A critical review I wrote of a book on Amazon was censored/suppressed. Was it profane or otherwise deserving deletion? No. It simply gave one star and pointed out errors and omissions, while acknowledging that fans of US Intelligence Agencies would admire the book. The review appeared briefly, then the link to it went bad. I interacted with customer service, who said they would submit a trouble report. I wrote another review, which appeared briefly then vanished. I tried once more. The last review was up for months. I got a warning from Amazon warning me that an unspecified review I had written failed to meet community standards, and if I did it again I would be banned. The review stayed up for many more months. And then it disappeared!
Spies, Lies and Algorithms was published by the Princeton University Press. It was written by Amy Zegart, a prominent, well-connected Professor at Stanford. I'm writing up this little experience because I suspect it's not an isolated incident; It's a step towards a society run like Orwell's 1984. Here's the story.
US Intelligence Agencies and Cyber-security
The grossly misnamed US "Intelligence" Agencies continue on the path of proclaiming their wonderfulness while US cybersecurity continues its free fall into unmitigated disaster. I describe the details of the sad state of cybersecurity in both government and private sectors in these posts. For government cybersecurity, see this. Here is a detailed analysis of the DNC server hack declared by Intelligence agencies to be a Russian hack. They failed utterly to prove it, and ignored the clear evidence that the most prominent emails never resided on the DNC server!
It should come as no surprise that they are doing what all bureaucracies do, i.e., protect themselves and their reputations by hiding the facts and suppressing criticism. The author of the book clearly and explicitly takes the side of the Agencies on this issue and similar ones. While she has given courses to congressional staffers on cyber issues, she clearly does little but echo the propaganda of Agency Experts.
The Book
Amazon, always serving up books they think I might buy, showed me Spies, Lies and Algorithms: The History and Future of American Intelligence by Amy Zegart.
What a cleverly designed cover! I checked it out. The author seemed to be well connected and educated about the Agencies and recent events. Take a gander at her background:
Amy Zegart is the Morris Arnold and Nona Jean Cox Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution and Professor of Political Science (by courtesy) at Stanford University. She is also a Senior Fellow at Stanford’s Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, Chair of Stanford’s Artificial Intelligence and International Security Steering Committee, and a contributing writer at The Atlantic. She specializes in U.S. intelligence, emerging technologies and national security, grand strategy, and global political risk management.
Zegart has been featured by the National Journal as one of the ten most influential experts in intelligence reform. She served as a commissioner on the 2020 CSIS Technology and Intelligence Task Force and has advised the National Security Commission on Artificial Intelligence. She served on the Clinton administration’s National Security Council staff and as a foreign policy adviser to the Bush 2000 presidential campaign. She has also testified before the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence and advised senior officials on intelligence, homeland security, and cybersecurity matters.
Skipping my usual practice of carefully scanning the reviews, I bought the book.
I then read the book. The author was nearly everything you could want: highly educated, knowledgeable, articulate, connected. There was just one little problem: she has completely bought in to the deep state, to the extent of denying that there is such a thing. She faithfully ignores what they ignore, reflects their lies and omissions and shows near-total ignorance of computers and the "algorithms" of her title. That's all! In fact, her book scared me, because it was such a compelling read to anyone who was ignorant of cybersecurity (i.e., practically everyone) or hadn't dug into the big lies.
The Reviews
I've written a number of reviews of all sorts of products since joining Amazon in early 1998. Most have been positive, all of them constructive. I thought this book needed a review from me; while my immersion in the Intelligence community was trivial compared to the author's, my knowledge of cybersecurity and related subjects clearly eclipsed hers.
I went to the review section and found a handful of authoritative-person reviews, all highly complementary, and about a dozen reviews by readers, all but one very positive.
The sole negative review, 1 star, was by a self-described retired Intelligence officer who titled his review "bias detracts too much." 57 people found it helpful. He didn't go into detail but said:
She tries to deny it but the Deep State is real and is our biggest challenge. ... She tipped her hand with selective alarm and omission of key events rampant in the first chapter.
The next most popular review, granting 5 stars and titled "There is some bias: here's why it isn't important" mostly demonstrates the power of being in the bubble:
I am a politically conservative individual studying intelligence and the IC for a number of years. Amy’s summary is accurate, thorough, and well-written. ...
I couldn’t find any factual inaccuracies that would render the book a decorative piece or kindling.
These reviews demonstrate the problems of the Intelligence community and its image. It isn't about bias so much as it is about ignorance and denial.
