Are you guilty of review bombing? Why some people deliberately post fake negative comments to harm a product’s popularity

The first thing you should do before purchasing a new item, whether it’s a movie ticket or a popular novel, is to take a look at the reliable reviews section.

The handy reviews tab can make or break a product’s success, and now thousands of websites around the world have given the power to the people by adding a section that encourages consumers to rate its services out of five stars.

However, in recent times the section has been manipulated by ‘review bombers’ – the term for punters who post negative comments to damage sales of a product, company or services.

The idea has become famous in recent times thanks to the help of Rebecca F. Kuang’s Goodreads Choice Best Fiction, Yellowface, which tackles the subject.

It was further launched into the zeitgeist when IMDB’s changed its rating system for The Little Mermaid after “review bombers” targeted the new live-action release after Disney cast a black actress to play Ariel.

So it seems that the not-so-reliable review aggregators are constantly facing corruption by ‘review bombers’. However, questions have been raised about whether the act is unethical, as the instrument can draw attention to political or cultural tensions.

The issue of review bombing could impact consumers’ alarming choices; in March this year, a study found that Google’s Play Store and Apple’s App Store were plagued by fake reviews, effectively disrupting the apps’ popularity.

A quarter of reviews in the health and fitness section of Google’s Play Store raised suspicions, while in Apple’s equivalent 17 percent appeared fake.

The analysis is derived from consumer group Which? found that millions of consumers could unknowingly hand over their data or money to apps that have cheated the system at the top of the world’s most prominent mobile app stores.

Not only that, but which one? also found that brokers openly sell fake reviews that pay Google to appear at the top of search results.

The services offer bulk downloads, reviews, or upvotes to help apps rank higher, making them appear more trustworthy if they receive fast download speeds.

One fake review broker site, Reviewlancer, claims to have sold nearly 53,000 reviews and exchanged more than 130,000 reviews.

Previous investigations into fake reviews by Which? have also delved into AppSally, which offers rating manipulation on many platforms, and there are also rating trading groups on Facebook.

For what? Another red flag was the apparent bulk uploads of reviews, with clusters of four- and five-star feedback appearing for a few days before a new spike followed a few weeks or months later.

One aspiring author took to TikTok to decry the practice of review bombing, claiming it has no positive consequences

Months later, in June, IMDB was forced to change its ratings system for The Little Mermaid after review bombers targeted the new live-action release.

IMDB currently gives the live-action remake a 7 out of 10, but more than 17,000 users, almost 40 percent, have given the film only one star.

The sheer volume indicates that bots may have replicated more negative reviews.

When filtered by reviewers in the United States alone, the number of reviews dropped by one star to 5,000.

The flood of negative reviews forced IDMB to claim that it had implemented a weighted system for the reviews. Comments on reviews are disabled and the popular website does not say how it determined the film’s current rating.

Disney’s latest version of The Little Mermaid received a slew of negative reviews on IMDB in May of this year

The film also received racist criticism over the casting of Hollywood star Halle Berry (pictured) as Ariel

IMDb recognized suspicious activity on the page and told users it was changing its ratings system to protect the integrity of the film’s overall review.

‘Our review engine has detected unusual voting activity for this title. To maintain the reliability of our rating system, an alternate weighting calculation has been applied,” IMDb wrote in a post on The Little Mermaid reviews page.

“An alternative weighting calculation may be applied to maintain the reliability of our system,” they wrote, before adding that this new system should not be made public to prevent bombers from flying around it.

The film was targeted by racist trolls over the casting of black actress Halle Bailey in the central role of Ariel.

More recently, a debut author apologized for posting fake Goodreads reviews to bomb other non-white authors.

Californian rising writer Cait Corrain had a bright future ahead of her and was on track to release her science fiction debut Crown of Starlight.

Her chances of success quickly diminished after a New York Times bestselling author Xiran Jay Zhaofake accounts of Cait made public in a Google Doc with ’31 pages of receipts’, she updated her followers on TikTok.

In a video explanation on their X account, Xiran pointed out that the various profiles, all of which they believe are Cait, gave Crown of Starlight favorable reviews on the same niche pages.

The author has made a statement about this Instagram to apologize, explaining that they have been “fighting a losing battle against depression, alcoholism and substance abuse” since June last year.

The statement appeared to deny that the authors were targeted because of their race, with Cait writing that she “felt no ill will toward any of them.”

Since then, alarm bells have been ringing in the literary community, with many making videos about it TikTok questioning the ordeal.

Cait Corrain (pictured) publicly apologized on Instagram for leaving fake reviews on Goodreads

A recent one Reddit thread asked users if they thought the act was unethical in regards to a new computer game that was receiving unfavorable reviews, and the responses were mixed.

The user asked, “Is review bombing really a bad thing, or is it a legitimate way for fans to express themselves?”

In response, one person wrote, “I feel like it could be done maliciously, but usually there are legitimate criticisms. You don’t see many good, consumer-friendly games that are review-bombed.”

A second added: ‘It makes the review section useless imho. But I’ve never bought a game solely because of a really good Steam review, nor have I sworn off a game with mediocre reviews (but I’ll check out the performance and in-depth reviews on YouTube or Google).”

A third said: ‘Giving a game a negative review because it delivered isn’t review bombing. Giving a negative review to a game you’ve never played just because you heard something bad about it IS.”

A fourth wrote: ‘Review bombing is always a bad thing. A legitimate way for fans to express themselves would be to leave written, negative reviews that A) are not copied and pasted and B) are longer than one sentence. Say what exactly you don’t like, say which systems you want changed.

“And let’s not pretend: most review-bombed games are bombed because people consider the content to be ‘woke’ or because of something some developers have done that has nothing to do with the product. And usually the people doing the review have never played the game (that’s why the Steam system is better than all the others).

Another added: ‘Review bombing is a term coined by major corporations to deflect and minimize blame for unpopular decisions.’

On

One wrote: ‘I think it’s safe to say that Goodreads could really benefit from adding something to their site that prevents users from creating tons of accounts and review bombing people. It’s getting attention now, but review bombing has been a problem for authors (especially indies) for years.”

A second added: “I think review bombing the works of marginalized authors is a big problem, even beyond what the author has allegedly done. It’s just so hateful and unnecessary.”

Social media users have taken to X, formerly called Twitter, to share their thoughts on review bombing

A third said: ‘Few things are more childish and pathetic than review bombing.’

A fourth added: ‘It’s interesting that the lesson some people have learned from this scandal over the Goodreads reviews is: ‘It’s actually okay to review a book as long as the author is bad and I like him don’t like.’

From all corners of the internet, it’s clear that the review bombardment has taken its toll.

Its ethical assessment is hotly debated, and the thousands of “review bombs” may not be from real people after all.

Either way, recognizing the signs of the increasingly common trend is key, and the next time you add an item to your virtual shopping cart, you might want to rely a little less on the yellow stars.