On July 24, 2014, Kathleen Hale approached STGRB with interview questions pertaining to online bullying and our site. Below is the Q&A that resulted from that interview.
What reasons did you have for building this site?
We started our site two years ago when we noticed a certain gang of Goodreads friends (later termed the GR bullies) who formed organized attacks on authors on Goodreads. These were usually authors who had unknowingly broken some kind of “rule” (rules made up purely by the Goodreads bullies) and were labeled BBA. It would usually begin with the author getting verbally attacked by the gang who would swarm in and back the author into a corner. Then, this gang would attack the author’s books on both Goodreads and Amazon, leaving either nasty one-star reviews or derogatory shelving or both. They would also hunt the author down on other platforms like the author’s personal website or Facebook page. Afterwards, the attackers would blog about the author and begin what we call the “career destroying” phase, making it known that this was an author whom they did not support and would encourage anyone they knew to boycott their books. What we also found was that most of the bullies were fairly ordinary people who were following the lead of a few unbalanced individuals, not realizing that they don’t really know these online ‘friends’ well, but the activity has attracted a small number of obsessive stalkers who seek out new victims regularly in a demonstratively pathological need to harm others. These few individuals will actually bait authors online to get them to say something, anything, that can be taken out of context so that they can instigate the larger group to swoop in for mass attacks. Because this online gang warfare largely went unnoticed and unchecked, especially by the Goodreads management, we began our blog to monitor and document what was happening in order to educate the public and warn others.
Do you still get complaints from people about Goodreads? If so, how many per month, and what is the nature of the complaints?
Yes, we do. We used to get dozens per month when we started our blog. Now we get maybe one or two per month.
Do you recognize the name Blythe Harris?
Yes, we sure do. Blythe Harris was involved in an attack on a fourteen year old girl back in May of 2012. Blythe, who is an eighth grade teacher, and another GR bully named Archer Adam Pring, ganged up on this girl when the girl commented on Blythe’s review of a book. Both GR bullies proceeded to curse the girl out, telling her to f*** off multiple times. You can read about it here:
https://stopthegrbullies.com/2013/01/30/bully-reviews/
In what ways has Goodreads become a platform for bullying?
In conjunction with the Amazon fora, Goodreads IS the platform that started the online phenomenon known as review bullying. Goodreads management practiced an extreme laissez-faire policy when it came to their members. They allowed them to harass and bully authors with very little or no penalty. As a result, vicious gangs formed and authors could get bullied right off of GR for doing very little to nothing, even for just being friends with the wrong person. In 2012, the situation was so bad, we decided to start our blog to help stop the abuse. In two years, it has gotten better, but we are still fighting this problem of online abuse towards authors. These gangs still exist and they have spread to other platforms like BookLikes and KBoards. The best thing we can do now is just educate and warn others about the dangers that exist for all authors out there in the cyber world.
When you say “dangers that exist for all authors out there in the cyber world,” what do you mean exactly? What have you seen happen to bullied authors? And In what ways is this particular kind of bullying particularly nasty? Do you think it would be enough to drive a person crazy?
We’ve seen authors get death and rape threats. That was on Goodreads. Many are hounded relentlessly online, stalked both online and physically, and have had their private information published that led to them being called in their home and threatened. We have many of these incidents documented on our blog. It’s not uncommon for some authors to become severely depressed from being harassed or even have thoughts of suicide. So, yes, it can really drive a person crazy, especially sensitive people like authors.
Considering what happened recently, I think her last question was pretty telling in what her mental state was, and obviously STGRB in no way encouraged her to do anything crazy. It is a real shame that such things can escalate, but people really need to think before they speak–there’s always someone out there who may internalize those words and go nuts.
But you notice the difference between Kathleen and the bullies who stalk authors online? Kathleen just wanted to know what Blythe was all about and why she was doing what she was doing. She wasn’t hostile. She didn’t contact Blythe/Judy to threaten her. This is much different than what the bullies have done to some authors — death and rape threats, calling them at home and threatening them. There’s a huge difference there.
Yes you’re absolutely right! Still a bad choice but a marked difference in motives. I can only hope this situation will cause the Blythes out there to weigh their words before posting online. I’m sure they only want attention, but they’re likely to catch a real lunatic if they’re not careful.
I think it’s important that authors don’t get tarred with this brush. Going to the woman’s house was going too far. Just as I’ve spoken up against name calling and such, I think we need to speak out against taking things this far. No author I know approves of showing up at a troll’s house, regardless of how nasty they’ve been. They are breaking the law when they stalk us, we must not break the law in turn.
Yes we can understand her frustration, but I cringe every time I see something about authors being sensitive. Let’s not try to use that as an excuse. I’ve been an author for nearly thirty years, traditional and then indie, and I don’t expect any special dispensation for it.
Crazies and obsessives exist on both sides of this fence. We all know who they are. We cannot condone unacceptable behaviour from those who call themselves authors any more than we can be expected to tolerate stalking and BS from obsessives like AH.
There are some lessons to observe from recent incidents:
1. No one is really anonymous on the Internet. That woman who stalked Maddie’s parents and then committed suicide after Sky News showed up at her house was using a sock puppet, but journalists found her easily with the same methods that revealed my stalker. The nutter with the bottle found the girl who slammed his book at her place of employment. Yes she should have been more professional in her review and will hopefully grow up a little now, but stalking her over distance and hitting her with risk of killing her is serious criminal behaviour. There is no defense for that kind of action.
2. There are crazies in the world and you don’t necessarily know who they are. How well do you think you know your Internet friends? A lot of people have had surprises over the last couple of years. Whatever side you’re on, don’t assume all the nutters are on the other side.
I agree, she went too far by going to her house. These days, that’s dangerous. She could have put herself in real danger by going there, but my point was that she wasn’t going to her house to smash a bottle over her head. She just wanted to talk to her and find out who Blythe really was and why she was doing what she was doing. She was trying to do things the old fashioned way, the way people solved problems before the internet even existed. She was trying to work things out face to face and you and I both know that these online bullies would never do or say the things they do online if they were face to face with people. No way. That’s why Blythe lied and hid from her, like all pathologically unstable internet trolls do. I’m talking about the ones like Blythe who use the internet to viciously cause harm to other people, like that 14 year old girl she and Archer ganged up on.
I joined Good Reads today and was both shocked and appalled by the bullies. The Katherine Hale situation has spiraled out of control and these gangs are feeding off it endlessly. One member pointed out that the book review section was for reviews of books not to be used as a platform for trashing authors & diatribes about boycotting books they’ve never read. Rating those books with one star is akin to rating an Amazon book with one star because it arrived late in the mail. The bullies attacked this person, name calling, stalking her profile, accusing her of being a “nobody” on Good Reads because she wasn’t as active as they were and thus could not possibly inform them of the rules. Then they announced they would be blocking her. So I commented that that Good Reads Review guidelines state that “Mentioning the author in the context of a review is always acceptable, but reviews that are predominantly about an author’s behavior and not about the book will be deleted.” I was then blocked and their attacks continued. I had no idea that any of this was going on and am appalled and disgusted that Goodreads doesn’t enforce their rules & allows these bullies free reign. I’m delighted that your site exists, there is obviously a serious need for it. Also, if anyone could recommend a professional book review site, I would appreciate it.