WarKirby Magojiro

Amazon is useful, but not sufficiently so that I'm willing to support these practices. I can buy games on steam and play.com, and hardware from microdirect. I find amazon very useful, but not at all necessary. I'm glad for competition.

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Walker

LOL. There was a time I changed it for somebody (and I've got a feeling you remember that), but there was a very good reason in that case, and I wasn't very attached to that avatar anyway.

So, with respect Tenshi, .

Apologies to Aimee for minor thread derailment.

Ten

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Siyu Suen

I could be reading too much into this, but:

Scientology obviously has no clue about how to manipulate public opinion. Simple truth. They simply can't get into the heads of your average SP or even perfectly normal person, because they seem too far gone. So instead of persuading us as Aimee said, by removing the actually substantive and poignant reviews, they just remove them all because hey, no negative reviews means no one hates it!

This is either scientologists getting into the peanut butter at Amazon.com, or Amazon.com feeling incredibly hard pressure and actually calling it to our attention. After reading that one clip from the "actual human", it could almost be a sentient effort to bring scientology's heavy handed approach to light and to instill dissent in the hundreds of people who have written well thought out negative reviews. It might also make someone who was thinking of purchasing the book think twice if they can't find both sides of the story. I know I personally don't buy if I can't find what are the pros and cons of the item.

But again, I could be reading too much into this, I am a tinfoil hat kind of girl.

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Mukatsuku

I'd love to know in what way Scientology is putting pressure onto places like Amazon and Youtube.
Is it simply in the form of legal letters, or are they phoning, or going to the companies in person? I'd be interested to see what it takes for a large company to be made to bow down to you in the way these companies are bowing down to scientology.

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Aimee Weber

I doubt the pressure is through legal threats. I am guessing it's a few factors:

1. Scientology OSA people learn the in's and outs of Amazon's adminstrative policy. While the wording of Amazon's TOS may be vague and open ended to the public ... administrators probably have very specific key words or scenarios that qualify as an instant "remove comment." OSA people will get to know the admins and eventually know exactly what Amazon admins need to hear to come to a remove decision. They then submit ideally formed complaints for every negative comment.

2. Dianetics is a big selling book. ALL companies give special treatment to "golden goose" clients and Scientology qualifies. If CoS says "we need to remove these negative comments or we will pull out and sell exclusively through Barnes & Noble" that might be enough for Amazon to bend their policy in favor of CoS.

3. I don't think I become a tin-foil hat person to say there exists the possibility that CoS has people in Amazon. Infiltration into other organizations part of CoS' MO (remember operation Snow White) so asking CoS members to apply for admin positions at Amazon is not a crazy stretch. With negative Dianetics reviews reduced to zero regularly, a Scientologist admin would be very plausible.

Mukatsuku

What is OSA?

I was thinking about point 3, too, with them already having done that in the government (as you say, Operation Snow White).
Surely it's easier to infiltrate Amazon than the government?

I wouldn't have thought Dianetics was selling enough to persuade Amazon to bend to their pressure, however. They have millions of books, so Dianetics, even though it sells well, can't make up a significant percentage of their sales. Can it?

I'd love a statement from the owner(s) of Amazon regarding this. Youtube too.

Aimee, please start a huge and successful company with some sort of element Scientology would be interested in, then tell us how they tried to get you to cave into them.

Mukatsuku

Ah, found it

Mukatsuku

BTW, I wish they'd release the full 3 hour interview with Beghe - I am stunned he was in Scientology for 13 years and want to know all the juicy details

At least this means Fox are showing some more of the video next week..... as long as Scientology doesn't get them first.

Aimee Weber

Oh. Yes, sorry. I should have linked it. They are like the CoS Secret Service.

Mukatsuku

Google say there's no conspiracy but won't mention whether or not Scientology pressured them.
If there's no conspiracy why not just say "we weren't pressured to take it down."??

Also, since Google owns Youtube and has suspended Mark Bunker's account, how long will it be before searching for bad things about Scientology turns up very few results in Google?

Hal 9000

It's a corporate site-- they could post replace anyone's review with dancing kitties if they felt like it. This is why I feel queasy about the Google Book Project-- entrusting all knowlege to a private corporation that we cannot appeal to as citizens is inherently dangerous.

Dnate Mars

Yes, and trusting the government is so much better

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Mukatsuku

it's not like they are removing the books from circulation after scanning them
Any corporation that publishes a book has the ability to change the contents.
We're not trusting them to do anything - they are doing something that anyone has the right to do.

Mukatsuku

Wonder how true this is. Apparently, if you join scientology, they give you a CD to install with their custom software on it.
Part of the software includes a modified parental censoring program, normally used to block porn sites and bad language.

If this is true, we need to flood IRC channels with the word "xenu" and watch for people instantly disconnecting

Scientology's censorware humiliates adult members

Hal 9000

Both governments and corporations are large inscrutable organizations with the ability to signfigantly change our life. The difference is that US goverment's TOS states its' purpose to protect the life. liberty, and happiness of its citizens, and we have a legal right to inquire what our government is doing. Neither of those things is true for a corporation.

Hal 9000

There's a book by the head of European initiative for the scanning of books in which he makes the case that Google has too much power with editorial selections, filtering, or simple neglect-- for example, it is overwhelmingly filled with English books at the moment. This is one of those cases "who counts the vote has the power." Furthermore, we reply on Google for a hub of all knowledge--- if it's not on Google in the future, a book a will not exist for 99.99999 of the population.

Mukatsuku

Microsoft is competing in this area.
BBC NEWS | Business | Microsoft attacks Google on books

I doubt it will get to the stage where books are mainly read from Google alone.

Malachi

I'm sorry if I don't see why legal threats (which the Co$ is quite practiced in) are ruled out. If I were a private merchant that allowed customer reviews and received a letter saying "remove these comments or face an action in libel" I don't think I'd have to think twice about it.

It doesn't seem a matter of right, wrong, or ethics to me, it looks more like choosing your battles carefully. For a well known - and generally well liked - retailer the shitstorm that Co$ could bring down upon Amazon's public perception is much greater than the cost of removing some reviews for one crappy book.

Incidentally, I'd read somewhere that the Co$ goes to booksellers and buys out their stock of Dianetics and ships them back to the printer to be resold. This makes the purchase volume much higher than would be expected. [citation needed]

Aimee Weber

Oh I just think maybe Amazon might have as much money + legal power as CoS. Maybe CoS could cause a lot of trouble for Amazon but it would be more costly and hazardous for themselves than simply using the carrot rather than the stick.

Mukatsuku

What's bizarre is Amazon are also censoring the good reviews and not bad reviews.

It's almost exclusively 5 star reviews now.