I have not been personally censored, but I know of so many who have. Please share your stories here.

I have not been censored personally. But I'm really, really discusted by Goodreads behavior. The censoring is just wrong. Amazon is killing Goodreads and it's really depressing me. However through Booklikes, I'm making more online reading friends and BL is super friendly so there are some good things to come out of the mess

I've had a "Hydra" review deleted, plus they announced they were going to delete my BBA shelf if I didn't rename it -- whereupon I deleted all of my books and book shelves on my own. I'd already retired my reviews to my own website back in April when the Amazon purchase was announced and moved my book catalogue to BookLikes in September when the change of policy kicked in, so refusing to give them any further data of mine to play with (particularly the coveted "read" and "to read" shelves) just seemed like the next logical step once they started to go after my content specifically. The only shelf I still have on GR now is an exclusive "not-for-me" shelf ... to which classification they are welcome; it applies to every sort of literary junk from The Great Dictator to BBAs.

If I didn't have friends on GR who currently are still reluctant to move to BookLikes, I'd delete my account there entirely.

That's really invasive. I've heard plenty of stories similar to this one.

Some people say they feel targeted and that Amazon wants to only really censor specific bloggers. Not just any blogger.

Do you think this is true?

They deleted three of my shelves. (Somehow missing "Sockpuppets," however.)

So they're not getting any more of my reviews, and very little data on all my new reads. I list it as "read" when I finish it (no other shelving), may or may not give it a rating, link to a review here.

Reply to post #4 (show post):
We can only guess to what extent they're hand-picking (and frankly, I don't care). Some reviewers have explicitly been told in private emails that if they continue to post "off topic" reviews (or the like), their accounts will be deleted. I think the overall intent is to make the site as squeaky-clean, family-friendly, nonoffensive and, of course, author- and Kindle-reader-friendly as possible, in a belief that this will boost sales. If you haven't seen the rencent presentation by Goodreads themselves on the site's importance for Kindle sales, see here: http://www.slideshare.net/GoodreadsPresentations/idpf-2013-goodreads . There is a slide showing very specifically that Goodreads activity has a direct and virtually exactly proportional impact on Kindle sales.

I don't think things are going to work out the way they are planning -- all they're going to achieve is to make GR as much a graveyard as Shelfari already is, and without reviewers around who are not afraid to take on BBAs and point out the bad eggs, they're going to end up taking away the credibility and reliability of GR reviews as a whole, as authors -- who are now officially a protected class in the interest of marketing -- are going to be able to have a field day on the site and will be able to use every unethical marketing method in the book; however much GR writes in their guidelines that such methods are not permitted. It happened on Amazon's own site from 2008 on (when Ammy had a similar paradigm shift) ... there's no way it won't happen again on GR. There is a built-in conflict of interest that they won't be able to resolve as long as they protect authors over readers, don't proactively and consistently enforce their anti-unethical-marketing guidelines vis-à-vis authors, AND as long as they don't realize that their readers' community is just as important an asset as the authors whose books they're trying to sell. And for all I've seen from Amazon since 2008, they do NOT realize that; nor probably will they ever. Oh well. Too bad for them.

I just hope BookLikes will go a different route when the question arises how to sustainably monetize the site ... because that is how Amazon muscled in at Goodreads, and it can easily happen again here as well.

Reply to post #6 (show post):
I've noticed this trend amongst many bloggers. Not only are they not using Goodreads, but they are deleting their content too!

I find that fascinating.

You're idea of leaving a link to another site is genius in its simplicity however.

It redirects the reader, and may possibly get them to switch from GR entirely.

Reply to post #2 (show post):
Yes, I hate it too. Killing something that had so much culture in order to maximize profits is never the way.

I have found the same thing too with book likes actually! It's much easier to meet people because we can do more than review. But if all you want is reviews then you can do that too, i like the balance.

However, they need to make the interface a little more user friendly in my opinion. It misses some really obvious stuff

I haven't been censored -- at least not yet -- but I find the entire system of sucking up to the authors, and not the readership pretty damn petty on GR's part. After all, it's the readers who buy the books, not to mention paying the library taxes in their towns, and you can't have authors unless there are readers. It's a bad move on GR's part.

I wasn't censored directly, but the new policy did prompt me to re-name two shelves. "Authors to Avoid" became "Books I wont support" and "STGRB Supporter" became "AWOL"

It really feels as if Goodreads is trying to play both the reader/reviewer and the authors as fools. Both are getting different stories. But lately, it has been clear that the reading community they worked hard to cultivate is being pushed aside, and new authors are literally being told to join to promote their books.

I have no problem with GR selling ad space, but that should remain separate from how they enforce the community aspect of their site. I support the removal of truly offensive content, but that is not a new policy for them. What is new is their gag order to discuss authors behavior PERIOD.

I wasn't censored personally, either, but the list I made, "Badly Behaving Authors" on Listopia was deleted. And that was after a month of GR staff ignoring my various emails about why comments had been frozen on it. :/

That made me angry when I saw they had frozen comments on that list. Little did I know how much angrier I would become.

I've had a few reviews deleted. They were reviews where I didn't like the books and gave them a 2 star rating. I pointed out my dislike for the books' plot plainly and did not bash the author in any way, but the GR of today, it's the same thing, so away they went.

I received an email about a week after the first initial deleting purge that listed a bunch of reviews and said that if they weren't edited within 48 hours they'd be deleted. I had already renamed many of my shelves or else I'm they would have been included too. In protest, I replaced my review with a statement about how the review that had been there was censored by Goodreads because dissenting opinions were too damaging to the brains of readers.

About a week and a half after I changed it I was informed that the reviews were flagged by GR members (gee I wonder who) and deleted. The email also informed me that if I continued to post material that violated the rules my account would be placed under review.

I am no longer posting entire reviews on GR. I will post a star rating and a few sentences and then a link to the review on my blog. I've stopped any librarian editing I may have done. And really only drop in for the groups I belong to there. They are not getting me to create more free content for them to sell.