tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6427453882425342631.post3607769329583541327..comments2023-10-04T06:25:41.930-07:00Comments on Catherine Winchester: How Amazon is enabling cyber stalking.Cat Winchesterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13248231162701133032noreply@blogger.comBlogger11125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6427453882425342631.post-57328218729588992642014-02-12T20:08:04.001-08:002014-02-12T20:08:04.001-08:00Hi Cat,
I came across this post today, because I ...Hi Cat,<br /><br />I came across this post today, because I am dealing with the same issue. I appreciate that not everyone likes a book, but the nonstop harassment is getting ridiculous. As someone who has been bullied to the point of near suicide several times, I didn't get into writing for this - and Amazon needs to watch this better. <br /><br />Let me know if you ever found a solution: sarah.daltry@gmail.comAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6427453882425342631.post-15772946411078475692013-08-31T16:57:20.691-07:002013-08-31T16:57:20.691-07:00As I mentioned above, trolls, stalking and 'an...As I mentioned above, trolls, stalking and 'anonymous' are increasingly becoming a problem for many different sites and businesses. <br /><br />I don't know if you heard about the recent backlash and one day boycott of twitter, protesting the abuse many women on twitter receive. It was getting so out of hand and vicious that journalists and even some members of parliament became involved, demanding that twitter do something to improve the situation and protect it's users (threats and harassment, including online, is against UK law). Twitter vowed to make it easier to report abuse and act faster to ban users when it happens.<br /><br />My hope is that this is a turning point in online harassment and more and more businesses will have to take note and do something. <br />Cat Winchesterhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13248231162701133032noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6427453882425342631.post-62167903133372187782013-08-27T23:59:11.007-07:002013-08-27T23:59:11.007-07:00I have email from Amazon that says 1-star, no read...I have email from Amazon that says 1-star, no read attack reviews do not violate their guidelines.<br />I have email from Amazon that says stalking, bullying, harassment, defamation, libel and posting the home addresses of authors does not violate the guidelines.<br />Goodreads actually threatens your reputation as an author if you defend your self when attacked. The trolls on the Amazon forums have been attacking me for nine years. Neither Amazon or goodreads will do a thing.Rick Carufelhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01453615805802303193noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6427453882425342631.post-57860347492121834122013-08-26T18:08:24.134-07:002013-08-26T18:08:24.134-07:00It's not an easy problem to solve, and I have ...It's not an easy problem to solve, and I have given this a lot of thought. <br /><br />You already have to have made a purchase (of anything) in order to leave a review on amazon <br /><br />Perhaps as well as that, only accounts over a certain age can post reviews, although those sites/people that sell reviews could just set up an account, then allow it to sit dormant until the time limit has expired. <br /><br />Another idea would be to have a minimum spend on an account before reviews can be posted. If you use amazon sellers, it'd be pretty easy to reach a $100 spending limit by just buying a pair of nice shoes but then again, if you only buy books, especially ebooks, it could take forever to reach $100 at $2.99ish per ebook. Readers who perhaps can only afford to buy 0.99c books would have an even harder time. Unless the spending limit was ridiculously low, it would be almost impossible to implement without implementing a class system. The rich get to leave reviews, the poor/working classes don't, or they have to wait months or even years before they earn that right. <br /><br />Perhaps the best solution would be to automatically remove reviews with more than say, 10 unhelpful votes, or 90% or higher voted unhelpful, but for self pubbers like me, it can be hard enough to get reviews, let alone 10 people to see, recognise as fake and vote down a malicious review. <br /><br />And again, those authors who are willing to pay for fake reviews, or those with a decent twitter following/fanbase, could simply purchase X down votes, or ask fans to down vote a review that they don't like, even if it's honest and truthful. <br /><br />Amazon could personally review reviews with lots of down votes but I can't even begin to imagine how many reviews are posted each and every day. Amazon.com has 5 to 9 million visits a day (it varies by day and time of year). If only 0.1% of that days visitors left a review (1 in every thousand people) that would be 5,000 to 9,000 new reviews per day. Personally overseeing even just the complained about reviews, would require hiring a lot more personnel to manage the review service, which would drive amazon's costs up. That money is unlikely to be passed onto customers, therefore they may lower the earnings for authors and publishing houses. It would especially hurt self pubbed and indie press, whose profit margins are already slim. <br /><br />Amazon seem to be overzealous in removing suspect good reviews, but I suppose that's better than allowing good fake/bought reviews that paint an inaccurate picture. Perhaps it would be better to be overzealous with the possibly fake bad reviews too, then at least by the law of averages, the picture painted overall would be more accurate. Of course, losing even a single good or bad review can disproportionately affect a less popular book, which probably only has a handful of reviews to begin with, such as indie press, self pub or special interest books.