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Sandy Hook truthers, et al #conspiracy seattletimes.com

Amazon reviews hijacked by causes, conspiracies, rage

Organized groups are using the Amazon review system to push political and social agendas often only tangentially related to the products being sold.

Most book authors know they need to endure critics, even comments that may be malicious and personal.

But the venom that runs through more than three dozen reviews on Amazon.com of Scarlett Lewis’ latest book are particularly scathing.

“This Scarlet Lewis person is a real sick human being,” writes one reviewer named Kevin.

“Scarlett Lewis is a fraud and a sellout to all of humanity,” writes another, anonymously.

“Scarlett Lewis is a lying traitor,” writes a reviewer named David Weiss.

Those reviews might suggest that Lewis is a polemic politician, treasonous spy or scurrilous financier. She’s none of these. Lewis is the mother of Jesse Lewis, a 6-year-old boy who was murdered at Sandy Hook Elementary School three years ago.

She wrote “Nurturing Healing Love: A Mother’s Journey of Hope and Forgiveness” to describe her journey after the massacre and help others choose love and forgiveness instead of anger and resentment in their darkest moments.

The rage in those reviews is fueled by the conspiracy theory that the Sandy Hook shootings were a hoax, perpetuated by the government to push for tougher gun-control laws. Several were posted after a YouTube user who goes by the handle “RadMc02” uploaded a video on Oct. 18 encouraging viewers to “Truth Bomb the Shit Out of Amazon Reviews!”

Reviewers have long used Amazon as a platform to vent about products that failed to live up to their expectations. Some have even used it to attack authors whose views differ from their own.

Increasingly, though, people are launching coordinated campaigns to push political and social agendas through negative reviews often only tangentially related to the product for sale. They are able to do so because Amazon welcomes reviews regardless of whether the writer has actually purchased the product.

Lewis isn’t the only target of the Sandy Hook tragedy deniers. “We want to hit this woman as hard as we can,” says a narrator in a YouTube video as he walks viewers through posting 1-star ratings and negative reviews for “Choosing Hope: Moving Forward from Life’s Darkest Hours,” by Sandy Hook Elementary first-grade teacher Kaitlin Roig-DeBellis. The video, posted by “Peekay22,” even guides viewers to click a “Yes” button indicating they found other negative reviews helpful.

Since Peekay22’s video posted on Oct. 16, “Choosing Hope” has received more than 170 1-star reviews out of just over 250 total reviews. That’s tanked the book’s rating down to 2.1 stars out of 5.

“Amazon is giving these people a forum — ,” Lewis said. “Obviously, Amazon should remove (the reviews).”

But Amazon appears to have no intent of doing so. To the company, as long as the reviews are “authentic,” they have a place on its website.

“All authentic reviews, whether the reviewer bought the product on Amazon or not, are valuable to customers, helping them make informed buying decisions every day,” Amazon spokesman Tom Cook wrote in reply to questions about its review policy. He declined to address questions about specific reviews.

Critics long welcome

Amazon’s reviews system has long been a source of pride for Chief Executive Jeff Bezos. In his 2003 letter to shareholders, Bezos crowed about ignoring critics who wondered why the company would allow negative reviews that might discourage shoppers from buying products on Amazon’s site.

“Though negative reviews cost us some sales in the short term, helping customers make better purchase decisions ultimately pays off for the company,” Bezos wrote.

Still, Amazon has cracked down on some bogus reviews. Earlier this month, it filed a suit — the second this year — against reviewers who post positive product evaluations in exchange for payment from third-party sellers on the site.

“We continue to use a number of mechanisms to detect and remove the small fraction of reviews that violate our guidelines,” the company said after filing the most recent suit. “We terminate accounts that abuse the system and we take legal action.”

But Amazon doesn’t view coordinated campaigns to flood its review system with negative comments as abuse.

“We terminate accounts that abuse the system and take the appropriate legal action, whether it’s a 1- or 5-star review,” Cook, the Amazon spokesman, wrote. “The issue isn’t whether the reviews are negative or positive, it’s whether they are authentic or not.”

Forum for activists, too

It’s not just angry conspiracy theorists who use Amazon’s review system to air their views. Grass-roots political activists have figured out how to turn Amazon.com into a bullhorn as well.

A year ago, PepsiCo launched a new mid-calorie soda called Pepsi True exclusively on Amazon. That caught the attention of activists at the Rainforest Action Network and SumOfUs, who have condemned PepsiCo for its use of so-called “conflict palm oil,” the harvesting of which is causing deforestation, in its snack products such as Doritos.

The two groups decided to target Pepsi True through Amazon’s review system because they knew it was a low-cost way to make a high-impact statement. SumOfUs called for a “Pepsi True Amazon.com takeover!” on its Facebook page, and the Rainforest Action Network called on its Twitter followers to “Join in” the effort.

And it worked. Nearly 4,000 followers gave Pepsi True 1-star ratings and posted negative reviews that, among other things, ripped Pepsi for supporting “rain forest destruction by buying unsustainable palm oil.” Pepsi was caught so off-guard that it asked Amazon to take down the page.

