Jan Peczkis is a Polish American. He reads and posts on my Bieganski blog. Jan and I disagree about many fundamental issues. I voice my disagreement. I believe in freedom of speech.
Jan informed my blog readers that Amazon has removed his 2,612 Amazon reviews, largely of Polish-interest books.
Many Polish books that have had no other reviews will now have no reviews whatsoever because Jan's reviews have been removed.
Perhaps you could make your thoughts known to Amazon on this matter. Perhaps Polonia could take some united action.
To be clear, Jan is to the right of me. He interprets Polish-Jewish relations very differently than I do. Having said that, the answer to speech you don't like is not less speech, but more speech. Jan was always confronted in the comments sections under his reviews. I met one of my best online friends, who lives in Israel, that way.
To totally erase Jan smacks of 1984
To translate this meme, it says, Freedom of Speech is like health. You don't appreciate it till you've lost it. It's a play on the opening lines of Pan Tadeusz, our national epic poem.
Regardless of Amazon's motive in my case, this is part of the "Great Review Purge" being conducted by Amazon. So far, thousands of Amazon reviewers, including many long-term ones with many reviews, have been purged:
ReplyDeletehttps://www.reddit.com/r/TheGreatAmazonPurge/
To remove you from Amazon is like censorship of the worst kind. It was through you and your historically enlightening reviews that I learned of EXCELLENT books on the history of the interaction between the Christian church and the Jewish people, the real history that is.
DeleteJan I want you to know that I posted about your situation on three different Polish-interest Facebook pages. a few people said, more or less, tutt tutt or tsk tsk or isn't it a shame that this happened, but no one stepped up with any concrete plan of action.
ReplyDeleteYou know what I'm going to say. Polonia needs to unite, organize and act strategically.
Danusha, since Amazon has deleted Jan’s account because its ReviewMeta bots have falsely accused him of being paid for your reviews or having a personal relationship with the authors (other than you), it should be possible for him to post his reviews elsewhere. I realize the GoodReads isn’t an option since it’s owned by Amazon. Interestingly, I did not see Jan’s review of your work, Bieganski, on Amazon. However, other tiresome comments, such as some from “stop googling me”, who refers to you as “Ganuska”, remain intact.
DeleteMy review of Bieganski disappeared for quite a while - and for sometime before its disappearance the "like" button was turned off.
DeleteI don't really do Amazon reviews, so don't know if all of mine would have gone.
Anyway, I reposted it a year or so later and it re-appeared with all its buttons intact. Though whether it is still there I don't know. I ought to go and have a look. Yup. it still here with its buttons.
It is entitled "Humility", and I think you will find it is the best review you have ever read! And actually I had better be humble and admit I borrowed that joke from Private Eye. Its actually called "Adventures in the Amazonian Review Forest" - and is of course favourable - and an acknowledgement of the bravery of tackling this subject within Academe.
But Amazon is a law unto itself. I doubt there are many governments who would want to tackle it.
As per Gene Sokolowski's perceptive comment, Amazon has all sorts of creative ways of "connecting" the reviewer to an author or book, thereby creating a pretext for purging the targeted reviewer for "Violating Amazon Guidelines":
Deletebadredheadmedia.com/2018/08/prevent-amazon-book-reviews-deleted-guest-iolagoulton/
Yes, there are a lot of reviews on Amazon that are either useless or which blatantly violate Amazon rules, but they are still there. And mine are gone. But who said that life is fair?
ReplyDeleteThank you, Dr. Goska for posting the Amazon censorship case on Facebook. I am not surprised at the say-platitudes do-nothing reaction at Facebook.
However, not everything is talk and no action. There has been a good round of Polish activism surrounding the passage of S.447 (so-called property restitution) by the U. S. Government.
There is also some practical activism underway with regards to Amazon censoring me, but I am not at liberty to disclose the details at this time.
My review of Dr. Goska's BIEGANSKI can be seen at the bottom of this Google cached copy of a few months ago, before I had been purged by Amazon:
https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:fMFYfRV8VGQJ:https://www.amazon.com/Bieganski-Stereotype-Polish-Jewish-Relations-American/product-reviews/1936235153+&cd=3&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us
If this does not work, you can go yourself to Google, and type in the following phrase:
Bieganski Peczkis site:amazon.com
Then look at what comes up. At the downward-pointing triangle by my identified review, find "Cached", open it, and scroll down to my review. Do not click on my review itself or you will just get a "Page Does Not Exist" message, with a smiling dog, from Amazon.
