Anyone reading this on a Kindle can go fuck themselves! So there grAmazon, share that!

The Great Amazon Swindle prepackaged for your pleasure. Admittedly only presents one side of the story of how multinational corporations stifle and eliminate dissenting voices. Written as a poke in the eye, daring badreads or Amazon to delete it; the desperate voices of literary freedom that cried out when a corporation chose to turn a thriving social network into a catalog.

One negative is that this collection of dissenting voices doesn't do enough to identify the remoras that are so eager to neck-suck Jeff Bezos and the ultimate flim-flam man Otis Chandler. We want to know who besides the coddled goodreads authors are laughing all the way to the bank. ( )

2017 is either a little late to be reading this book, or just at the right time to start looking back and thinking about how the GR world looks 3 years later. I joined GR in 2011. My use for it has changed over the years, but I admit, despite my love of drama (don't lie, you love drama too, human nature draws us to it), I was unaware this was happening in 2013.

To be clear, I have not been unaffected by "censorship" on this website. I actually looked up my incident to see if it was part of the 2013 chaos. Five years ago (2012, so prior to the great chaos of 2013) a GR author was looking for readers and spamming far and wide. On a daily basis she tried to push her book on me. I politely requested, repeatedly, that she leave me alone. My pleas for peace fell unanswered, so finally, after weeks and in a fit of pique, swearing I would never read the book (and I haven't), I added it to a shelf and made myself a quick note at the "1%" mark that the author had spammed me and I shouldn't read the book. I don't know what shelf it was, but I'm sure it was something eloquent like "author-wouldn't-leave-me-alone-remember-to-not-read-this." Needless to say, the completely under-socialized author didn't take the hint and flagged my "update." GR promptly removed my shelf and my update, while sending me a message about why they'd done it. I responded with a "so sorry, that note was meant for me, I forgot others would see it," because I really was of the opinion that others should do as they please in that case, I didn't really care if they gave in to her spamming, but hell would freeze over before I would read her book. To make sure I wouldn't accidentally slip between it's pages, I promptly made another list with a weird name and plopped her book on it. It has been joined by other spamming authors, but GR hasn't poked me again thanks to my "brilliant" shelf name.

Was I annoyed? Yes. Did I think GR had a point? Meh. It was my f'ing opinion, my f'ing shelf, my f'ing note (hey, goodreads, if you allowed people to post private notes to themselves and others you might resolve some shit). But you know what? It's their f'ing website. They have rules. They might be shoddily enforced, in the same way I can watch drivers speed 20 mph over the speed limit all around me all day long, and then get nabbed for doing 37 mph in a 35 mph zone. I'm more likely to be nabbed if I'm driving a sports car (ouch) or on a particularly heavily patrolled stretched, or the county suddenly finds itself in a deficit, but that happens because it's also a case of the squeaky wheel getting the grease (unless you're pulled over for being black while driving, that is a systemic issue in the U.S. and the entire mind set should be burned out. Note, I'm setting a precedent here for the difference between unevenly followed laws and systemic invasion of one's rights. There is a difference. Keep that in mind.)

Am I off topic? Let me bring it back. What I'm saying is that I understand the frustration of the authors in this book. I just found their behavior a bit hysterical, juvenile, and trollish, no matter how you label it as "protest." (Spoiler alert, it can be both. There's nothing necessarily wrong with that. I loved the meanest, crudest jokes at all the recent marches I've been to. I just didn't find that it made the book all that readable or useful for me.) Here's the part where I have to hang my head. I do not know how successful their "hysterical, juvenile, and trollish" behaviors were. I am of the mindset that "hydraing" is silly and annoying, but probably wasn't why GR slacked off. I am of the opinion that GR was going through a learning curve, bumping into things, causing bruises, being generally annoying but was likely, after some seismic activity, to settle down. That, however, may not have been the case. It is possible that these "protesters" are why GR backed down and it still exists as a very useful website (IMHE). We may never know, I can only comment on how the book presented itself, and the impression it left me with.

