Reviews Disappearing On Amazon – Amazon Blocks Conservatives?

Last night, I was reading the reviews of a book I had purchased and then reviewed. I noticed my review (that I posted on 2/1/15) was missing – along with all the other 88 reviews I’ve made in the many years I’ve been on Amazon.

Gone.

I had some of the emails from Amazon that they send out telling you “Your Review Is Live!” I copied, pasted, and tried to repost my reviews and the one for the Amazon Kindle 6 (five stars) went through at first, though my others were rejected. Now, a few hours later, even the Kindle review is gone.   I re-posted the reviews under a different family members account, and they all went through, without a problem.

I sent an email to Amazon, waiting for response. My concern is the last few months, I’ve been focusing my reviews on political books.  I am a fan of small government, personal freedom and have started reviewing political books. Prior to my reviews disappearing, I was ranked in the 8,000 ish among reviewers. Now, I’m not even ranked. Ranking…not a big deal – not being allowed to review because I am an outspoken fan of freedom… BIG FKIN DEAL.

I reviewed Stonewalled by Sharyl Attkinson on February 1st – and when going through the reviews of her book on Amazon – I noticed that her book had reviews on every single day, except February 1st. I found this perhaps a bit odd and wondered if Amazon has decided to start shutting down accounts of vocal pro-freedom reviewers. I’ve no idea if this has happened to anyone else, so if it has, I’d love to hear from you.

I called customer service. They had no idea. I emailed customer support and have heard nothing back. Now, being a fan of freedom – and since Amazon is a private company, I totally get it is within their right to decide they no longer want to publish reviews my reviews – however; if Amazon can decide to reject a customer who is excising her free speech, then a baker has the right to refuse to make a wedding cake if it is against his religious beliefs. And I, personally, am not against consenting adults deciding who they want to marry (however, I do think the government shouldn’t be in the romance department at all).

You may be thinking: Reviews? Who da fk cares?

Yeah, well, there are so few people to trust any longer (Brian Williams? Nope. The Clintons? Nope. Media? Hell no!) that I have always taken pride in telling the truth (even if it hurts) when reviewing restaurants, books, movies, etc…so that people would know you could me (at least my opinion). There are so many people who will review a place because they are somehow connected to it and have something to gain if it succeeded, or because they wanted to appear “in the know” or because they want to be liked.

So, taking away my ability to review verified purchases, with a review ranking of 8,000 ish (not great, but at least people had reassurance I’d been around on Amazon for sometime) is really shitty; it makes it more difficult for consumers to make informed choices.

In the meantime, learn from my experience: copy and save your reviews. Take a screen shot of your Amazon Profile which will show you number of reviews and reviewer ranking.

Back all of this up.

Also, one thing I have learned, if you have a blog or website, copy everything you post to a different blog site (blogger, wordpress, tumblr etc) – if you don’t have the backing of a major company, it’s easy for people to complain if they don’t like what you’re saying…or, if the administrators decide they don’t like your politics and they close your account down…this way, you don’t have to freak out – because you’ve got another blog site that the haters are unaware of.

If all you write about is food – you have no worries (unless, of course, you’re blogging about bacon or cupcakes and the Government Food police decide you are advocating disease…or anti-muslim propaganda…(they don’t eat pork – no wonder they are so fking unhappy!!!).

Oh, one last thing. The government is will be voting on Net Neutrality at the end of February. Obama is hot to trot for this one – because it would give the government power over the internet. What Amazon did with removing my reviews and not allowing me to review any longer…imagine the government policing you. If you’re a Democrat, you might think, “well, that’s awesome!” until the government is no longer controlled by Democrats.

You know what I did when my cable bills became outrageously expensive? I dropped cable and went to Roku. My cable went from almost 200.000 a month to 7.99 a month for Netflix. That’s called a free market people.

I didn’t need a Ph.d to tell me that…I only needed experience and common sense.

Update 2/7/15 at 19:35: One very thoughtful helpful Tweeter tried to help me figure the Amazon review thing when I tweeted my story. He discovered that in 2012 Amazon decided to delete reviews if the Amazon member was also an author. He pointed out that I have a book (Girl Medic) and perhaps this was why Amazon deleted my reviews though I have never reviewed a medic/EMS book. His research was helpful, however, I soon stumbled on an author – Debbie Lee Wesselmann who does not only still have her reviews/account (and judging from her books she’s a raging Democrat, much Superior than I shall ever hope to be!) but she is also an Amazon VINE reviewer. So, if that were the case, it actually supports my theory that Amazon is removing Conservative Reviewers!

Update: 2/7/2015 20:01 – Found another Amazon Account (also Vine member) who is not only author but PUBLISHER – Diane Kistner – another raging Liberal who “pays” her authors in copies of books. Wow. Now those poor morons who are Gruber Stupid!!!

Update 2/8/2015 – I created a “new” account on Amazon to re-post the reviews that Amazon deleted (with the exception of Stonewalled – I created a whole new review because what has happened to my account is what author Attkisson is warning us about…) new account (will be interesting to see if Amazon blocks that account) LoisLerner’s Harddrive