We’ve just been alerted to that calls on Jeff Bezos to protect all Amazon users and independent authors from the bullying and abuse on his site by removing anonymity and requiring identity verification for reviewing and forum participation. We feel that this is a good solution to the troll problem that plagues Amazon. If implemented, it would be very effective in wiping out the bullying that takes place there.
Archive for February, 2014
We LOVE the UK! If only the US was as progressive as the UK on the subject of internet trolling, but alas, the US is woefully behind.
This article discusses how just recently, the UK is warning all internet trolls to expect arrest if they bully, harass, threaten, etc. anyone online. Just like you can’t walk down the street and do that, you can’t do it online either:
In response to the tragic death of Australian celebrity, Charlotte Dawson, friends of the celebrity have created a petition called Charlotte’s Law — Tougher Cyber Bully Legislation that calls on the Australian government to pass tougher laws that will crack down on cyber bullying:
We extend our sympathies to anyone who suffers from depression the way Charlotte did. For those in Australia, there is help. From the article, we screen grabbed information about a suicide prevention hotline:
For Americans, you will want to go here:
If any of our readers have information for hotlines in other countries, please feel free to leave that information in the comments section of this post.
Before we go, we’d like to share this fantastic article Jaq D. Hawkins wrote on this issue of depression and cyber bullying called .
We’d like to end with an image we found that best describes STGRB’s stance on how to deal with trolls and bullies online:
As one of our blog readers put it:
Walk away. Don’t feed the troll. Don’t interact. Don’t let them infect you with their disease.
Don’t let their hatred into your hearts. Walk away and report them. If we all work together to put pressure on governments and online social media companies, we may just see a change for the better.
We are very sad to report that Charlotte Dawson, a victim of online Twitter bullying has passed away. In , it says:
In another article in the Sydney Morning Herald, Twitter came under fire for not taking necessary measures to eradicate bullying on their site:
They are right to criticize Twitter for not signing up to the federal governement’s complaint handling scheme. We feel that this requirement should extend not only to Twitter, but also to Goodreads, Amazon, and any other online social networking site where trolls and bullies roam free. We feel that our government needs to start taking more action against the people who bully others online for the sheer pleasure of it (see New Study on Trolling).
And if you don’t believe that there is bullying of this magnitude on Goodreads and Amazon, just take a look at our posts on the Amazon Fora Trolls or our post covering the attack on Lauren P. Or better yet, just read the screenshots below that we took from GR.
In this one, a reviewer tells Jamie McGuire to “kindly kill” herself:
And in this one, a GR member says that the “only good author is a dead author”:
Online bullying is real and it affects thousands of people everyday, whether they’re authors, celebrities, or kids in school. It needs to be stopped.
The author of A Tale of Two Sock Puppeteers asked us to publish this tongue-in-cheek follow up post. Enjoy!
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We have just been informed of a terrible problem that is afflicting young self-published authors. As yet, the problem has no name, because it has only recently been identified. Researchers are provisionally calling it That-Thing-When-A-Bunch-of Trolls-Out-Of-Nowhere-Decide-To-All-Five -Star-Your-Book-At-The-Same-Time.
Basically, the main symptom is this: an author will be minding his own business when BOOM! -Out of Nowhere!- twenty people, or sometimes more, will converge on his book and give it five star ratings for absolutely no reason.
Take the case of writer Gavin H.
An unsuccessful author with five one star reviews on Amazon, he was minding his own business one day, when BOOM! -Out of Nowhere!-twenty two people converged on his unsuccessful book and gave it five star ratings. You can see a small portion of the horror here:
These five starring bandits inflated Gavin’s ratings by a ridiculous amount over a very short span of time, until he had 55 ratings and an average rating of almost 5 stars.
“Who would do such a thing?” A witness sobbed.
Others were stunned speechless.
“For all we know” says researcher I.M. Fullofit, PhD, “this has been going on for a very long time. The reason we’ve only just recognized it as a separate and distinct problem is that up to now we were confusing it with those sock-puppet reviews authors, especially self-published authors, sometimes give themselves. Can you imagine? On top of the horror of getting twenty or thirty five star reviews on your book within the space of a few days, some authors were getting accused of having done it to themselves! Would you tell a cancer patient `you brought this on yourself?’ But that’s exactly what people were saying to these authors.”
Gavin’s story has a happy ending. Working quickly, Goodreads personnel were able to remove 22 of those five star ratings/reviews, bringing his total down to 33 from a high of 55. .
“The worst part” a friend who asked not to be named said “was that people were accusing him of making up those accounts himself! I mean, that’s ridiculous! Those accounts were in France! Okay, some of them were in Illinois! But Gavin lives in the UK! Everybody knows that people in the UK don’t travel or have friends in foreign countries!”
Fortunately, Gavin remains upbeat about the incident.
We are glad things ended well for Gavin. If you or anyone you know has been attacked by a gang of mysterious five star reviewers, please let us know. People need to be made aware of this problem, to stop them suffering what Gavin had to endure.
Signs to watch out for are:
- The profiles that attack you were all created in the same month.
- They have no friends or are friends with each other.
- Their only common element is your book.
- They have few other reviews and ratings, and generally very few books read.
- They all attack at once.