A smiling dog! It gets weirder and weirder.
DeleteI am curious what reasoning was given for the removal of the reviews? I recall having seen your reviews every once in a while while searching on Amazon over the years, though I can't recall the content of them specifically.
DeleteI did see that you are now on Goodreads, which is quite a wonderful site.
As far as protesting this goes, I mentioned it to my husband who just said, forget it, and don't waste your time. And I have to say Jan I do think it would be futile. I can't imagine the sort of power a group would need to take on Amazon. But I am very sorry about it. You are a valiant reviewer, and I hope you can continue in some other venues. We live in corrupt and corrupting world, and will do until Armageddon - when God's Kingdom will come. And then the wonderful work of restoration will begin.
ReplyDeletePlease do read Psalm 37. its advice is perfect, and its promises are true.
I am not a pacifist, and I disagree with your advice.
DeleteThe policies of unjust powers, no matter how powerful they may be, cannot stand. I take inspiration from David defeating Goliath (1 Samuel 17) and from the Persistent Widow and the Unjust Judge (Luke 18:1-8).
I also take inspiration from 19th century Polish patriots. Facing one bloody defeat after another in insurrections, they never gave up the seemingly-quixotic venture of a free and resurrected Poland. Not until 1918, whose 100th anniversary we are celebrating this year, did their visions and sacrifices bear fruit.
One way or another, sooner or later, whether benefitting me personally or not (restoration of my 2,612 reviews), Amazon and others who violate free speech, especially if at the behest of powerful left-wing and Jewish groups, must be held accountable.
Either that, or the censors will become more and more emboldened, and, before long, there will be no free speech left.
Remember: AN ASSAULT ON ONE PERSON'S FREE SPEECH IS AN ASSAULT ON EVERYBODY'S FREE SPEECH.
We either stick together or we hang apart.
It is no more complicated than that.
I do agree about the assault on free speech Jan. There is less and less of it. And I am not a pacifist. I am neutral, taking no sides in the divisive politics and the cruel wars of the world.
DeleteAnd I have every hope. What lies ahead for all of us, if we will accept it, is "the glorious freedom of the children of God" - a freedom beyond what we can imagine, and beyond anything the best government in the world can give us.
Subject: Amazon: Peczkis and Removal of Discussion on Blog.
ReplyDeleteThere certainly are a lot of good comments here. We can thank Mr. Bieganski for his efforts in the battle to protect freedom of discussion. What is happening here, under the umbrella of censorship more than speaks for itself.
This fight against censorship should be disseminated all over cyberspace. If each individual on Bieganski’s Blog were to send info about the wrongdoing towards Mr. Peczkis a sea individuals would become aware of this censorship crime.
It’s easily recognized that we are living in an era that greatly surpasses censorship of the old Soviet empire. However, in the USSR often verboten views could be printed. In order to get their message out, authors would elicit a disclaimer. In our age, Google, Facebook and numerous other corporatist monopolies rule the roost and ant-majority, liberals and others simply forbid open communique. That’s just the way it is. Once again, an army of Internet users should make others aware of those silencing opposing intellectual viewpoints.
Jan Peczkis is a well read individual. Besides being a scholar he has a few libraries of knowledge in his head. More often than not he presents both sides of controversial topics. Unfortunately, Amazon, like many other gigantic monopolies are, indeed, a law unto themselves. All over cyber space it's recognized that monopolio structures are prohibiting the freedom of speech that’s allegedly part and parcel of American communique.
Mr. Peczkis has done a lot of research. However, in addition to rubbing shoulders with the educated he has ridden the third rail; he has bypassed unaccepted politically correct realms. He’s a brave man, by any stretch of imagination and has been known to call a spade a spade. He even refers to self-serving big fish. He’d have been shot in the Soviet Union. Here, there is more sophistication; corporatist giants curtail his ability to participate in intellectual ideology and debate. It is not by accident that Peczkis has been purged from presenting factual info.
Further, it’s more than obvious the bureaucrats within Western monopolies abide by the same, or similar, guidelines utilized in the now defunct Soviet Union. This has to be emphasized. They reject free thought and also determine what is permissible for open communication.
