{"id":1595,"date":"2020-03-12T11:45:52","date_gmt":"2020-03-12T11:45:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blockchain-society.science\/?p=1595"},"modified":"2020-03-12T11:49:41","modified_gmt":"2020-03-12T11:49:41","slug":"coronavirus-books-plagiarized-from-news-outlets-dominate-amazon-search-results","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blockchain-society.science\/?p=1595","title":{"rendered":"Coronavirus books plagiarized from news outlets dominate Amazon search results"},"content":{"rendered":"
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At first glance, Richard J. Baily\u2019s book, \u201cCoronavirus: Everything You Need to Know About the Wuhan Corona Virus and How to Prevent It,\u201d appears to be an authoritative deep dive on how to prepare for the pandemic.<\/p>\n

The book was the top \u201ccoronavirus\u201d search result on Amazon for many users Tuesday \u2014 and not just in Amazon\u2019s books section. The guidebook appeared before Clorox wipes and hand sanitizer, let alone any book written by a doctor or public health specialist. The first pages are filled with a well-written, useful primer called \u201cWhat is Coronavirus?\u201d<\/p>\n

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The book, however, isn\u2019t what it appears to be. Each of the book\u2019s chapters were directly plagiarized from other parts of the web. The first two chapters were lifted verbatim from NBC News stories<\/a> by Erika Edwards and Sara Miller published in late January. The third chapter, which is dedicated to cleaning tips, was ripped from the website for Nancy\u2019s Cleaning Services, a housekeeping company based in California. The remainder of the book is plagiarized verbatim from articles on ChinaLawBlog.com and The Guardian, according to a copy seen by NBC News.<\/p>\n

Other books that appeared high on Amazon search results had similar issues, as well as authors whose identities could not be verified. The listings highlight the challenge that Amazon has faced as consumers have turned to the company for a variety of goods and information related to the new coronavirus.<\/p>\n

Amazon has taken action to limit price gouging and removed more than 1 million products<\/a> for making misleading claims.<\/p>\n

An Amazon spokesperson said the company uses a combination of automated and human moderation tools to find and remove content that violates its guidelines.<\/p>\n

\u201cAmazon maintains content guidelines for the books it sells, and we continue to evaluate our catalog, listening to customer feedback. We have always required sellers, authors and publishers to provide accurate information on product detail pages, and we remove those that violate our policies,\u201d an Amazon spokesperson said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn addition, at the top of relevant search results pages we are linking to CDC advice where customers can learn more about the virus and protective measures.\u201d<\/p>\n

Plagiarized books by nonexistent authors clogging the top of Amazon search results have become a familiar problem to real, independent authors who try to sell books on Amazon. Fake e-books, frequently plagiarized from original works, often crowd out authentic books and products at the top of Amazon pages.<\/p>\n

During a mass health emergency, the plagiarized e-books could be filled with unreliable information, and drown out higher ranking products that could better safeguard the public. But Nate Hoffelder, the founder and editor of the e-reader site The Digital Reader, said similar<\/a> scams<\/a> have been going on<\/a> at Amazon for years<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cMost of Amazon’s e-book competitors have a content approval process in place that keeps the worst content out,\u201d Hoffelder said. \u201cAfter 10 years of watching the internet grow and change, I have come to the conclusion that the platform is the issue. Internet companies try to run huge automated systems with little human oversight, and scammers can take advantage of the algorithms.\u201d<\/p>\n

Other platforms, like YouTube, have taken steps to prohibit users from profiting from coronavirus content. While creators are still allowed to upload coronavirus videos to YouTube<\/a>, running ads along with them was disallowed, though the company said Wednesday <\/a>it would begin allowing ads for some partners and creators.<\/p>\n

Hoffelder said that the first time he remembered fake books being uploaded to Amazon\u2019s store was in 2015, when users were creating short books and putting them on Amazon\u2019s Kindle Unlimited subscription platform. Scammers were paid every time one of the books was loaned out using the program. Each of the plagiarized coronavirus books NBC News noticed in the first page of search results were eligible for a loan using Kindle Unlimited.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don’t know if it’s a case of can’t or won’t,\u201d Hoffelder said. \u201cWhat I do know is that Amazon is the only retailer with this problem. They have the lion’s share of the e-book market revenue, and could easily afford to use the same quality assurance processes as their competitors, and yet they still have this problem.\u201d<\/p>\n

Baily and Wang are not the only pseudonymous or nonexistent authors to take over the first page of results about the coronavirus on Amazon. \u201cDr. Kashif Saeed\u2019s\u201d book shares an almost identical description to Baily\u2019s, except for several grammatical errors. \u201cCoronavirus is that the word that’s one everyone\u2019s lips immediately,\u201c the typo-ridden first line of the book\u2019s description reads. \u201cSaeed\u2019s\u201d other books alternately claim he is a veterinarian and a social media marketing and SEO expert.<\/p>\n

Other books, like \u201cRamond Moroe\u2019s\u201d 38-page e-book \u201cSheild (sic) Against Corona-Virus: The Best Guide Ever (2020)\u201d are littered with typos when they\u2019re not directly plagiarizing news articles.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn this book you will found a natural way to stay safe, all you needs to do is ..CLICK add to cart,\u201d the description reads. The book frequently appears in the first page of search results when users query \u201ccoronavirus.\u201d It was the eighth-ranked product on a sitewide Amazon search for \u201ccoronavirus\u201d at publication time.<\/p>\n

Some of the plagiarized books are filled with unintelligible 5-star reviews, which can help boost their rankings in search results.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis book extremely extraordinary, in the wake of perusing this book I am so intrigued,\u201d reads one review of Baily\u2019s top-ranked e-book. \u201cOn account of the writer and would prescribed for this book to anybody. Many thanks to the author for giving us such a beautiful book.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hoffelder said scammers always appear to be \u201cone step ahead of Amazon\u2019s changing rules.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt seems like there’s a new con every other year or so, and that every time Amazon swats one, the cheaters invent a new one,\u201d he said. \u201cThe problem with scammers in the Kindle Store was the Kindle Store.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Source: Coronavirus books plagiarized from news outlets dominate Amazon search results<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

At first glance, Richard J. Baily\u2019s book, \u201cCoronavirus: Everything You Need to Know About the Wuhan Corona Virus and How to Prevent It,\u201d appears to be an authoritative deep dive on how to prepare for the pandemic. The book was the top \u201ccoronavirus\u201d search result on Amazon for many users Tuesday \u2014 and not just […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,45],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blockchain-society.science\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1595"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blockchain-society.science\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blockchain-society.science\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blockchain-society.science\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blockchain-society.science\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1595"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/blockchain-society.science\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1595\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1598,"href":"https:\/\/blockchain-society.science\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1595\/revisions\/1598"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blockchain-society.science\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1595"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blockchain-society.science\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1595"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blockchain-society.science\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1595"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}