Quote:
Originally Posted by carld
Gay and lesbian titles with adult content were delisted while very similar straight titles were not. Gay and lesbian titles with no adult content were delisted. Gay and lesbian authors found their books with no gay content whatsoever likewise delisted.
I never said "only" Gay and Lesbian titles and authors were affected, but it certainly appears that they were hit by this glitch while similar straight books and authors were largely left alone.
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I got the impression that they were using tags to filter. If you figure that GLBT authors and content likely attract inappropriate tags from prejudiced users then that could explain it without any intended targeting on Amazon's part.
I remember back in ye olde days of the internet getting a spam email from some woman trying to organize a protest against Yahoo because when the searched for the N word, groups like NAACP were top hits. She thought that yahoo had returned that because they had catalogged NAACP and others this way. She was new to the Internet and didn't quite get how search engines worked. NAACP came up because that word was on their site. It's not surprising since they talk about hate. In this case, the GLBT-related works are a target for the hate but it's still all about words placed there by others. That's why I think Amazon needs to stay the heck out of filtering altogether. They either have to categorize everything themselves or they have to find a way to separate "good" tags from ones that are left with some other agenda. Either way, they're going to piss people off. I say let people set up their own tag filters if they like but they should back away from this pit of quicksand as fast as they can.