“We totally sabotaged their product launch,” said Laurel Sutherlin, a Rainforest Action Network spokesman.

Pepsi, which eventually decided to revive the product page despite the negative reviews, said in a statement that Pepsi True was “subject to an orchestrated effort to post inaccurate information” about the company’s palm-oil policy. A spokeswoman declined to comment beyond the statement.

Even one of Amazon’s own products has been targeted by a coordinated, agenda-driven campaign. Greenpeace has long criticized Amazon’s lack of transparency regarding the type of energy it uses to power the massive data centers that run its cloud-computing business, Amazon Web Services.

Greenpeace brought that concern to last year’s debut of Amazon’s Fire Phone, launching an email campaign that encouraged users to post negative reviews and leave 1-star ratings on Amazon’s own website.

Gary Cook, Greenpeace’s senior IT analyst, said the group stopped counting reviews related to its environmental concerns after the number reached 1,500.

“We got an overwhelming response,” he said. “People enjoyed having the opportunity to talk to Amazon where it lives.”

While the Fire Phone failed on its own, the Greenpeace-prompted comments — including “Make a ‘smarter’ phone supported by clean, renewable energy!” from IT-Berater — remain on the site.

These campaign-driven negative reviews may promote agendas, but they often add little to the discussion about the product itself. That’s because the vast majority of reviewers responding to those calls-to-action have never used the products they are critiquing, a point they often acknowledge in their reviews. In the process, those reviews often overwhelm comments from customers who have read the book or used the product.

Rainforest Action Network’s Sutherlin believes removing reviews would limit the expression of opinions. But Amazon has always retained the right to control the information posted on its site. Its “General Review Creation Guidelines” include plenty of restrictions, including barring reviews with “profanity or spiteful remarks,” as well as “advertisements, promotional material or repeated posts that make the same point excessively.”

It would be hard to argue that some of the posts about Scarlett Lewis aren’t spiteful. And the very purpose of these coordinated campaigns is to make the same point excessively so as to drown out positive appraisals. Amazon’s Cook declined to respond to questions about the company’s process for determining if reviews violate its guidelines and how they are taken down.

One way to stifle the coordinated outrage would be to limit reviews to those who have actually purchased the product they want to evaluate on Amazon. The company already lets shoppers filter reviews by “Verified purchase only,” though that’s not the default. Sutherlin acknowledges that such a limit would have made the campaign against Pepsi True impossible.

“I doubt that most people weighing in would buy the product,” Sutherlin said.

“System is creaking”

But don’t expect Amazon to make that change. Cornell University science and technology professor Trevor Pinch, who has studied Amazon’s review system, said the company benefits from as many shoppers posting on its site as possible.

“The reason Amazon cannot just use verified reviews is simple. Most of the content at the site is from free customer reviews, and it would mean it would lose most of its content,” Pinch said.

And while some of those reviews are spiteful, repetitive and off-topic, the vast majority are not.

But Pinch also cautions that coordinated campaigns of negative reviews, as well as bogus paid-for positive reviews, can’t help but take a toll on the system’s credibility.

“These are signs that the whole system is creaking,” Pinch said. “As cases of abuse mount up, it does lead to more distrust.”

For her part, Scarlett Lewis is living her book’s message of compassion and understanding. She refuses to be upset by the hateful reviews or Amazon’s decision not to remove them.

“Once you’ve had a child murdered, shot in the forehead, there’s not a lot that can ruffle your feathers,” Lewis said.

Dogdaze rocknsoul jay p patches #wingnut seattletimes.com

<comments on the Socialist city council member putting forth legislation to prevent winter evictions>

Dogdaze
Is Sawant proposing any re-education camps for the land owning class swine?

viva mao! Viva la revolution!

rocknrollsoul
Seattle will become the first American city whose name is preceded by “The Peoples Republic of” with Sawant and her cronies being referred to as General Secretary and The Standing Committee..

jay p patches
Leave it to the socialist. Someone that was not even born in the US. Good idea for her to go back and make a further mess of her own native country. However, it looks like Seattle voters want her. She was elected again by clueless local voters or come to think of by fraud. She has to go.

earthquake, kilroy77, and user14963339457514 #wingnut #fundie seattletimes.com

<Select commentx on Seattleites gathering over climate change worries>

earthquake
30 minutes ago
Sad...adults being Greta dumberged. I'm an excavating contractor, I take down trees, raise steers, have small farm. These climate goons suffer from Enviro-tardation.

kilroy77
42 minutes ago
Malarkey!


user14963339457514

Nearly 8 in 10 Americans believe humans are causing global warming

Not coincidentally, this is about the same percentage that believes in God.

In fact, there are numerous parallels between conservative Christianity and climate "science". Basically, both are an apocalyptic judgment conducted impersonally on mankind as punishment for our sins. So many horrible outcomes heading our way, all because we deliberately chose evil over good.

