The web of false reviews

With the booming industry of online shopping, two interdependent practices that have come to the forefront are — first, the habit of checking reviews of the product that one is buying, and secondly reviewing the product once bought. However when it comes to intellectual products such as books and films, reviews can be fairly subjective, to the point of being false even. 

Ujval Nanawati, a freelance writer and journalist recently tweeted bringing to notice the malpractice of false reviewing. The writer somewhat sarcastically congratulated author Tony Joseph on the raving reviews his book had received on an online purchasing platform, while mentioning that all the 12 ‘verified purchases’ gave the book a one star rating and “deeply negative reviews”. 

While it is not unheard of that books and films do get reviewed incorrectly by people who may have not even read or watched a certain project, how does false reviews actually affect the author or the filmmaker and their business? 

Tony Joseph, the man in question, is of the opinion that Amazon has gone ahead and taken a positive step towards curbing such reviews with their ‘verified purchase’ tag. “I feel, that the ratings received from the ‘verified purchase’ tag and the rating from the unverified reviews should be kept separate. The book should receive an over all rating from just the verified purchases. "The issue is that there are propaganda handles on Twitter who encourage their followers to go and give one-star ratings to books they don't like for ideological reasons, without even reading them!"

According to Ravi Dee Cee of DC Books one of the leading regional language books’publisher, the review of a book as a domain has entered a new phase in the very recent past with the advent of  social media.  He says, “Much like the paid or unpaid news, there are two kinds of reviews — the honest as well as the vicious ones. There is a preconceived notion of what an author could write and then being malicious about the final product after it gets published. Such reviews could be fabricated by other authors or friends and fans of other authors. This has no doubt turned into a menace in the recent past post the social media boom.”

The publisher points out another aspect, that of a ‘proof copy’ and continues, “There is a genuine entity called the proof copy – a culture that prevails more in English literature than in other languages. The proof copy is a source that can be read and then reviews made based on that but the proof copy is accessible to only a limited number of people. Take for example, when a major book of an author comes out, there are some limited copies of the book released prior to publication, to be circulated amongst critiques and the publisher’s friends. This is usually the practice with major publishers and not a mandatory one for all books. An observation I would like to share is that the established authors as well as debutant authors are both equally susceptible to malicious reviews. For an established author, the negative reviews can even start before the current book is published, saying the previous book was better than the current one to malign the said author.”

Author Anand Neelkantan, of the Asura fame, resonates with Ravi Dee Cee and says, “False reviews come from different places. One may dislike the author, for example when Arundhati Roy’s Ministry of Utmost Happiness was announced, there were negative reviews even before the book hit the stands. This could be because of political grudges or personal hatred towards her.” 

On the other hand, one of India’s leading authors, Amish, says, “Five to 10 years ago, the reviews of critics mattered. But that’s no longer the case because firstly, people do not read newspapers as much anymore and secondly, we’re living in an age of cynicism. There is this impression that if a review is positive, it’s paid for, and if it’s negative, the price wasn’t good enough. People only trust the opinions of their friends, which they get through social media, or online reviews, like those on e-commerce sites. An author should focus on writing a good book rather than gauging his book’s worth solely by reviews.”
Keeping integrity aside, do false reviews affect sales? 

Megha Pant, author of Feminist Rani, says, “Online reviews are important and they do impact book sales, especially in this day and age as newspapers dedicate a limited space to book reviews while online bloggers often don’t even read the book and do a cut-paste job. So product reviews are great spaces for readers to learn more about the book and gauge its quality. 

These online reviews are so important that authors even buy reviews or pay people to post reviews. It has become a trend.”

She explains that readers can spot this when the reviews don’t really match the book’s sales. “While I feel that it is extremely important for an author to publicise his or her book, such paid initiatives fall flat if it is not followed up by consistently good content. Readers are extremely discerning and will eventually call out your bluff.”

But author Aditi Mathur feels that people take the effort to log on online and post a review only if it is negative because they’ve spent money and they want its worth, if there’s no other motivation or if they are not paid for.  “But there are some kind-hearted people who love a book absolutely and review it organically, but then again these people are few. If readers aware of paid reviews, they will catch these instances automatically. The only way to circumvent this is by going to credible websites such as Good Reads to check for reviews,” she advises. 

Anand Neelkantan still has hope and feels genuine and avid readers will not rely on just online shopping platforms’reviews. “If you have a strong fan base and are churning out good content, your fans will read your book. But the concept of false reviews cannot be tackled in the Internet era. The maximum one can do, is read the ‘verified purchase’tag and hope for the best,” he concludes.