Annoyed At The World

[deird_lj]

Dear Amazon,

Please remove all books about Playboy from your search listings. And all books about dog-fighting - it's really horrifying.

I also find it highly offensive that your website sells fiction with characters in Nazi concentration camps. How absolutely appalling that you'd allow books with this sort of offensive material to be listed in Amazon searches.

I don't think Stephenie Meyer is a very good author. So please take away her Amazon ranking too.

And also, I don't like the taste of coffee - it tastes really gross. Having to see books about coffee come up when I search your website offends me. I demand that you remove all coffee-related books and merchandise from your search listings, immediately.

Then there's the Sixth Doctor. I didn't like him nearly as much as Doctors Four and Five. Please ensure that, in future, searches related to Doctor Who won't list anything containing Doctor Number Six.

I'm sure you'll be happy to comply with my requests. After all, you care so much about making sure that your customers aren't exposed to anything that might hurt their delicate little feelings.

Thanks so much!

-Mez

Comments

[beer-good-foamy.livejournal.com]

Did you see this list of books now effectively removed from searches? Annie Proulx, Jeanette Winterson, Christopher Isherwood, Ellen DeGeneres, Sarah Waters, Patricia Highsmith... obviously, complete and utter porn. Sorry, I mean "adult material."

Also, the top search result if you search for "homosexuality" now is A Parent's Guide to Preventing Homosexuality.

They missed April 1st by almost two weeks.

[gabrielleabelle.livejournal.com]

Also, the top search result if you search for "homosexuality" now is A Parent's Guide to Preventing Homosexuality.

Not to mention that the rest of the results are about "curing" homosexuality with religion or some such nonsense. #8 on the list? You Don't Have to Be Gay: Hope and Freedom for Males Struggling With Homosexuality or for Those Who Know of Someone Who Is

I feel utterly sickened.

[beer-good-foamy.livejournal.com]

But hey, at least they didn't get rid of Heather Has Two Mommies.

Oh, wait. They did.

[deird1]

They've also taken away a whole lot of books on feminism, and also one on disability and sexuality (because people in wheelchairs wanting sex is just gross).


You know, I think I'd be less annoyed if they actually said "We think these books are evil. EVIL, WE SAY!"
As it is, they're going "Oh, no, we love gay people. They're awesome. And these books are just fine. We just... want to protect the children. That's right." - while still having sex toys and Playboy-themed books at the top of their search lists.
That's just hypocritical, nasty, and appallingly smug.

*rages some more*

[beer-good-foamy.livejournal.com]

Well, if they did that, I guess they'd get sued. This way, they can simply claim that it's all "adult material" and hope that nobody will raise a huge ruckus to defend porn.

Porn like Ellen DeGeneres' autobiography.

[deird1]

And academic textbooks on sexuality.

[gabrielleabelle.livejournal.com]

Oh, Amazon...I feel so betrayed...

[deird1]

*sighs, and offers you consolatory chocolate*

[snowpuppies]

Word.

[neutralalienist.livejournal.com]

Heh. Yes.

>:|

*hugs*

[washa-way.livejournal.com]

You tell 'em, mez.

I'm curious is this is a deliberate move by the PTBs at Amazon, or the result of some anti-gay group bombing the site with enough complaints to trip an automatic filter of some kind.

They're gonna have some 'splainin' to do, that's for sure.

[ikona-rakasha.livejournal.com]

I cannot belive they would actually do this and get away with it. I wonder when the flack will hit them

[obiwahn.livejournal.com]

Shame on them. That's truly upsetting.

[mauvedragon.livejournal.com]

There's at least three other posts on my flist about this but this is the one most made of WIN. Thanks for the snark.

[shapinglight]

They really should know better than to do something like this in the internet age - which is the only reason why they exist.

Stupid Amazon.

[washa-way.livejournal.com]

Looks like they've started backing away:

A groundswell of outrage, concern and confusion sprang up over the weekend, largely via Twitter, in response to what authors and others believed was a decision by Amazon to remove "adult" titles from its sales rankings. On Sunday evening, however, an Amazon spokesperson said that a "glitch" had occurred in its sales ranking feature that was in the process of being fixed. The spokesperson added that there was no new policy regarding "adult" titles. As of Monday morning, a number of titles affected by the glitch were still without sales rankings. No one at Amazon was available this morning to discuss when the problem might be fixed or what caused the glitch.

http://www.publishersweekly.com/article/CA6651080.html?desc=topstory

[kitty-poker1.livejournal.com]

One, amongst the many, weird things is that John Barrowman's autobiography is still ranked in soft cover but unranked in hard cover. To the best of my knowledge, the text is precisely the same so is it possible that Amazon is being totally arbitrary? No, surely not. *sigh*

[washa-way.livejournal.com]

kitty poker, that's one reason I'm inclined to think this is some kind of an auto-filter-related thing. If it were a wholesale change in policy, it seems that ALL versions of an "adult" title would be flagged, but this hardcover/softcover business seems so bizarre that I'm inclined to blame stupidity rather than malice.

Admittedly, I'm just playing the odds, as I believe that stupidity is more common than malice, but I'm still waiting for Amazon to offer a coherent explanation.

[kitty-poker1.livejournal.com]

If it is auto-filter-related, I'm concerned that no one at Amazon picked it up. Admittedly, it's a holiday weekend so the office may well be short-staffed, but to produce one policy statement, then to backpedal and say it was 'a glitch' seems more than short-sighted; it seems suicidal, in a business sense, and questionable, at the very least, in an ethical sense.

Have you seen this? http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/2009/apr/13/amazon-gay-writers

[washa-way.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the link--no, I hadn't read the Guardian's take on it.

And yes, the possibility of a malicious policy being incompetently administered remains very real.

[kitty-poker1.livejournal.com]

I'd almost rather it be an incompetent policy being maliciously administered by a few idiots. A poorly-thought-out idea coming from the bosses is one thing, but for boneheads to not second-guess it, there must be something seriously wrong at the top of the admin tree at Amazon.

[washa-way.livejournal.com]

BTW, here's an LA Times story on the Amazon kerfuffle. Not enormously more informative than the PW story, but what the heck:

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/jacketcopy/2009/04/amazon-deranks-gayfriendly-books-the-twitterverse-notices.html

[lavastar.livejournal.com]

*sigh* This makes me very, very sad and angry. Why do people pull crap like this?

[washa-way.livejournal.com]

New data:

Some hacker (one who's on LJ, even) is claiming he hacked Amazon's rankings system. Gawker reports:

http://gawker.com/5210142/why-it-makes-sense-that-a-hackers-behind-amazons-big-gay-outrage

[deird1]

...which someone else has promptly debunked:

http://bryant.livejournal.com/672165.html

[washa-way.livejournal.com]

The plot thickeneth.

[lyr]

I think that this is what happened with Amazon, and this guy took credit for the hack, which is mostly just sad. People continue to mystify me. But I was already boycotting Amazon over their refusal to drop dog fighting publications anyway.