Amazon-owned book review site Goodreads hosts malicious reviews attacking authors, refusing to remove those which violate its policies.

Goodreads community guidelines state: “Hate speech, bigotry, threats, and ad hominem attacks are not tolerated. Criticizing the opinions of others is permitted, but attacking individuals for their opinions is not.”

From current one star Goodreads reviews (verbatim) of J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, first, the ad hominem:

• “F**k JK Rowling”
• “i would never have read these books if i knew Rowling was a TERF. NEVER. so muh for using your powers (writing, in this case) for good. what a c**t.”
• “1 star for the author”
• “I feel like I can’t rate any book by J.K Rowling higher than 1 star because of her transphobia, racism etc.”
• “J.K. Rowling is a horrible person with outdated and horribly discriminatory views against minorities such as trans people and women.”
• “f*ck JKR. i’m not going to support and enjoy this franchise if my trans friends can’t feel safe in it. i know not everyone feels this way but idc. this world was something safe for all of us to escape to and JKR has ripped that away from many trans people. so, to reiterate: f*ck JKR.”

And while Goodreads states: “Artificially inflating or deflating a book’s ratings or reputation violates our rules,” the site hosts no shortage of one star reviews with that stated purpose:

• “f**k jkr. Best book in the series tho"
• “The book is fine, but f**k transphobia.”
• “it used to be a five star but then rowling wanted to be a transphobe so”
• “i really do love harry potter and i think that the book was good but we don’t support transphobic and problematic authors in this household”
• “0/10 for transphobic author who shall not be named”
• “this was my favourite harry potter book for the longest time. i just love lupin and sirius so much. 10/10 my heart hurts”
• “EDIT: I no longer support this author and while I do still *TECHNICALLY* think the book itself is 5 stars I am still going to change my ratings to one star based on the author's actions.”
• “edit// Rowling's an awful transphobe and I can't bring myself to have her works on my account with 5 star ratings, so down they go.”

Along with exhortations to piracy:

• “don't buy her books. if you want to read hp, pirate it (…)”

And, from one star reviews of John Boyne’s My Brother’s Name Is Jessica:

• “I didn't actually read this book, but as the spouse of a trans-person I can say that the title is both ignorant and hurtful.”
• “So I haven’t actually read this book, but the title is offensive and transphobic”
• “I personally haven’t read it, but heard enough from my friend to tell you to NEVER EVER read it or support the author.”
• “no, I haven’t read this book and I’m not planning to, because I’m not really in the mood to pander to transphobes telling me that I have to read a book before rating it even when the title is a massive, massive red flag"
• “Just to clarify: I didn't read this book and I never ever plan to read it. But just based on its cover, synnopsis and all the reviews I've read, this book is horrible, extremly transphobic and deserves nothing but a negative review.”

According to Goodreads, “Goodreads reserves the right to remove content at any time for any reason. It is at our sole discretion to decide when content violates our guidelines.”

Not quite. According to the U.S. Federal Trade Commission fake reviews are illegal: “These include reviews and endorsements by people who do not exist or have not used the product or service or who lie about their experiences.” Reviews of books Goodreads’ users have not read are certainly fake, as are negative reviews of works reviewers acknowledge to be of literary merit while stating their wish to punish the author for having their own perspective, or because of a perceived failure to comply with the reviewer’s ideology.

In Australia, Google has repeatedly been forced to disclose the names of malicious reviewers who were successfully sued after publishing defamatory statements solely to harm another’s reputation.

Goodreads, enforce your own policies by removing ad hominem, fake and malicious reviews.