Please be alert, and stay safe.
We want to thank Anne Rice who has been posting on her Facebook page about the troll problem on the Amazon fora. For those who’ve missed it, we’ve featured her several times on our blog:
Words of Wisdom from Anne Rice
Anne Rice Lights Up the Amazon Fora
On her Facebook page, she’s been linking to our post Anne Rice Owns the Bullies to bring attention to the growing problem on Amazon. In her latest FB post she says:
She is right and we have definitely been seeing the hits on our blog:
To help report the problem, you can report the abuse directly in the fora or contact Jeff Bezos and Nader Kabbani:
There is also a Change.org petition to address this issue. Please .
A while ago, we posted a link on our sidebar to Anne R. Allen’s Laws of the Amazon Jungle. Just recently she has revised it and renamed it, Laws of the Cyberian Jungle, so that it incorporates not just the dangers of Amazon, but all dangerous venues in “Cyberia”.
We feel that ALL authors should read her post as it provides invaluable advice that will save many authors from falling victim to the same dangers as others have in the past:
Also, hiring blog tour companies or other third party organizations that distribute your books to readers is okay, too. Many independent authors do this and it is an acceptable part of the business.
Rule #4 below is very important. We’ve seen too many authors get baited into responding to nasty reviews and when that happens, it only gets worse for the author. The trolls attack and the author ends up fighting back and it usually turns into a public lynching. Please read The Bully MO for more information.
If you don’t believe that trolls are drunk with their own rage, please read up on the New Study on Trolling.
Rule #7 is also very important. Anne tells us what places online to avoid. We think she is spot on.
And finally:
We’re excited to announce that we have good news in this post, so keep reading! First, Anne Rice just recently came across our post Anne Rice Owns the Bullies and made mention of it on her :
Athena had already been communicating with Anne via email and meant to tell her about it:
We are honored that Anne was pleased with it and hope that she continues to give new authors her advice and support. She is a true superstar!
Now, moving on to other news. In our last GR Bully Meltdown, we said:
Well, it looks like we’re seeing another GR bully meltdown. Ever since Angela was kicked off Goodreads, she’s really gone off the deep end. All you have to do is check her blog. Scary stuff. Not only that, Miranda, her partner in crime, has been going crazy on , stalking and attacking anyone who falls within her radar. And finally, by the “monsters” who reside there.
…
So… does this remind you of something? Hmm, maybe the snake fight we all saw between Kat and Ridley back in the day that led to The GR Bully Meltdown, Part 1 and 2? Or how about the falling out between Jane and Ridley?
And now, it’s happening again.
As we said before, you put a slither of snakes into a pit together and eventually they begin to eat one another. Quite entertaining for those of you who’ve been abused by them, is it not?
We’re hoping to see more meltdowns coming up this year so that by New Years, we’ll really have something to celebrate! 😀
We got our wish. To everyone’s great relief, the GR bully network is continuing to crumble into nonexistence. Since August of 2013 we’ve seen several more GR bullies get the boot from GR: Angela L. , Miranda and Grim, Alethea and Amanda, and finally Derrick the bully who started the attack on Lauren P. that led to her receiving rape and death threats. Another bit of good news is that GR started to clean up its book pages to rid them of all the nasty shelving left by the trolls.
So what are we cheering about today? Well, judging by , it appears as if Angela and Miranda, two GR bully exiles who were banned from GR for their behavior, kicked Linda H., Tina, and Grim out of a BBA Booklikes group (or something, it’s a long story) and it created one hell of a ruckus. It appears to be a very complicated story. If you wish, you can go to the thread and read to your heart’s content, or you can take a look at some choice screenshots we decided to capture:
Although all of this may be rather entertaining for our readers, what caught our eye the most were Nenia’s comments:
Now remember, this is Nenia. The queen of the GR BBA group before it was removed from the site. She was notorious for bashing authors and starting hate campaigns against them which almost always turned into full-force attacks. Now, to remind you of her reaction to GR’s anti-bullying policy when it was announced:
Major attitude change, huh? This is the kind of thing we are glad to see. To witness the trolls actually learning that their hatred and bitterness against others really gets them nowhere in the end. To see them do a complete 180 and move away from their inner black beast is a very healthy sign. We just hope this kind of shift continues. When it does, we will be right here reporting on it.
In the end, all of this is good news for both authors and readers on Goodreads, and hopefully someday Amazon. Stay tuned.
It looks as if Goodreads is continuing to rid their site of the GR bullies’ antics. Just recently an author was attacked by the bullies for speaking out against the bullying and for stating her opinion on how she views the GR review/rating system. Goodreads cracked down on it and forced the bullies to remove their links, as you can see here on KarlynP’s Booklikes page:
This is just more proof that they are moving their nastiness over to Booklikes. Congratulations, Dawid! You are now the proud owner of a book reviewing site infested with GR bully exiles. You must feel really good about yourself.
On a side note, we discovered that Debbie S. is :
Well, it looks like we have a brand spankin’ new carpet bomber who unfortunately thinks that she can actually make a dent in Anne’s ratings with her one stars. Here is her profile:
And her most recent carpet bombs.
We think she may be a sock so we are currently reporting her account to GR. If any of you feel the need to do the same, be our guest.
