“In exchange for my honest and unbiased review” | Hacker News Reader

“In exchange for my honest and unbiased review”

google.com

33 pointsapsec11213 comments

I like that reviewers are required to put this on Amazon now, it lets me know which products not to buy.

I wish we could filter these out of the review and rating results.

Is this a thing now, linking to search results for a term? I saw this with image results for exploding hoverboards. I don't like it.

It seems to have triggered the Google captcha for me...

One of my (language) pet peeves is when someone opens with 'Honestly, ...'

When it's appropriate I suggest to them that everything they say without that prefix might therefore be assumed to be otherwise. I suggest 'Candidly' or 'Frankly' if they mean they're about to be blunt. Or just avoid any kind of qualification entirely. Usually I'm ignored, of course.

But this is a particularly unpleasant arrangement of words -- an inherent and obvious contradiction, whereby independence of bias is claimed in spite of, and in conjunction with, proof of bias.

I wonder at the kinds of readers (of reviews or otherwise) who find comfort in such a disclaimer.

tbh smh fam

It's a common idiom indicating straightforwardness. It does not imply a dishonesty in other sentences.

There's lots of words that mean straightforward (to be frank / blunt / candid / brutal / clear / straightforward / abrupt / etc) but honesty is something else entirely.

The comparable phrase 'To tell the truth, ...' is even less ambiguous (yes, it's idiomatic, but that shouldn't let you ignore semantics).

As for amazon reviews I rarely expect people to be especially honest -- if they self-assess as being extra honest despite swag, that's less compelling.

What is this meant to show? I just get a Google homepage.

EDIT: From a desktop browser it's a search results page for the given query.

A search for: site:amazon.com "in exchange for my honest and unbiased review"

well thats awkward.

"I received this product for free or at a discount in exchange for my honest and unbiased review."

Free OR at a discount.... I like the, "I don't care about anything I write" disclaimer :)

tangentially related:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/feature.html?docId=1001250201

http://www.amazon.com/gp/feature.html?docId=1001388321

go to the actual product pages and read the full reviews, the excerpts on the above pages are weak sauce.

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