Amazon Removed Gay Books from Rankings

[Alisa]

Originally Posted by zerospinboson

Erotica is one thing, but "the history of sexuality, volume I" by Foucault and the entire rest of scholarly literature that *mentions* or references homosexuality of anything related to it is quite another. Even if that was a radio button setting, it would seem the filtering is rather ham-fisted too.

But it would be the user's choice. You probably wouldn't use filters like that because it's unsuitable to your tastes. There are people that really would not any erotica or Foucault or Our Bodies Ourselves or Heather Has Two Mommies. I know plenty of us are willing to look right past books we don't want or that even might offend us. There is sadly a good chunk of folks here in the US that seem to think they are owed a world that doesn't contradict their worldview. I would be sad if Amazon decides to pander to them with mandatory filtering. I'm fine with them being allowed to customize their searches.

[whitearrow]

Originally Posted by GlennD

57,310 books were affected, and we've seen lists of what...maybe 100 books with gay/lesbian content that were affected?

You're basing that on what evidence? The lists I've seen have far more than 100 titles.

[Alisa]

Originally Posted by whitearrow

You're basing that on what evidence? The lists I've seen have far more than 100 titles.

I do believe you're correct that is well above 100. I don't think it approaches the majority of the 57K books that were affected. That's a big spread there.

[tirsales]

Heise online is featuring a (german) article about this here.

[CathalMagus]

It was interesting to see people jumping in to defend Amazon's "behaviour" here, especially when it turns out it was probably a human error after all. "So what", they clamoured, "if Amazon wants to stop Wilde and Fry and Winterson being found incidentally... It's their bookshop." Well, yes. And we're the angry customers who went nuts on twitter, and signed the online petitions, and shouted at the media to take notice, and generally kicked up a row.... And whaddya know? Problem fixed (or policy reversed) in under 36 hours. This is also our right as consumers, to make clear our intention to boycott the store if such a change were instituted. Those who defended Amazon and berated those of us who complained either consider that corporations should have a more privileged position than consumers, or simply would have agreed with the segregation of literature in this way.

[NormHart]

LOL, for some reason it never occurred to me to look for adult fiction (AKA Porn) at Amazon, I just assumed they didn't carry it as I assume Longs Drugs doesn't have it in their book section.

So, of course, I had to check and there are some 5,400 ebooks listed... but the kicker is if you sort by price low to high the cheapest adult ebook listed is...

Through the Looking-Glass by Louis Carroll

[igorsk]

Originally Posted by pilotbob

Dude, why aren't your books in the Kindle store? Sounds like books I might like.

It's available DRM-free from panmacmillan.

[guyanonymous]

This may have nothing to do with Amazon...I saw the first story like this a day or two ago...

http://www.pcworld.com/article/16302...ok_glitch.html

[Ceili]

Sometimes people just want to say their HA's and So There!'s. Humans are odd creatures at the best of times, but when someone touches on that one specific (or more) subject that we're sensitive to, there's a knee jerk reaction to "get back" at the one who did.

"It was no big deal", "you're too sensitive", "you want everyone to tow the line that You draw"...

How many times have you heard or even said yourself "It's no big deal".... and realized just how big a deal it really was, either to them or you?


It's rather too bad that we can't wait that extra second or so and catch ourselves before bleating out whatever it is that will fulfill the so there we're seeking. I've done and do it myself, I'm not sure why. Sometimes I Do catch myself and just wonder why if it really doesn't matter to us, we still feel the need to either pass judgement or acceptance/denial on it... Why?

Anyway, I'm glad the "issue" at Amazon has been discovered, and whether through design or mistake, a better solution has made itself known to them. (or will, if I got that part wrong )

[sirbruce]

Originally Posted by igorsk

It's available DRM-free from panmacmillan.

If they are DRM-free MOBI then when you put them on Kindle they'll be DRM-free as well.

