According to a news report by Jay Greene in the Seattle Times: Amazon.com is revising its product review system six weeks after The Seattle Times reported on activists posting reviews to push their political and social agendas.
“We are taking a close look at our policies regarding activism reviews and are considering changes,” Amazon spokesman Tom Cook said in a statement.
The Times article reported on coordinated attacks by Amazon reviewers on Scarlett Lewis, the mother of a 6-year-old boy murdered at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut three years ago. Lewis wrote a book, Nurturing Healing Love: A Mother’s Journey of Hope and Forgiveness to describe how the loss affected her life after the massacre.
Reviewers posted hateful, ugly reviews calling the author names and taking her to task for perpetuating what they referred to as a hoax concocted by Obama. What? Really? That people actually believe Obama would do that absolutely staggers me.
Amazon has an offensive-content policy, but apparently, reviews buying into the conspiracy theory that the murders were staged don’t meet that standard.
One review-policy change being considered is limiting reviews only to purchases made on Amazon, which would work okay for most products. However, for authors who rely on reviews to feed into the algorithms that keep their books high on the lists that would be a terrible blow. Many of us, myself included, receive books from the author or publisher for review on a blog. Then I will post the review on Amazon and Goodreads to help the author, so I do hope Amazon does not make this move.
And I really, really wish people would not be using the review system as a forum for their personal agendas. The reviews for any merchandise should be about the product, so people can make a decision on whether they want to purchase or not. They should not be hateful spouting of ugliness.
Now for some fun.
The following precepts aren’t funny, but they are well worth the read.
After a long drought, the village elders called all the villagers together to pray for rain. Everyone gathered for prayer, but only one boy brought an umbrella.
That’s FAITH.
When you throw a baby in the air, she laughs because she knows you will catch her.
That’s TRUST.
Every night we go to bed, without any assurance of being alive the next morning, but still we set the alarm.
That’s HOPE.
We plan big things for tomorrow, in spite of zero knowledge of the future.
That’s CONFIDENCE.
We see all the suffering and evil in the world, but still we get married and have children.
That’s LOVE.
Written on an old man’s shirt: “I am not 80 years old. I’m sweet 16 with 64 years of experience.”
That’s ATTITUDE.
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That all for me, folks. Hope everyone has a great weekend. No review on Sunday this week, but a surprise on Monday, so do check back. And remember to enter the CONTEST to win Amazon gift cards. It ends Monday.
And let me know what you think about the hateful reviews on Amazon.