So, to my more factual thoughts on the book, vs. opinions on what it's goals were and its success, etc. Trying to stay on topic here. ;) Some of the book is silly. It's not my sort of humor. As I said, much of my thoughts on the carryout of the great protests was that it was "juvenile" and some of the writing is similarly juvenile. My trouble is that I think it's attempting to be waspish. It's not. It lacks bite. Once again, 3 years after the fact might be the wrong time to read the thoughts of a whipped up, frothing group, now that everything has settled down. At best the humor resulted in a shrug, at worst I was bored to the point I skipped one entire chapter after 2 pages.

Some of the book is aggressive. There is name calling. There is ridiculing of the GR staff as inhuman. There is gnashing of teeth, and shaking of fists. People were angry. That is very evident.

Some of the book tried to be logical and less emotional.

The more concerning factor to me is that all these areas were just plain wrong in one important area. I recommend reading comic xkcd explaining to you that while GR might have censored you (which they have a right to do, within certain parameters, in the United States), they did not damage your freedom of speech. (I'm shortening this to FoS from here on out.) https://xkcd.com/1357/

This was not a battle over FoS. FoS is a right directly given to you by the government, protecting you from the government. It is why you can burn a flag, say the president is stupid, the government is corrupt and they should all be fired, and not be dragged off to jail. Now, FoS has limits. Racist attacks, threats to political leaders, or other people (this one's squishy), or incitement of others into violence, etc. will get you jailed. A website telling you they don't like what you posted and are removing it is not the same as the government telling you to shove it or they'll arrest you. Using FoS and censorship interchangeably is ridiculous, especially from a group of people claiming some level of expertise on the subject as they extol their rights to it. This is one of those internet things you often see among trolls, and I think this and the hydraing is why the writers came off as less heroic and more trollish to me. FoS is what trolls scream about when you delete their comment, block them, ignore them, tell them they're wrong, or refuse to give them a platform. It sounds fancy. It sounds like they are fighting for a God-given right. Like they're crusaders for God, Country, and Liberty. They're not. They're fighting to be heard, but that's not the same thing. I spent a lot of the book shaking my head at the confoundment of FoS and censorship, and as someone who grew up in a library, and has a large collection of pins that say things like "I read banned books," the persistent trotting out of FoS whenever someone is told to shut up and stay in line is a huge pet peeve of mine. I just could not get beyond it. I read more widely on this incidence after finishing this book and found 1 of 2 things. Discussions of GR destroying FoS and burning to the ground due to its stupidity, or attempts at balanced discussions about why this wasn't a violation of FoS, which varied in whether or not they agreed with the panic over GR cracking down. The number of websites and articles shrieking about FoS greatly outnumbered those discussing censorship and FoS (even in passing). That hurt my little, shriveled heart a little bit, as I expect so much better from readers. For that reason alone, because I think non-fiction books should be semi-factual, no matter how emotional they are, I had to give it 2 stars. When censorship is your entire topic, you should know your topic. It relegated the real topic to just whining about GR because I spent a lot of the book going "that's not GR touching your FoS so your complaint here misses by a mile."

