Senior executives, the newspaper said, were apparently unhappy with the scheme’s poor reach.

It had also been the target of a number of spoof accounts which, the FT said, had given a false impression that ambassadors had gone rogue.

According to The Intercept, fulfilment centre ambassadors received training on how to leave “no lie unchallenged” and reply in a “blunt” but “polite” manner to what the company considered untruths posted by individuals on various platforms including Twitter.

Sky News has contacted Amazon for comment.

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Amazon has faced allegations of poor working conditions at its warehouses since their conception and is currently facing a battle in the US over union rights.

In the UK, the GMB union has led a campaign against the company’s treatment of workers, claiming last month that one thousand have been “seriously injured” at its sites since 2016.

Amazon responded to the allegation by insisting it was always working hard to improve conditions but that the union had got its figures wrong and the vast majority of ambulance call-outs to its sites were for pre-existing conditions rather than injuries.

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