Lately, there has been much said about censorship of writing in the United States. But now it seems Amazon has got on the morality bandwagon with the slashing of customer review content.
Amazon has rightfully always had its standards when it comes to customers writing product reviews. But now it seems that words used in reviews are being judged as “hate speech” when they are simple criticism or review of a subject discussed in a book.
Mary, a reviewer from Colorado, says, “I bought and reviewed a book about hitting fifty and reaching the Menopause. I was pleased to have found tips on dealing with menstrual pain, and so, obviously in my review I wrote, “helped me find tips on dealing with menstrual pain.” When she saw her review was not published a week later, she was amazed to receive an email from Amazon’s review team citing, “profanity” and “sexual content” as the reason they had deleted her review. When she questioned this, they told her to re-write her review without using sexual words others would find offensive. Mary didn’t end up posting the review again, as she felt too angry. “Amazon’s review team was basically saying a woman’s bodily functions are dirty. It felt like entering a different era in the past where women are hidden away.”
Another reviewer was trying to write a review about children escaping the Nazis was told she could not use the words “Nazi Regime” in her review.
Pete, a reviewer from New York, bought a book on conspiracy theory in the Republican Party. When he reviewed the book, using the same language as the author had used in the published text, his review was removed by Amazon for using “hate speech.” He said, “Why would Amazon publish this controversial book in the first place if they don’t want people to review it? Critical thinking and discussion gets marked as hate, and you can’t leave an unbiased review anymore.”
An example of the letter sent out to Amazon reviewers recently
In a sample of 50 US Amazon reviewers in a survey in October 2023*, 66 out of 88 reviews were published without incident, but the rest were delayed by Amazon, and then almost all deleted without notification. The reviews that were delayed or deleted had been two-star or three-star reviews almost exclusively.
What is going on? One of the issues could be the location and culture of the Amazon reviewing team: young single men with limited experience of things like the menopause or political theory, working remote long hours in countries where religion is key and women’s rights and critical thinking are often suppressed. It could be that the training given to remote review teams has been unwittingly left to interpretation, meaning subjects that in the US and UK are openly discussed and debated are now being too heavily vetted.
Another possibility is that Amazon is taking the heavy censorship currently being forced on libraries in the US seriously and applying it to their own content. This is, in some ways, far more worrying for both reviewers and authors.
Of course, this could all be down to our new friend: AI. Companies are eager to train their algorithms to pick up on the grunt work, and for sure Amazon, a leader in machine learning is going to grab this unwieldy young bull by the horns. Maybe all we are seeing is AI before it “machine learns” the right way to quality assure these reviews for true hate speech and profanity.
The good thing is that usually customers can write Amazon and get a good response on re-publishing their book reviews once it’s been proven they are a reasonable person who is simply trying to get their opinion across. But it’s likely to have a knock-on effect for authors just trying to get some well-written customer reviews for their books.
*Copy for Books survey 2023
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Amazon has jus tdeleted ALL of my reviews for books and movies I’ve read or watched. Twice in the past they’ve emailed me saying to edit my review for it to be published but didn’t give a specific reason. I guess I was supposed to pick one from their list. When I review something, I don’t just write gushing praise, I focus on the good and WHY I thought it was good, as well as the bad, and WHY I felt it was bad. It doesn’t change the content of what I’ve read or watched, but it might help the author understand other people’s perspectives and maybe enlighten them toward areas their work could use some help. I don’t write “hate” speech, it’s the same kind of critique a teacher or editor would give. Amazon doesn’t need me, but do they think I need them? No. I can buy books and movies anywhere. Really getting tired of their censorship.
I wrote a review 3 times for some vitamins that smelled awful. Amazon rejected my reviews, saying that they had verified that the product was genuine. I never questioned whether it was genuine; I said it stinks.
I’ve cancelled Prime and 3 other Amazon subscriptions, and have started shopping more elsewhere. I stopped shopping at Whole Foods. Amazon has lost over $1000 in purchases from me in the last couple of months, and will continue to lose business from me. I will never write another review on their site.
Amazon has censored innocuous product reviews if I mentioned China mfr or foreign producers. Also Amazon has banned me from posting questions or making comments on products. Clearly any review or post that references poor quality China made product or reporting of knockoffs is not wanted on their platform. After 20+yrs member and Prime member and Amazon card, I’ll be dropping Prime membership, discontinue use of their store card and looking for alternative sources of merchandise. Amazon in my opinion has positioned themselves as bullies.
Definitely, reviews are censored but only the bad ones….
There is no question, Amazon is censoring political speech. Amazon got caught removing over 1000 negative reviews of Hillary Clinton’s book. I was banned the first time about 10 years ago. I lost hundreds of extensive book reviews. I keep copies now. I was banned again for submitting a negative review of “How to Lose the Information War,” by Weird Nina Jankowicz.
Amazon seems to censor or reject outright anything that it might interpret as criticism “according to their guidelines”. I have had reviews postponed with an email from them headed “we could not post your review” several times, with no hint as to what set them off or constituted an infraction of their “guidelines”. Amazon has never made it clear what offended them in their rejection emails, instead there is a finger-waggy attitude of “you should know what you did!”
I recently purchased a dehumidifier from an Amazon page that made no mention of the device’s condition, I assumed it was new merchandise, and received it in a box with the word “reconditioned “ on all 4 sides of the box it came in. I made mention of this in my review of it, along with questioning whether or not Amazon knew that the seller was shipping reconditioned goods to people, since the word “reconditioned” does not appear anywhere on the Amazon page of the dehumidifier and none of the other reviews mentioned this phenomenon. The review was not a negative one, the device performs well, and I mentioned that sometimes reconditioning a device leads to the correction of what might be a chronic defect… I would post the url for this device, but it’s 24 miles long. You can look it up on Amazon as “Shinco dehumidifier”, it’s the 30 pint one, first one that comes up.