Writing a Review
I dove into writing a review. My goal was to praise the author for her evident virtues, but to give a few facts to illustrate the basis for my giving it 1 star. I typed it into the box Amazon provided without keeping a copy of what I gave -- silly me. I posted it and waited. Three days later I got a notice that my review was posted.
Hooray! I clicked to see the full review. This is what I got:
Cute dog, but what's going on here?
I went back once a day for many days and clicked again. The review never showed up.
Next I got online with Amazon customer service in a chat. After a bit of effort, the person agreed that the error about the Zegart review was a problem. I asked him to submit the issue for resolution, and he said he would. I waited until he said it was submitted.
Writing a Review Again
After a number of days with no change, I decided to simply post another review, this time saving what I had written. My submission of the second try was confirmed:
I never received the confirming email from Amazon saying that my second try at a review had been posted. But I kept checking, and to my surprise, my second review was posted. The bad link to the original review (Feb 12) now led to the new review (Feb 19). Hooray, it's posted! Here's a screen shot of the first part of it:
There's nothing bad going on here -- I'm just being paranoid! And the review has already gotten several votes for being Helpful.
The Second Review Disappears
I went to the page again, and noticed that the total number of reviews had gone down. I look for my review. I was thorough. It's not there. Not there.
I had a thought. I had saved the original confirming email I got from Amazon pointing to my original review (which never showed up), which mysteriously DID point to my second try at a review. I click, and here's the result:
At least they're different dogs...
The Second Review Magically Reappears
I went to the page again and found, to my great surprise, that the elusive review was back!!
Just as a test, I wrote a positive 5-star review of socks I had bought on Amazon.
The Warning
A day or two later after the reappearance of the review, this showed up in my inbox:
Notice the careful wording. Notice that the exact review was not referenced, and that no specific violation of the guidelines was identified. I carefully read the community guidelines. Nothing that I wrote could be construed as violating them. The only offense of the review was to point out the deep issues of the Intelligence Community and to give a couple specific examples that illustrate it -- one of them the supposed Russian hacking of the DNC server.
The second review stays up for many months, and then...
I checked the review occasionally over the following months. It stayed up and received dozens of "helpful" votes. It was second or third on the list of "critical" reviews.
Then, more than 6 months later, I got this.
Nothing about which content I posted that violates the Guidelines. No links. Nothing about removing the awful content. I'm just supposed to know, I guess. Naturally, I suspected that the Zedaris book review was the issue, so I went to the book's page. The book is doing well -- it's now an editor's pick in nonfiction. I went down to the reviews. The "Bias detracts too much" 1-star review is still up and went from 57 up votes to 102. Sure enough, mine is gone.
Boy, those misinformation police at Amazon are really on the job, giving proper notice and telling you what law you violated. And prompt! And careful to only take down evidence-based reviews that might change some minds. Or something.
The last chapter
I wrote all of the above. Before posting it, I checked once more and found to my surprise that the review was up again! It wasn't on the top reviews list, even though it had over 50 "helpful" votes, but it was there. Oh well, much ado about nothing. The review is visible, my post is irrelevant.
Many months later, I had an impulse to check again. The review is gone again!! I carefully checked, looking at all the 1-star reviews, which takes some clicking just to get to them. The "bias detracts too much" review is still there, still with exactly 102 up votes, unchanged from at least 6 months ago. I bet that somehow the review isn't shown to many people. The handful of other critical reviews each had just a couple votes at most.
My review -- gone again!
Update on Dec 2023:
I tried to write a review of a book. I got this:
All my reviews have been deleted!
I've reached out to them again. Something's going on!
Conclusion
Somewhere operating deep within Amazon there is an operation to suppress criticism of the CIA/FBI/NSA/whatever. I guess it could be Amazon employees who feel the same way, without official blessing. Or maybe, as we now know was the case with Twitter, there was an explicit back-channel connection to one of the 3LA's (3-letter agencies). After being allowed to be viewed for many months, my review garnered dozens of "helpful" votes. During that time I thought that the "image protecting" operation was walking a fine line between total suppression and letting low-attention items like my review alone to avoid attracting notice. But then it was visible again, just hard to find. And now, roughly a year after it was originally posted, it's gone.
FWIW and to be explicit about it, my review was NOT politically motivated. It was driven by facts and competence, consistent with these posts. Specifically see this. The job of the agencies is to enforce the law and protect us all from criminal and foreign attacks, a job for which, sadly, they have a track record of failure. And the job of prestigious professors who teach people about cybersecurity is to objectively assess the quality of the work, not ignore failures and incompetence.