

In response, some of these aggregate systems have devised means to detect or prevent review bombing. Justifications for these campaigns can include unpopular changes to an established franchise, controversies related to the product, or the behavior of developers or publishers. The term is primarily associated with online media review aggregates and app stores, including Steam, Metacritic, IMDb, and Rotten Tomatoes. Review bombing is a similar practice to and shares characteristics of vote brigading and cancel culture. This is often done to draw wider and mainstream attention to that issue, especially if the vendor does not have an open communications channel or seems unresponsive to direct feedback, but may also as a means of mass-driven coercion or simply a result of trolling. While a review bomb may be a result of customers criticizing the poor quality of the product, it can also be associated with perceived political and cultural issues around the product, its vendor, or related works. The target could be, for example, a published work, a business, a product, or a service, and review bombs are made in an attempt to harm its sales or popularity. Advocacy through negative Internet user reviewsĪ review bomb is an Internet phenomenon where a large number of people-or in rarer cases, a few people with multiple accounts -leave negative user reviews online.
