Quote:
Originally Posted by Elfwreck
Whether or not they're breaking any laws, the search problems show they are either homophobic (which I doubt), or happy to cater to a homophobic worldview (which I expect they would claim is "just good business practice"); they deserve all the outrage and disgust they've gotten, and quite a bit more.
Protecting the sensibilities of bigots is their legal right (within certain limits) but it doesn't make them an ethical business; it makes them supporters of bigotry.
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Where do you get the idea that filtering adult content is homophobic? Yes, they had an issue recently where more than 50,000 books got labelled as 'adult' and the books that got noticed were gay/lesbian related. Without seeing a list of all 50,000 books we don't know whether it was all that specific though. And, it was resolved within a couple of days. It boggles my mind that a store that sells very adult books, movies, toys and other items specifically targetted at gay and lesbian customers would be labelled as homophobic simply because those items don't come up in a default search from the front page.
Amazon does continue to filter adult tagged books. They are under no obligation to even carry adult products, much less display them in every search. Some people are offended by the filter, and that makes them choose not to shop at Amazon. That's their call. Personally, if I started getting hits on adult items in my Amazon searches, that would affect my shopping there as well. I'd certainly tell my kids not to browse Amazon any more, and it would probably reduce my shopping there. So Amazon has to decide whether more people will be offended by filtering or non-filtering, and which will help them sell more.
Convenience stores put adult magazines behind the counter. Many video stores have a specific area of the store for adult movies. You're not allowed in unless you're an adult. By filtering, Amazon has made the bulk of their store kid-friendly. You can, by narrowing your search terms, find adult content to your heart's content - you just have to be looking for it.