Netflix Removes All User Reviews From Its Website
You can no longer post or read reviews on Netflix. The streaming service has removed all customer reviews for TV shows, Movies and other programmes from their website.
This move doesn’t come off as a surprise as Netflix notified customers last months that this feature will be removed from July 30 and fans will no longer be able to post anymore reviews. This notice also mentioned that all old reviews will be removed by Mid-August. This means that Netflix has already removed thousands of reviews from their website.
Now the question is, why did Netflix eliminate all these reviews? The official reason given is that there was a drastic drop in the usage of this feature by users which led to its removal while many fans feel that they were terminated due to negative comments on some of Netflix’s original programmes.
Netflix might also incorporate ads and commercials on their website as a Reddit user posted about his experience, stating that he finished an episode of Nick and Morty and instead of airing the next one, the service placed the trailer for Better Call Saul. Furthermore, the commercial didn’t even have a skip button.
However, Netflix did tell Variety that the reviews had no direct effect on the recommendation algorithms. So any user writing a bad review cannot push the show or film down on viewership.
Here are some recent reactions about Netflix’s latest fiasco:
Netflix user reviews might be gone, but at least we still have user submitted IMDB keywords.
— Harry (@LACordCutter) 17 August 2018
Oh dear. I guess if there is a possibility that people may say exactly what they think about what they watch, then it could be bad for Netflix business.
Netflix Kills User Reviews https://t.co/oDDsgQg1Pb— PulpKult (@PulpKult) 17 August 2018
Heyyy Netflix no longer shows user reviews! A few days ago, I noticed they had been hidden for its new show Insatiable, presumably because they were all so negative, and now there is nary a scrap of praise or criticism to be heard anywhere—just the drone of the autoplay promos ?
— Robin Sloan (@robinsloan) 16 August 2018
Absolutely ridiculous @netflix got rid of user reviews. What horse shit. Now Amazon is better, and they have shittier content.
— Dank Democracy (@Dank_Democracy) 16 August 2018
…did netflix remove all user reviews? so if i'm on the fence about a movie i have to go to another website and search for reviews myself?? WHY REMOVE THAT FEATURE??
— kat o'keeffe (@kat_tastic) 15 August 2018
@Netflix removes user reviews and then adds playing ads for their stuff during your binges. Maybe if the interface was designed to help find stuff you wanted instead of "magic algorithms", we wouldn't need ads to know about the content we want.
— Jordan Gammey (@jordanclock) 18 August 2018
pouring one out for netflix user reviews and another terrible loss in the Free Marketplace of Ideas™ pic.twitter.com/ZPRgo7AgB7
— Jen Bon Jovi (@Niwannabe) 18 August 2018