Based on the book, the panic over the incidences described started because people were upset about the sale, quickly followed by the website finally carrying out it's already stated rules. The book does a good job setting up and explaining the environment. I thoroughly understood the investment of many hardliners in not wanting their fun censored, however, I will have to say they were not entirely persuasive. Once again, my own little life perspective, the few reviews I (a lowly nobody) get multiple likes from strangers for are incredibly irreverent. I know what I like, but more importantly, I know what I really, really don't like. I use GR both to invite people to enjoy what I've enjoyed, but also to make sure people know what they are getting into so they don't hate-finish a book the way I did. I agreed firmly with the authors that I should be allowed to have a dissenting opinion and not be attacked by an author for a 1 star review (and I do give out 1 star reviews and 2 and 3 star reviews that are not positive). I also believe reviewers should not attack authors. That means race, religion, appearance, general likeability are groups that commenting on is actual bullying. They're irrelevant in most cases, except to say, for example, a thin author probably shouldn't write a book about a fat woman and not expect to get slammed when they are completely out of their league and offending people left and right. Where I personally find the grey area, is factual information like the author harassing people (I'd like to know that before I read 30 5 star reviews, add a 1 star review and become the target of a smear review that chased away all the other 1 star reviews - it is relevant to my reviewing, and also relevant to my safety which I consider more important.) I also, personally, think information like homophobia is relevant to me, as a reader, because I don't give money to authors who openly support heterosexual marriage as the one true way, while actively attacking homosexual marriages. Similarly, it would be useful to me, as a reader, to know that a YA author (or really anyone) has a pedophilia charge, so that I wouldn't take my nephew to visit the author, or could speak up if the author was booked for a school, where unsuspecting teachers and librarians might put their students at risk. I also, in light of #keepYAkind think we need to be able to have real, brutal discussions about authors who are just flat out racist, sexist, ableist, transphobic, homophobic, etc., as we battle out what "deserves" to be published, in the face of causing large groups of people pain, stigma, and damage. I would be interested to see the topic of GR taken back up in light of time moving on, and new arguments about censorship coming up. I'm not sure that I want this group discussing whether peppering a book with 1 star reviews for overt sexism or racism should be allowed and protected on a review site, but it would be interesting to see (and pay for) a collection of discussions from "experts" in the new fields of censorship, while also seeing these original authors touch on what has and hasn't changed and what they think now, looking back. Are they angrier? Are they contrite? Are they glad they stepped up to bat when they felt like their community was threatened? In my hypothetical book I think it would very interesting to have a Q&A with GR to see where we stand now, where we are looking in the future, and where we have come from in the past. We're only 3 years out, but I do hope the authors come together on a 5 year anniversary to discuss how far we have and haven't come. Clearly they can do as they like, but everyone loves a sequel. ( )

What happened next? (September 2013 feels like a long time ago.)

A backlash against protest activity started.
Protestors eventually left or ceased protesting.
Occassional stories of further deletions surfaced in the ensuing months, after significant protest activity had ceased.
Some people who had left the site returned. Most did not.
Entire rival websites arose and died.
A major re-vamp of the site's basic appearance rendered the site useless for the purposes of those who wanted a social network of readers. Only aggressive use of AdBlocker allowed restoration of a useful service. So aggressive as to almost entirely remove all the changes that had been made, making the changes ineffectual. Amazon never realised that the point of Goodreads was that people would find friends whose opinions they trust and their reviews would drive book sales. Adverts and algorithmic recommendations are exactly what users want to avoid.
The corporate grip on the internet tightened. People's data were commodified even further. Privacy and security stopped being a joke and instead just ceased to exist.
Over-population and climate change run rampant. Nobody attempts signifcant change. Or stops having children.
Trump was elected POTUS and the rule of sanity in human affairs entirely evaporated.
Some guy called Otis sits in obscurity, still counting his ill-gotten gains.
Meanwhile, the surest sign of the existance of extra-terrestrial intelligence remains that they have not attempted to contact us, as Bill Watterson pointed out. ( )

I wish to register most strongly in public my dismay to see the already ludicrously large number of fake accounts that have been set up to give 1 star ratings to this book.

I have written to goodreads to ask what they are going to do about it. As far as I can see, it is against their avowed policies. In this case it seems particularly important that they are seen to do the right thing, since there is the unfortunate fact that it may be argued to be in their interests for this book to receive a low rating - however this occurs.

But this aside, in any case, if goodreads permits an author or a book to be bullied in this way, how can they possibly see a future as a promoter of authors and their works, which is now their business model?

As far as I can see, Goodreads is being threatened with damage to their integrity from which it is hard to imagine a recovery unless this is addressed now.

More soon, I expect.

I wish to register most strongly in public my dismay to see the already ludicrously large number of fake accounts that have been set up to give 1 star ratings to this book.

I have written to goodreads to ask what they are going to do about it. As far as I can see, it is against their avowed policies. In this case it seems particularly important that they are seen to do the right thing, since there is the unfortunate fact that it may be argued to be in their interests for this book to receive a low rating - however this occurs.

But this aside, in any case, if goodreads permits an author or a book to be bullied in this way, how can they possibly see a future as a promoter of authors and their works, which is now their business model?

As far as I can see, Goodreads is being threatened with damage to their integrity from which it is hard to imagine a recovery unless this is addressed now.

More soon, I expect.