#digitalcrime

I don’t know Samuel Matos (author) or Charles Carlini (publisher), but we are all the same now. On January 29th of this year, I received an email from Kindle Content Review entitled "Alert from Amazon about your account" that stated, “We are terminating your account effective immediately because we have found activities in your account trying to manipulate our services. In addition to closing your account: You'll no longer be eligible to receive outstanding royalties. You no longer have access to your account. This includes editing titles, viewing reports, and accessing other account information. Published titles will be removed from Amazon. As per our Terms and Conditions, you aren't allowed to open any new KDP accounts.” I initially thought the January 29th email was vicious, malicious spam crafted specifically for me. It took me a few seconds to believe it was real. I was affected deeply by this, like I was a victim involved in a pig butchering fraud.

I formally disputed this action. I received another reply, after a brief back and forth, that, “Due to Content Guideline violations relating to your account, we are removing all of the titles you have uploaded through this account from sale on Amazon and we will not be reinstating your account. You're no longer eligible to receive any outstanding royalties. Additionally, as per our Terms and Conditions, you are not permitted to open new accounts and will not receive future royalty payments from additional accounts created. Please be advised that this is our final decision and we won't be offering further insight or action on this matter.” Authors in multiple countries have reported the same pattern: accounts terminated without specific titles identified and without evidence provided. Whether in the United States, Europe, or elsewhere, the language is nearly identical. Manipulation. Content violations. No details. This is not a system built for creators. This is a system creators are vulnerable to. Author Vania Rheault has described a growing number of cases where KDP accounts are closed without clear explanations, even when authors believe they have complied with the platform’s rules.

First, I was told that I was trying to manipulate their services, but later, it was content guideline violations. Over fifteen years of KDP titles were gone just like that as if this was Hurricane Alice, but there was never a Wonderland. I never had any real issues with my account, nothing more than fixing book trimming or very minor fixes like checking a box. A few years ago, my account was temporarily suspended when I was accused of having one of my books free online. Flagged obviously by a nonhuman. It was actually a LinkedIn article with the same title as my book, and it had nothing to do with me at all. On February 1st of this year, I received an email from ACX entitled "Regarding Your ACX Account" that stated, “It has come to our attention that the KDP account associated with your Amazon account has been terminated. To provide the best experience for ACX Creators and Audible listeners, Audible requires that the Amazon account ACX Creators use to log in to ACX is in good standing. Please refer to our ACX User Conduct and Content Acceptance Guidelines for further information, which can be found at: https://help.acx.com/s/article/acx-user-conduct-and-content-acceptance-guidelines. We will provide you ten (10) days to contact KDP Customer Support and resolve the termination. If your KDP account is not restored to good standing within the next ten (10) days, Audible will need to terminate your ACX account and titles. If you successfully restore your KDP account to good standing, please reach out to Audible at [email protected].” 

And then on February 13th of this year, in another email, it was stated, “We are reaching out to let you know that your account has been found to be in violation of our ACX User Conduct and Content Acceptance Guidelines. As a result, your ACX account has been closed. All titles on your account have been removed from sale on Audible, Amazon, and iTunes, purchases of these titles have been cancelled, accrued royalties will be deposited in the next payment cycle. Please be advised that you will not be permitted to open any new ACX accounts or receive any future royalty payments.” To think that all my audiobooks were recorded for nothing feels disgusting, and all those great collaborations with Roger Buehler, Sheila Marie Nicholas, Jenifer Witcher, Robert M. Clark, Nicole Blessing, and others were all for nothing. I guess respecting the platform for many years and the unfair cuts were not enough, which is why we see cases in the news such as plaintiff Christine Reiss suing Audible, and Amazon tried to get it dismissed. She is displaying that Amazon and Audible are, like the catchphrase, not like us. Nowadays, companies allow machines to make nuclear mistakes and decide the fates of humans, like Angela Lipps, who was mistaken for a criminal in Tennessee.

I have not decided what I am going to do next. I have a short film to finish named K: The Immersive Experience. It seems like the bad guys are rewarded these days and have support like their rockstars. I have dealt with a lot in general, such as with my photography, my content creator stuff, and more. Do I want to start all over on another platform like Shopify and publish books again? I was getting ready to write Akeneta 3, but I am not motivated at this time. And an Akeneta 2 audiobook was in the works at one point. Do I make a press release and go with Wiley Rein or Greenberg Traurig? Do I go the lawsuit route and put a Gabriella Zuniga-level spin on it? Do I find the heads and the staff of these companies and solve things like John Wick, Kill Bill, and The Count Of Monte Cristo all wrapped up in one? I’m joking. Or do I move on and let the powers that be keep on being the powers that be? Until then, I am demanding the resignations (of the humans on top) of Kindle VP David Naggar as well as Audible CEO Bob Carrigan. These platforms were supposed to work for us, and they did in the 2000s and 2010s. After that, something changed, and what was once an opportunity became a system where authors can be erased without warning and without explanation.

In einer Zeit, in der unsere persönlichen Daten leichter zugänglich sind als je zuvor, wächst die Bedrohung digitaler Überwachung. So bieten moderne Kommunikationsmittel Stalkern nahezu unbegrenzte Möglichkeiten, ihre Opfer auszuspionieren. Begleitet Moderatorin Mag und unsere Experten, wenn sie sich in dieser Folge mit den Auswirkungen und Gefahren sogenannter Stalkerware befassen.

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