Amazon Removed Gay Books from Rankings

[Alisa]

Originally Posted by Moejoe

Amazon Rep says this is definitely not a glitch (linked in from feministing.com)

http://www.feministing.com/archives/014797.html

I don't think Amazon was claiming that the filtering in general was inadvertent. I think they're saying that they have a bug with accuracy. They seem to be fully intending to filter but not necessarily to filter so many books that are just about things related to the GLBT community that are not sexually explicit.

[Krystian Galaj]

Here is the summary of a hacker on how he did it (you have to click you're 18 years or older to access it): http://community.livejournal.com/bru...y/3168992.html
I'm not good at technical details on feasibility of such an attack, so maybe someone more knowledgeable can read it and say if it makes sense.

[zerospinboson]

Originally Posted by Krystian Galaj

Here is the summary of a hacker on how he did it (you have to click you're 18 years or older to access it): http://community.livejournal.com/bru...y/3168992.html
I'm not good at technical details on feasibility of such an attack, so maybe someone more knowledgeable can read it and say if it makes sense.

Considering Amazon is sending out letters to authors explaining how they're writing inappropriate content, I'd say this is just a moron trying to get credit.

There are literally thousands, probably tens of thousands, of academic books that are affected. Every single book on queer theory and gender studies appears to have been Amazonfailed, along with a lot of psychology textbooks and a whole bunch of books on geography, and probably hundreds or thousands of books on anthropology and cultural studies. It's dizzying going through all the citations and realizing how many books aren't searchable on amazon anymore.

You'd almost wonder if it was a christian fundamentalist, soon-to-be ex-employee job-suicide bomber that wants to "make a statement" because it's "easter". Banning the entirety of scholarly literature even remotely concerned with gay sexuality from the search results seems even sillier than banning "gay-themed" (such as, and this seams sort of reaching, Stephen Fry's Memoirs) literature.
Anyway, I am not amused.

[Andurian]

Originally Posted by hogleg

It's a stupid move on their part, but I'll defend Amazon's right to sell/not sell what they please forever.

I don't think anyone is disputing Amazon's legal right to sell or not sell whatever they please. The point is that we also have a right to choose to not buy from a company that exibits such nasty behavior.

If anyone sought to legally constrain Amazon into including LGBT books in their rankings, I'd oppose them. But anyone exercising *their* rights by not buying from Amazon will at this point recieve a hardy cheer from me.

[Ceili]

I haven't needed help chosing my reading material since I was 3 years old, I hardly think Amazon needs to "help" me do so now.

I'm a firm believer in the "Sure, Today it was <FITB>but Tomorrow it might just be me " club and would prefer that people grow up, wrassle their children (so I don't have to keep doing so inadvertently, everywhere I go) and get over themselves. They don't want to read xyz, fine, but don't stop others from doing so, or being able to do so because of some "sensitivities".

Here's my contribution to the Amazon note:
Dear Amazon,
if this is the way it's going to be... I hope you will include all of the conservative/fundie bs that's been showing up on the page. It hurts my feelings and makes me want to cry to see those titles, so I would like them to not show up as well.

[Over]

Originally Posted by Gudy

It's more like anyone who wants to buy these items won't find them on the shelves at all anymore, but now has to walk up to the desk and ask a clueless sales person for that specific item. Which, if it happened in a local bookstore with any material that isn't X-rated, would certainly cause me to question my continued patronage of said store.

I would remove the "clueless" part. Ok, you don't see the book exposed in the store, by the window. But you can still enter and browse the shelves or, if you prefer, ask the clerk where's the book. Ok, maybe asking the clerk in the TV & Video section might not be productive, but I would go to the clerk in the books section.

Really, I think people are making a storm in a cup of water.

[Ceili]

Originally Posted by Over

I would remove the "clueless" part. Ok, you don't see the book exposed in the store, by the window. But you can still enter and browse the shelves or, if you prefer, ask the clerk where's the book. Ok, maybe asking the clerk in the TV & Video section might not be productive, but I would go to the clerk in the books section.

Really, I think people are making a storm in a cup of water.

I think for some people it's a matter of shyness (not the word I was looking for, but it will do). It's kind of like sending your husband out to pick up tampons or sanitary napkins... some men have no problem, some would rather you asked them Anything else.

I don't think you should have to ask for the hidden stash of this weeks no-no/naughty books... after all, whats next... hidden cookbooks to combat the obesity issue? (Most Americans, myself included could actually benefit from this one tho')

[GlennD]

From an Amazon spokesman, via the Seattle-Pi.

