We’re doing a little experiment here. We received this from a blog reader who asked us to post it. It’s an experiment that demonstrates how the AFT, the Machin Shin of Amazon, swarm in on reviews and execute down voting campaigns.
I was targeted by the bullies last July and they creepily stalk everything I do on line. For instance, I read Anne Rice’s new book, Beauty’s Kingdom, loved it and posted a review. That should be the end of the story but the bullies can’t let me AND Anne Rice get away with completely normal transactions on Amazon so they swarmed and voted my review “not helpful” 58 times. You wouldn’t think that was mathematically possible given the averages but somehow, within a couple weeks, 58 people felt compelled to neg my review on a book they hadn’t even read. Which begs the questions: why are you rating the reviews of a book you’ve never read and how do you know that the review isn’t helpful? Details. Anyhoo, through some glitch in the system, the text of the review went missing. I’m sure it was nothing conspiratorial but after reporting it, I was told to enter the review again BY Amazon! They basically told me to wash the review. So I did. Now I sit back and watch as the bullies get into a dither about the situation and spread the word that the review has been washed and they must all go back and neg the review. How else will I learn my lesson? So I thought you might enjoy watching the numbers climb back up while the bullies say they don’t carpet bomb or instigate. I got nine negs within 2 hours. This should be entertaining and educational!
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I do hope this was just a glitch and not deliberate…
These trolls are insatiable. They’ve been trying to police the Beauty’s Kingdom reviews for awhile because Anne Rice is within their trolling scope right now. Thanks to this wonderful site for all their hard, honest work in exposing some of the low-brow, indecent, uncivil behaviors of these troll gangs. I very much appreciate your work here.
The only way to get amazon’s attention is for authors to remove their books from the site until amazon is forced to do something about it’s gangster bullying problem. Believe me, amazon is only concerned with one thing and it’s not ethics, it’s the almighty dollar! Bottom line. The ONLY way to get them to fix anything is to hit them where it hurts…the bank! Authors unite and pull your books for just one month! It will be worth it in the long run. You WIll get amazon’s attention and they WILL be eager to do something about the gang of thugs that stink up their forums and reviews.
Anon, I don’t think this will affect Amazon. From what I understand, books now represent only a fraction of what they sell. A fraction. We don’t have the leverage to approach them in this way. Who knows? They themselves might give up the online bookstore. —- I do think, as it stands, the Amazon online bookstore has done more to help the book world than any other force in the last twenty years. But we are facing something with Amazon today that is unprecedented. And boycotts, I think, will not work. Just a personal opinion.
Interesting point I never thought about, I mean technically I would have thought not buying book there would effect them. And yet, suppose someone still bought other stuff, they would need to transfer their purchases elsewhere.
But honestly it seems like there is to much apathy even in the regular purchasing public, who aren’t readers, that like buying their goods from the same place. So you’d only have like 1 out of fifteen that are readers, and of that fraction of readers only a further fraction that may be effected enough to boycott.
So it almost just seems like a losing situation. I avoid Amazon mainly out of principle than money.