But we can avoid this Armageddon by acting reverentially to our higher powers. Repenting at Sunday worship service. Using energy efficient appliances. Both are paths to true salvation.

The predictions of the Pentecostal minister and the climate "scientist" can't be proven because they haven't happened yet. But don't dare question the words in the ancient biblical scriptures or the slope of the modern "hockey stick" graph!!

There is an inherent human need to believe in the supernatural. This entire "Climate Change" hokum is really just a fake religion - a belief system for atheistic leftists that puts humans - or, rather, themselves - at the center of the universe!

David Mendacino #wingnut #racist seattletimes.com

<commenting on 20th anniversary of WTO protests in Seattle>

The WTO crowd of yesteryear became Antifa of today. The irony being it only took a populism to get them to shift with the wind. They were nationalists back then until they embraced the low information religion of identity politics and tried to conflate nationalism with racism because it became more profitable to pander towards non citizens.

knowledgeisking Savannah user104457 Narvin #wingnut seattletimes.com

<comments of peace and understanding left for a downtown Seattle crime crisis event thing.>

knowledgeisking -
We need an update on an ACCURATE homeless count in Seattle and King County.
We need an update on the current number of beds available in Seattle and County.
We need an update on the outreach efforts of the Navigation team. How many homeless people have been contacted to date during 2019. How many homeless people have agreed to available shelter; how many have refused.
Out of those who have refused available shelter, how many are drug addicted and are living in public spaces.
The 9th Circuit Court specifically stated that homeless people should be offered available shelter. If they refuse, then laws enforcing eviction are in place.

Savannah Is Back -
Don't let the left take away your 2nd Amendment rights Seattle.

user 1044547 -
All the crime, drug dealing and violence in downtown Seattle, along with the outskirts, the responsibility lays 100% on Jenny Durkin, Seattle City Council (sawant-ring leader), AG Ferguson, Constitine, and Sleepy Jay. They have single handedly invited and supported all homeless people, while NOT letting SPD do their job. Sleepy Jay made Seattle a sanctuary City. That brings drug dealer, more illegal guns, sex-trafficking, murder, rape and SO MUCH MORE. Nobody likes to go to Seattle for fear of violence. The Liberals have DESTROYED Seattle. It is an UGLY City. You all should be so proud.

Narvin R Johnson -
Rocky & Guido could clean up that street for 2K.
Just need to turn off the cameras for little while.

Six-Hundredth #wingnut seattletimes.com

<Comment on Seattleites housing the homeless in backyard tinyhomes.>
Homeless people are my heroes. They are living breathing monuments to the incompetence and ineptitude of the socialists and leftists who run West Coast cities. No political theory or academic study could accomplish this so thoroughly and convincingly.

The homeless people defeat every single misguided attempt to displace or resocialize them. It's wonderful to see how easily and effortlessly the timeless laws of human nature overwhelm the schemes of progressives who attempt to impose their delusional worldviews on society.

OregonDux1994 #wingnut #racist seattletimes.com

(Just some Seattle Times commentariat displeasure at a Socialist Alternative reelected to rhe city council)
Sawant left her shthole country to ensure Seattle becomes a shthole. While she btches and moans about Amazon, she is backed by G. $ORHO$. His money has done far more damage to the world than Bezos ever will. Too bad local voters are too stupid to realize how dangerous Komrade Kshama is. Nothing is more hopeless than a Portland or Seattle voter.

Penny Portal #wingnut seattletimes.com

Congratulations, Comrade Sawant! Very clever to use same day voter registration to register entire city-wide campaign staff and all in homeless collectives under threat of eviction by homeless industrial complex that supports your complicity and enjoys your lucrative patronage. Make sure your percentage is beyond all challengers or else recount might uncover your dubious mischief in so-called "democratic process," ha, ha. Not many will wonder how polls put initial support at low 20% with no chance, to 33% in primary to end up more than 60% for final election. You hide away and smirk "wait-and-see!" You know what is coming. You have done it before! Turnout in your district probably 70% although in rest of city only 34%. Don't worry, Democrats can't count. We, here in the formerly Soviet Ukraine salute you for your dubious nature and corrupt intentions, ha, ha! You make us proud and in coming decades, those techno Seattleites will wonder at your longevity when no one actually votes for you. You make all of us Marxists, Communists, Stalinists very proud. Now, go smoke a joint, smirk and enjoy yourself. Vodka and a special car is waiting for your next trip to Communist KGB paradise. Your friend, Comrade Vladimir.

manoffewwords #wingnut #psycho seattletimes.com

The guy that threw the hot coffee on the baby, was that considered a 'low level' crime? Why is the Council so h*ll bent on protecting criminals and giving them more rights than they deserve rather than helping the law abiding tax payers? If anything, we should be giving them longer sentences and harsher punishments and if they continue to break the law we should put them in jail and throw away the key! They are never going to be a productive member of our society, so why waste the time and money on them?! Put them in jail, give them all metal baseball bats and let things fall as they may.