[hogleg]

Originally Posted by CathalMagus

It was interesting to see people jumping in to defend Amazon's "behaviour" here, especially when it turns out it was probably a human error after all. "So what", they clamoured, "if Amazon wants to stop Wilde and Fry and Winterson being found incidentally... It's their bookshop." Well, yes. And we're the angry customers who went nuts on twitter, and signed the online petitions, and shouted at the media to take notice, and generally kicked up a row.... And whaddya know? Problem fixed (or policy reversed) in under 36 hours. This is also our right as consumers, to make clear our intention to boycott the store if such a change were instituted. Those who defended Amazon and berated those of us who complained either consider that corporations should have a more privileged position than consumers, or simply would have agreed with the segregation of literature in this way.

defending the guilty is a universal right.

If you run a stop sign and kill someone, even if you are stupid, you deserve an actual trial and defense. Saddam Hussein still had a defense team.

So yes, Amazon does have the right to do whatever they want on their site. You can boycott it, cry, berate them, defend them, or sit in the corner and play with yourself; I don't care, but you cannot force them to sell what you want to buy because you want it.

[Andurian]

Originally Posted by hogleg

So yes, Amazon does have the right to do whatever they want on their site. You can boycott it, cry, berate them, defend them, or sit in the corner and play with yourself; I don't care, but you cannot force them to sell what you want to buy because you want it.

A widespread boycott and public outcry is a fairly effective means of forcing a business to sell (or not sell) what we want.

As far as *legally* forcing a business to sell what we want, that's less common. In recent years businesses have been forced to sell to consumers they would prefer not to sell to (golf club memberships and houses to racial minorities, for example), but product selection enforcement has been almost nonexistent. I do recall a company store in some mine being forced to sell (company required) clothing in women's sizes that it didn't want to carry in order to be able to deny employment to women.

So a business *can* be forced to sell particular products, both by public outcry and by the law. Thankfully instances of the latter are rare and exist for reasons other than simply product choices. But just as thankfully, economic interests provide a pretty solid push from the public.

[Jellby]

Amazon is free to do whatever they want with their site.

Customers are free to do whatever they want with their money and comments.

At some point both should reach an agreement

[Sonist]

Originally Posted by Jellby

Amazon is free to do whatever they want with their site....

Maybe, maybe not.

I bought a Kindle. I knew that the hardware has format restrictions, but I did not know that Amazon would censor my ability to search for book titles I may be interested in.

Since they don't disclose clearly their intent to do so after hardware purchase, I could see a possible cause of action against such censorship.

Hey, my intelligence is often offended by religious books, but I am not advocating eliminating them from search results.

[kad032000]

Man, people get so ridiculously upset about the silliest things. I've seen people here and elsewhere decide to cancel accounts or boycott Amazon because of this.

Sure, if Amazon was really run by gay-hating Nazis, then you should by all means not support them. (FYI, if you truly, truly have a problem with them filtering anything at all, then you may have a legitimate stance to argue from. But then, you probably shouldn't be posting on a forum board that has rules and moderators...)

However, Instead of going crazy and boycotting Amazon and/or deleting your account, why not take a step back and actually think about the situation... Does anyone really think that Amazon suddenly decided to censor all gay topics? Instead of jumping on Amazon for being a gay-hating, evil, censoring conspiracy, why not contact them and tell them that the GLBT books seem to be unfairly/unproportionally targeted by the filter?

Having written a fair share of software, I can tell you that this being a glitch is a completely reasonable and believable explanation. Glitches can be incredibly complex and have completely unexpected consequences. Otherwise, all software would be practically bug-free. I've written graphical programs where I've accidentally created beautiful pictures and fractals by screwing up a mathematical equation. In college I wrote an application in which a glitch caused a character to get thinner whenever he took a step until he eventually folded in on himself.

So many people are quick to jump in on one side of the story without hearing, or sometimes even blindly ignoring the other side. In my opinion, those people are much more bigoted than Amazon will ever be.

Should awareness be raised about this? Of Course. Should it be fixed? Absolutely. Should you boycott Amazon because you think they censor GLBT topics? Don't be ridiculous.