<br /><br />I don't know what the answer is, only that something does need to be done, but there is no perfect solution. <br /><br />And this is not a problem unique to Amazon, trolling is something that effects the whole internet, from amazon, to twitter, to facebook, to Ask.fm. Things such as anonymous and 4chan can be a force for good, or a force for bad but either way, our laws and business practices need to catch up to the new technology.Cat Winchesterhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13248231162701133032noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6427453882425342631.post-89083916473090042452013-08-26T09:33:03.226-07:002013-08-26T09:33:03.226-07:00As an honest reviewer, I just hate to hear things ...As an <i>honest</i> reviewer, I just hate to hear things like this. Obviously people like this are giving all reviewers a bad name. However, as much as I understand, only allowing authorized purchasers of a product to review it will not really help the problem. What about those of us who receive ARCs from the publisher or author? Or to whom the author directly sent a copy? Or if we've picked up the book elsewhere? While I pick up or am gifted a lot of my books from Amazon, they certainly are not <i>all</i> from there, so that would defeat the purpose for those authors who have asked me to post that review for them and I would be unable to post the review on the site where it is most likely to do them some good (assuming I liked the book, and I don't accept books for review that I don't think I'll like). <br /><br />This whole thing is a travesty, and Amazon recommending you respond using a comment to a review is madness. Never do that, as it will just give them an excuse to point it out to their friends and say, 'OH, this author attacks reviewers!! Freedom of speech!!!" *snort* Just flag it and report it, not that it does much good. <br /><br />Again, I'm very sorry this happened to you. A lot of people are starting to (FINALLY) notice what's going on and hopefully the pressure will finally force Amazon to take some kind of action on the trolls that infest its site...Katy Shttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00545922085061044768noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6427453882425342631.post-47110256825822851272013-05-06T05:42:14.664-07:002013-05-06T05:42:14.664-07:00Amazon should do away with the star system as a st...Amazon should do away with the star system as a staring point and then have the balls to delete what are deliberate malicious reviews. 2013 will be the year of the Troll as we see a change from just Sock Puppet Five star reviews to a mass of troll reviews. Often as Indie authors bash each other or established publishers try to fight for their market share by making sure new authors books are hit before they have a chance to take off. Amazon is brewing up a troll pandemic and will ultimately pay the price if they do not find a way to control what is happening. The end result is that reviews will be completely worthless as customers turn away from them. Recent stats has 60% of Amazon reviews as fake...Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05513920038335255306noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6427453882425342631.post-49538018338464251932013-05-06T05:41:30.057-07:002013-05-06T05:41:30.057-07:00Amazon should do away with the star system as a st...Amazon should do away with the star system as a staring point and then have the balls to delete what are deliberate malicious reviews. 2013 will be the year of the Troll as we see a change from just Sock Puppet Five star reviews to a mass of troll reviews. Often as Indie authors bash each other or established publishers try to fight for their market share by making sure new authors books are hit before they have a chance to take off. Amazon is brewing up a troll pandemic and will ultimately pay the price if they do not find a way to control what is happening. The end result is that reviews will be completely worthless as customers turn away from them. Recent stats has 60% of Amazon reviews as fake...Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05513920038335255306noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6427453882425342631.post-49850653657997499092013-05-02T03:09:50.037-07:002013-05-02T03:09:50.037-07:00People are strange creatures, aren't they.
I...People are strange creatures, aren't they. <br /><br />I expect Amazon will do something about it, only when the negative publicity gets too great.Cat Winchesterhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13248231162701133032noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6427453882425342631.post-46331381484579809352013-05-01T14:10:05.029-07:002013-05-01T14:10:05.029-07:00I'm so sorry this happened to you! I've ex...I'm so sorry this happened to you! I've experienced the 'swarm' effect on one of my books that had a few typos. My traditionally published books have typos, but nobody says anything. My e-book had a typo and every single reviewer seemed to feel the need to weigh in on whether it was too bad to read once they'd seen a typo on page 14. UGH. REALLY???<br /><br />45 reviews later, I'm still getting people responding to the trolls, defending the book. That's great, but it shouldn't have happened in the first place.Mary Jane Hathawayhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17996627730074514978noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6427453882425342631.post-21033785784663424882013-03-30T20:39:32.862-07:002013-03-30T20:39:32.862-07:00Thanks Morrighan.
You know, I'm not even mad ...Thanks Morrighan.<br /><br />You know, I'm not even mad at her; to be trying to bait a stranger into a flame war she obviously has an unfulfilling life, but Amazon should know better than to allow it.Cat Winchesterhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13248231162701133032noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6427453882425342631.post-90514245676136342802013-03-30T20:10:07.158-07:002013-03-30T20:10:07.158-07:00This is absolutely terrible. It's harassment l...This is absolutely terrible. It's harassment like nothing I've ever seen and I'm not a published author. But as a writer, it's scares the crap out of me that behavior such as this is allowed to happen by Amazon, and that reviews are sold or paid for. <br /><br />I'm sorry you have to go through crap like this and I hope it can be resolved soon.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com