Below is a post we published on July 17, 2012 to show our readers exactly what we meant by personal attacks on authors in reviews. It was because of these reviews and the attention our blog received from our HuffPo article (post to come) that GR was forced to act and publicly publish their Terms of Service clarifying their reviewing policies.
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For today’s post, we want to show you some screencaps of reviews we deem inappropriate, or bully reviews. Please note, the purpose of this site is not to fight against critical reviews. It is to fight against bullying. We are presenting these to you because we have had a few requests for what we consider inappropriate. Why do we consider them inappropriate? A book review is, strangely enough, a review of a BOOK and yet these “reviewers” just cannot seem to stop talking about authors. So instead of telling you about bully reviews, we will show you.
But we saved the best for last. This review was written by a GR bully named Blythe who attacked and harassed a 14 year old girl for taking offense to Blythe’s language because, get this, Blythe is an 8th grade English teacher. Below are couple excerpts from Blythe’s review:
Michelle, the 14 year old, wrote in her review:
To which Blythe responded in her own review at the bottom:
Then Blythe rallied the bullies and attacked Michelle on the comment thread of Michelle’s review. Archer, one of the three ringleaders, left this comment to Michelle:
Okay, so, breathe slowly and let’s recap. Lady Blythe is an 8th grade English teacher who lives in California. Archer is a 20-something man who lives in Australia. And this is how they treat a 14 year old girl.
Are you disgusted yet?
Wait! There’s more. Let’s check out Goodreads terms of service where it specifically talks about children and inappropriate content. If a person creates an account on Goodreads, he or she has to agree to these terms:
You agree not to post User Content that: (i) may create a risk of harm, loss, physical or mental injury, emotional distress, death, disability, disfigurement, or physical or mental illness to you, to any other person, or to any animal; (ii) may create a risk of any other loss or damage to any person or property; (iii) seeks to harm or exploit children by exposing them to inappropriate content, asking for personally identifiable details or otherwise; (iv) may constitute or contribute to a crime or tort; (v) contains any information or content that we deem to be unlawful, harmful, abusive, racially or ethnically offensive, defamatory, infringing, invasive of personal privacy or publicity rights, harassing, humiliating to other people (publicly or otherwise), libelous, threatening, profane, or otherwise objectionable; (vi) contains any information or content that is illegal (including, without limitation, the disclosure of insider information under securities law or of another party’s trade secrets); or (vii) contains any information or content that you do not have a right to make available under any law or under contractual or fiduciary relationships; or (viii) contains any information or content that you know is not correct and current.
So, do you think Goodreads is enforcing its TOS? From the evidence above, I’d say not.