DeleteNotice monopoly MSM’s critique of books. The nemesis for free speech despises those who are able to counter their argumentation. Mr. Peczkis falls within this category.
Often such bureaucratic censors go against CEOs, and owners. They do this under the ploy of “not offending.” It's kinda like the US legal mumbo-jumbo utilized in so called juris prudence. Judges fraudulently make their own interpretations. In many cases if “higher ups,” within monopoly enterprises, were to discover the dubious and insidious censorship, censors would not only lose their jobs but have difficulty relegating their lives in different employment.
A while back an intellectual at a university library, made an interesting statement. He indicated and he was amazed by Mr. Peczkis’ brave commentary in defense of Polonians, Poland and the World Polish Community. He was also astonished that JP was being allowed to continue. He referred to an English professor who was terminated at an institute of higher learning, for engaging inactivity similar to that of JP. According to him, it was a zagatka (puzzel) that a very powerful outside source had not tried to crush JP’s pen.
An individual here, discussing this matter, has alleged that Amazon is so big and so powerful that it’s beyond reproach. Overall that is true. However, if the right people were connected, it Is more than possible that censoring officials could be reprimanded. Of course, the time involved might prohibit finding the moral bureaucrat who could correct the situation.
In many ways, Mr. Peczkis is a giant of a man. In addition to being knowledgeable he is very brave.
Obviously the participants here are in the right when viewing the Sovietization of Peczkis’ labor. It's a shame how the USA has evolved regarding intellectual debate. Masses of Americans are being Sovietized; controlled and governed only this time by the powerful corporatist.
bronek
The above two posts are from someone named Bronek. They were not posted because of length. Blogger blocked them,not I.
DeleteIf you want to post something long and it does not appear, try breaking it into two shorter pieces.
Jan many people are asking why your reviews were removed. I know you have addressed this question but can you please address it one more time for those asking who may be reading here?
ReplyDeleteOK. I HEREBY POST THE AMAZON MESSAGE UNEDITED. IT CAME 5 DAYS AFTER MY REVIEWS DISAPPEARED WITHOUT WARNING OR EXPLANATION:
DeleteHello,
We found your Community Customer Content to be in violation of our guidelines and have removed them.
You can read more about our guidelines here:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html/ref=hp_left_v4_sib?ie=UTF8&...
Because of these violations, we've removed all posting privileges from your account.
For more information, see our Conditions of Use:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html/ref=hp_508088_bid_1594451?no...
Thanks for your understanding in this matter.
We'd appreciate your feedback. Please use the buttons below to vote about your experience today.
Best regards,
Mhar V.
Amazon.com
HERE IS THE UNEDITED AMAZON FORM-LETTER REJECTING MY APPEAL AND GIVING NO SPECIFICS:
ReplyDeleteHello,
We have determined that you have violated our Community Guidelines. As a result, we have suppressed all of your reviews, and you will no longer be able to post community content on Amazon. This includes Customer Reviews.
Customer Reviews are meant to give customers unbiased product feedback from fellow shoppers. Because our goal is to provide Customer Reviews that help customers make informed purchase decisions, any accounts and reviews that could be viewed as advertising, promotional, or biased will be removed.
Your community privileges may have been revoked for one or more of the following reasons:
-- Elements of your account indicate a relationship to sellers, publishers, or other reviewers of the products you review.
-- Your reviews were posted in exchange for compensation, such as gift cards to purchase the product, product refunds, review swaps, or free or discounted products.
-- You requested free or discounted products in exchange for reviews.
We made this decision after carefully considering your account. This decision is final, and your community privileges will not be reinstated.
To learn more about our policies, please review the following on Amazon.com:
-- Community Guidelines (https://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=201929730)
-- Anti-Manipulation Policy for Customer Reviews (https://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=201749630)
-- About Promotional Content (https://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=202094170)
We cannot share any further information about this decision, and we may not reply to further emails about this issue.
Review Moderator Amazon.com
http://www.amazon.com
The one "may have" they don't give you is:
DeleteYou may have committed Thoughtcrime.
Absolutely!
DeleteDr. Goska: Please feel free to post these fact-free canned Amazon responses to your Facebook audience.
Thanks.
The original idea comes from Jan Kochanowski: Szlachetne zdrowie, nikt się nie dowie jako smakujesz, aż się zepsujesz.
ReplyDelete