Censoring of reviews

I have noticed that when someone posts a review of a film, and part of the review is about casting, IMDB refuses to publish it if it deviates from accepted ideology. Now I get that they have to have rules, and you can't just break laws or defame anyone indiscriminately. But when you are reviewing a film, sometimes there might be uncomfortable things that need to be said. But IMDB is deliberately censoring those things simply because of ideology. That to me is a dangerous move against freedom of speech, and after many hundreds of contributions I have written, I feel it's becoming more difficult to say what you think of a film because of this censoring.

Responses

jean_morel

73 Messages

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1.4K Points

3 months ago

Maybe give some examples of the type of things you say that you believe get your reviews rejected.

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HankOn

15 Messages

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220 Points

The problem is they never tell you what has caused that censoring. I've completed many hundreds of reviews now and it feels like there's a 'safe zone' where you can express your opinion as long as you don't step on certain toes. You're left to guess at what it might be and in my case it is often casting, even though this is a hugely important part of the success or failure of a film. But I actually don't know because they refuse to tell you what you 'did wrong' to be censored.

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3 months ago

0

jean_morel

73 Messages

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1.4K Points

And yet you seem to have a good opinion on what you "did wrong" but are unwilling to share it. So I'm guessing you probably write some truly vile stuff.

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3 months ago

0

jean_morel

73 Messages

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1.4K Points

And you're the one who's refusing to share what they said about the casting in Snow White despite multiple people asking you, while brandishing the "keep your politics outta ma IMDB" flag, leaving people to guess and extrapolate the kinds of things you might have typed.

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3 months ago

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Fran

Employee

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3K Messages

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30.7K Points

3 months ago

Hello HankOn, User reviews, positive or negative, that are detected or reported to be in violation of our user review guidelines are routinely rejected or deleted. This applies to reviews for any title regardless of content, topic, country of origin or expressed viewpoint. The detection of unusual review activity consistent with an organized intent to manipulate perception of a title (i.e. so-called "review bombing") triggers additional safeguards, which may include temporarily pausing the display of new and existing reviews while we investigate to ensure that these comments accurately represent genuine customer sentiment rather than the viewpoint of any particular group or special interest.

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HankOn

15 Messages

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220 Points

Yeah but your guidelines are so wide ranging that we never know which one we hit. The only way of working it out is submit many reviews on the same film til one hits the sweet spot. Why are you so secretive about what is or is not acceptable? Also, you don't reject or delete them, you simply leave them as 'pending' for days on end until the author realises something is wrong and is forced to make multiple rewrites to try and work out what it is that hurt your feelings.

(edited)

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3 months ago

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Fran

Employee

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3K Messages

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30.7K Points

You can see the status for your User Reviews contributions on the Contribution History BETA page: https://help.imdb.com/article/contribution/contribution-information/contribution-history/G2BYV38VYPXM5L4F?ref_=helpsrall#

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3 months ago

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HankOn

15 Messages

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220 Points

Yes I know how to view my status, that's the only way I can find out whether a review has been accepted, and whether it is still pending. I rewrote the review I left for Snow White and...both are still pending lol I'm guessing IMDB are playing politics here.

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3 months ago

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MovieCat

613 Messages

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11.4K Points

3 months ago

Why don't you post the review here so the curious can see what's going down in groove town?

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HankOn

15 Messages

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220 Points

That would serve no purpose. There'd be a flame war over opinions and it would get ugly, and I still would not know why my review is 'pending'.

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3 months ago

0

MovieCat

613 Messages

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11.4K Points

I'm just curious... and maybe members here could at least give their view as to why, if they've had a similar experience?

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3 months ago

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H

HankOn

15 Messages

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220 Points

I would rather IMDB simply say to me "this is what we don't like" then I can fix it.

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3 months ago

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HankOn

Censoring of reviews

jean_morel

HankOn

jean_morel

jean_morel

Fran

HankOn

Fran

HankOn

MovieCat

HankOn

MovieCat

HankOn

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