This is an embarrassing and ham-fisted cataloging error for a company that prides itself on offering complete selection.

It has been misreported that the issue was limited to Gay & Lesbian themed titles – in fact, it impacted 57,310 books in a number of broad categories such as Health, Mind & Body, Reproductive & Sexual Medicine, and Erotica. This problem impacted books not just in the United States but globally. It affected not just sales rank but also had the effect of removing the books from Amazon's main product search.

Many books have now been fixed and we're in the process of fixing the remainder as quickly as possible, and we intend to implement new measures to make this kind of accident less likely to occur in the future.

[whitearrow]

I still don't see "we're really sorry for this" anywhere. And yes, they need to fracking apologize to come anywhere close to making this right.

[Alisa]

Originally Posted by whitearrow

I still don't see "we're really sorry for this" anywhere. And yes, they need to fracking apologize to come anywhere close to making this right.

They called their own error embarrassing and ham-fisted. I think that's a good start.

[nekokami]

"Many books have now been fixed..." so they're still intending to use this filtering code.

As an option "Eliminate items with these tags from my shopping experience," fine. I'm not interested in erotica myself. But that should be a choice left to the user.

(And, by the way, kids can have Amazon accounts, with or without a credit card. Mine have both had accounts for years. The question really is, at what age do you let kids use computers unsupervised, and how often do you talk with your kids about what's online? For that matter, at what age do you let them go to book stores or the library without supervision?)

[GlennD]

It has been misreported that the issue was limited to Gay & Lesbian themed titles – in fact, it impacted 57,310 books in a number of broad categories such as Health, Mind & Body, Reproductive & Sexual Medicine, and Erotica.

Who should they apologize to? And why? They no doubt lost sales both from annoyed customers and because people didn't find the items they were searching for. If they have to 'pay' for their mistake, seems like they have already.

Maybe the bloggers that reported that the issue was all about gay and lesbian titles should apologize to Amazon. They're the ones that generated the heat and mistargeted it.

[Alisa]

Originally Posted by nekokami

"Many books have now been fixed..." so they're still intending to use this filtering code.

As an option "Eliminate items with these tags from my shopping experience," fine. I'm not interested in erotica myself. But that should be a choice left to the user.

...

I wouldn't necessarily take that statement to mean that they still intend on filtering but I did see some rumors that Amazon had sent letters to publishers saying they were going to do some filtering for adult content. I haven't seen any evidence that's true. You know how rumors fly with stuff like this. Saying that "Many books have now been fixed" just says to me that more are yet to be fixed and doesn't say anything at all about the criteria for "fixed".

I agree with you about the customer option. I'm fine if they want to give people a choice. I think they would be wise, however, to stay out of trying to define the categories. That way lies madness. Heck, I'd like to have a search that just shows me good books. Trouble is, how do you decide what's good? t's like Judge Potter Stewart's definition of pornography: "I know it when I see it." I know what I think is a good book just like I know what I think is "adult". I'm sure many people would disagree with me. You have content at the far ends of the spectrum that won't get much debate but the stuff in the middle will be a battleground. I can't see how they can decide what is adult or not without pissing off a bunch of people either way. They should let people make their own filters. Of course that gets difficult when people start abusing the tagging system.

[CRoss]

Re: Dorian Gray--re-read it if you didn't see a homoerotic overtone in it the last time. My 12 grade students, many of whom don't speak English very well, took note of it when I taught the book last month. It's subtext, but it's there.

Re: Amazon--if the company at large has an issue with selling "adult" titles (and I'm not saying that this is some vast Amazon conspiracy, but I don't completely buy the glitch explanation either) they shouldn't sell them at all. Making titles unsearchable unless you know exactly how to search for them because you object to their content is the cowardly and passive-aggressive way to get around making them available to customers.

[Alisa]

Originally Posted by CRoss

Re: Amazon--if the company at large has an issue with selling "adult" titles (and I'm not saying that this is some vast Amazon conspiracy, but I don't completely buy the glitch explanation either) they shouldn't sell them at all. Making titles unsearchable unless you know exactly how to search for them because you object to their content is the cowardly and passive-aggressive way to get around making them available to customers.

I think if they actually did decide to filter searches, it's likely because some people complained about kids "stumbling upon" content they didn't approve of (just like when I was little they stumbled upon all the dirty words in the dictionary and all the library copies of National Geographic that had women without shirts on). I doubt they care one way or the other whether I'm buying Shakespeare or SpankFest2009.