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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