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I understand the need to remove "review bombs", but aren't review bombs reviews too? Say a company that develops a product says or does something insensitive,

I understand the need to remove "review bombs", but aren't review bombs reviews too? Say a company that develops a product says or does something insensitive, in the earlier days, people would publicly boycott that product, related products or what have you. The company would either stand down and apologize, or put it's foot down and say it's right. Now picture the same thing with Tik-Tok. There are innumerable instances where Tik-tok has been shown to be biased, censors specific content, etc etc. Review bombing is as good as boycotting a company. Causing a company real consequences in response to their actions. It's a form of rightful protest. I am not using the product. I am expressing my views about the product in a review system that is public and open. As long as there are no bots involves, Google is morally wrong, in my view.

asdfasgasdgasdg 6y ago
The point of a reviews from an app store's perspective is to help users decide whether they would benefit from an app. That some subreddit or Twitter or whatever decides to brigade a particular app does not necessarily provide much signal about whether a generic user will want an app. An app marketplace is not generally going to be interested in facilitating boycotts on apps in the given marketplace. If it wants an app boycotted, it can ban it. Otherwise, the incentives are probably not aligned.
newacct583 6y ago
> aren't review bombs reviews too? No? I mean, a review is supposed to be an informed opinion of another user of the software telling me whether it meets the expectations its store page sets. If reviews become generic forums for comments on corporate policies then they become useless. I'm with Google here. They provide many forums for people to complain about TikTok already. They certainly shouldn't be forced to do so in app reviews.
ketzu 6y ago
I aggree that "review bombs" are reviews too, but they intend to review something different from what is intended: the company creating the product instead of the product. If you intend the reviews to be a help for deciding on the merits of the product, they are noise. Many people consider "didn't fit my purpose 1/5" or "amazon canceled the shipping on me 1/5" reviews as noise, even though they are not useless. I think, "review bombs" are similar.
cdirkx 6y ago
Steam has an interesting approach to review bombs, it keeps the negative reviews visible but excludes them from the aggregated rating. The rating has a big asterisk with info that this game has had a "period of off-topic review activity detected", allowing you to see when this period was, the percentage of reviews excluded, and the "off-topic" reviews themselves. As an example: Borderlands 2 [1], which got review bombed when Borderlands 3 was announced to launch exclusive to the Epic Game Store. [1] https://store.steampowered.com/app/49520/Borderlands_2/#app_reviews_hash https://store.steampowered.com/app/49520/Borderlands_2/#app_...

asdfasgasdgasdg 6y ago

The point of a reviews from an app store's perspective is to help users decide whether they would benefit from an app. That some subreddit or Twitter or whatever decides to brigade a particular app does not necessarily provide much signal about whether a generic user will want an app. An app marketplace is not generally going to be interested in facilitating boycotts on apps in the given marketplace. If it wants an app boycotted, it can ban it. Otherwise, the incentives are probably not aligned.

newacct583 6y ago

> aren't review bombs reviews too? No? I mean, a review is supposed to be an informed opinion of another user of the software telling me whether it meets the expectations its store page sets. If reviews become generic forums for comments on corporate policies then they become useless. I'm with Google here. They provide many forums for people to complain about TikTok already. They certainly shouldn't be forced to do so in app reviews.

ketzu 6y ago

I aggree that "review bombs" are reviews too, but they intend to review something different from what is intended: the company creating the product instead of the product. If you intend the reviews to be a help for deciding on the merits of the product, they are noise. Many people consider "didn't fit my purpose 1/5" or "amazon canceled the shipping on me 1/5" reviews as noise, even though they are not useless. I think, "review bombs" are similar.

cdirkx 6y ago

Steam has an interesting approach to review bombs, it keeps the negative reviews visible but excludes them from the aggregated rating. The rating has a big asterisk with info that this game has had a "period of off-topic review activity detected", allowing you to see when this period was, the percentage of reviews excluded, and the "off-topic" reviews themselves. As an example: Borderlands 2 [1], which got review bombed when Borderlands 3 was announced to launch exclusive to the Epic Game Store. [1] https://store.steampowered.com/app/49520/Borderlands_2/#app_reviews_hash https://store.steampowered.com/app/49520/Borderlands_2/#app_...