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How to Stop Cyber Bullies 8/9/2010 11:38:54 AM
Abraham Lincoln once said, “He has a right to criticize, who has a heart to help.” I have a feeling that President Lincoln would roll over in his grave if he had an internet connection. What he would find is that the purveyors of our connected society have granted unlimited hunting licenses to the obnoxious and vengeful. These cyber bullies fire volleys with their keyboards that are often just as harmful as real bullets. Each year in July, dozens of top writers converge in New York for the largest convention of thriller writers in the world. I was fortunate this year to mingle and sign books next to author icons “way above my pay grade,” including Ken Follett, Clive Cussler, Tess Gerritsen, Gayle Lynds, David Morrell, Sandra Brown and many others. During an awards ceremony one evening that rivaled the Oscars, we gathered as awards for the "worst Amazon.com reviews" were presented. All of us laughed, but I suspect that deep inside, most of us also secretly cried.
When I spoke with other authors at the event, some who are top New York Times bestsellers with award-winning books, I discovered that all of them, without exception, still endure lots of scathing book review comments posted online. The predominate forum for these is Amazon.com, and every author I spoke with shared horror stories about how this forum actually encourages cyber bullies.
What's a cyber bully? Before the internet, bullies were limited to the kids that enervated everyone on the playground and forced their will and opinions on the less vocal. While most of us learned from our parents that we shouldn't say anything at all if we have nothing nice to say, bullies apparently were taught just the opposite. Leading psychologists would like us to believe that these deprived individuals are fashioned from difficult nurturing environments where parents are less than perfect, but just about everyone I know had a tough childhood. In my opinion, a bad dad does not excuse harmful behavior, and I have a feeling that Megan Meier’s and Phoebe Prince’s loved ones would agree.
Those who knew Phoebe recall the beaming smile and “Irish mint” accent of this innocent 15-year-old freshman from South Hadley High School. They also recall the incessant jabs thrown at her by bullies, which eventually led to her suicide. This is the worse form of cyber bullying, and I’d like to believe that few in the world would condone, let alone partake in, such errant behavior. But there are other devious acts borne of the internet age that, over time, can bring great harm upon others and create almost as many tears.
My jaw dropped when I read about Phoebe. I reflected outwardly and wondered how people could be filled with so much hate. Were these malevolent souls molded from individuals who thought nothing of marching Jews into ovens? Who laughed at the sound and smell of burning flesh? I cringed at this thought. Then I looked in the mirror. What was I guilty of doing? What had I done, under of the cloak of web anonymity, that I might be ashamed of were my true identity revealed? Soon after contemplating this sobering thought, I felt the sting of someone’s keyboard as they fired a missile up my tail with the simple act of hitting an enter key.
This just in: anyone with a few friends can all but disintegrate the career of an aspiring writer within a few months. What’s worse, online mediums like Amazon.com not only facilitate this, they actually encourage it. Perhaps Amazon is not aware of their complicity in the heinous acts of cyber bullies, but I’m hopeful that after they read this blog posting they will do the right thing and fix this oversight. After all, they derive the bulk of their income from writers, and to facilitate the demise of those who write the books they sell seems counterintuitive.
One prominent writer I know, when asked how long it took to write her first book, simply said, “fifteen years and another year.” Most writers toil for a decade or more, surviving rejection letters galore before being accepted by an agent. Many long months of hard work follow to get a manuscript polished before the agent submits it to a publisher. The luckiest and best get published and are shocked to find that the initial advance equates to about $5 an hour. Once the book is out, their hearts thump with anticipation. Will readers like my book? Is this the start or the end of my writing career? Then, the worst thing imaginable happens. A cyber bully exploits the flaws in an online book selling system and steals their dreams. Such an act is beyond cruel, and it happens all the time.
How do these cyber bullies operate? Simple, they find a book they feel compelled to bash, for whatever the reason, and drive a stake in the ground. They jump online soon after the book is published and post a one-star review on Amazon.com, for example. Then they get all their friends to click on YES, that this review was helpful, which propels their posting to the top of the list on the book’s display page. Next, they get all their friends to click on NO for all good reviews, that these are not helpful. This sends four and five star postings to the bottom of the list, where they are rarely seen. Now here’s the worst part: they change their comments frequently, thereby making the original YES (or NO) clicks obsolete. Think about this. If you find someone’s posting useful and click on YES, that person can change their comments as often as they like and yet retain your YES—even if you now strongly disagree.
I imagine that Amazon.com and others maintain these open systems to embrace the “free spirit” of the internet, but a few simple changes would maintain the desired freedom while reigning in the bullies. All they need do is reset any “YES, this was helpful” clicks back to zero whenever someone makes a change to their original posting. Also, retailers should change the default posting to a chronological view vs. a most helpful view (you can select this, but it’s not your default mode). After all, a cyber bully could claim a book’s top review spot and stay there for years. In the meantime, a new version of the book might come out, but their comment is still number one because it’s been “voted” as most useful (mostly by the bully’s friends). By the way, if you’re feeling mischievous, you can post one-star reviews to any book you want, even when it’s obvious you never read the book. I have two comments posted on one of my books like this. One even says he’ll never buy the book because it cost too much, yet his one star counts as a legitimate “review” and lowers the book’s average star count.
What can we do about these cyber bullies? First, we should only post comments for books we have actually read. Second, these comments should be fair and constructive, not cruel and denigrating. If there’s some small aspect, arcane fact or minor character we hated, does the entire book really deserve only one star? How would you feel if you’d spent years of your life sacrificing and laboring, enduring rejection and sweating, and then someone slammed you for a typo that a junior copy editor missed? Third, don’t feed the bullies. Click NO on the obvious unfair rants and YES on the ones that really are useful, regardless of the star count. Post replies to bully comments and call them on their behavior. Why should we do this? If not for selfish reasons because we like to read, then how about for our children?
See Spot. See Spot Run. See Spot get run over and die. That’s what will happen to books if we don’t honor and respect the creativity and imagination of all writers, even the ones we aren’t thrilled with. Just because we don’t like a book or author doesn’t mean that someone else might not love them—maybe even our own kids. What example are we setting for our children? Are we teaching them how to be cyber bullies? How to push their friend’s shaking hands toward razor blades? Are we teaching them to respect and honor those who strive to bring them the written word? Or are we showing them that reading is out and sitcoms are in? Are we guilty of being cyber bullies? If so, what motivates us? Have we been honest in our critiques, or did we blast the words of others to bolster our own egos? Does stealing the limelight on an author’s page make us feel more important?
Abraham Lincoln once said, “He has a right to criticize, who has a heart to help.” I have a feeling that President Lincoln would roll over in his grave if he had an internet connection. What he would find is that the purveyors of our connected society have granted unlimited hunting licenses to the obnoxious and vengeful. These cyber bullies fire volleys with their keyboards that are often just as harmful as real bullets. Megan Meier and Phoebe Prince are extreme examples of how this web rage can ruin lives, and their deaths underscore the reason why it’s time for “the good folks” to take a stand against the bullies. We can start by teaching our children to love books by not throwing unjust words of hate at those who write, and by turning off that television and taking out a book instead.
