So there is a petition going around to have Amazon get on the ball and stop the snarky trolls from attacking authors by making all reviewers use their real names. Seems these nasties use sock puppet accounts with strange made up names and go around and attack indie authors with bad reviews and one star bombs. Anne Rice has joined this crusade. It is so gratifying that this horrendous situation is being brought to light. Goodreads is owned by Amazon and so one hopes this also will effect how Goodreads conducts business. These sites have guidelines that for, I guess, free speech concerns they are loathe to enforce. But why have guidelines that are meaningless? So I hope this works. This petition is circulating around the Internet and picking up many signature and so far has attained 5000! So fingers crossed that this blight on the review process will be squashed.
So why do these nasties do what they do? The anonymity of the Internet gives rise to abhorrent behavior. People who probably do not feel empowered in their personal lives jump on the bandwagon like sheep led by a meanie who starts the attack. The attackers then feel the power they inflict on an indie author’s ability to get positive recognition for their work. It’s not just in the publishing sector that these evil attacks take place. Anywhere there is an opportunity for the public to post their opinion on anything, meanness happens. There are mean and nasty tweets happening all the time, hurtful posts to musicians and on and on. It’s totally okay to have a negative opinion about something. That’s what makes the world go round. One man’s meat and so forth. But its the level of meanness that is abhorrent. Personal attacks and threats that would be very scary behavior to deal with face-to-face. I hope that over time this behavior will cycle into something less vengeful. As people age, there should be a mellowing of their animosity toward others, an enlightenment of spirit. One can only hope that these poor souls will stop their despicable behavior and spend their time on earth in a more loving manner. In the meantime, let’s hope Amazon stops them.
