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Amazon.Com Banishes Queer SF Writers To A Null Dimension
San Francisco, 3:31 AM
Sun Dec 20
11 posts in the last 24 hours
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Amazon.Com Banishes Queer SF Writers To A Null Dimension |
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04/14/09
[community.livejournal.com]
04/13/09
1) Many people have shown how the guy who's taking credit for it couldn't have done it and is just claiming he did 4 teh lulz.
2) The anti-gay thing doesn't take into account all the facts -- namely, the anti-disabled sex part. Said credit-claiming troll doesn't mention that, b/c it's gotten very little coverage.
3) it may have been a translation error by a non-English speaking Amazon editor. A cheese eating surrender monkey
See [www.lilithsaintcrow.com]
04/13/09
Not only have they banished the queer books, they have done the same to books on the sexuality of disabled people.
So, even if you're straight, if you're in a wheelchair or such, stop having sexual thoughts and for Jesus' sake, DON'T HAVE SEX, you disgusting imperfect cripples.
This little fact puts more weight on the "fundie anti-standard-sex" side than the "hax0rs 4 teh lulz" side.
04/13/09
Sure, a glitch. Books with gay or lesbian themes with NO explicit content whatsoever disappear, but books with sexually explicit, but heterosexual-oriented content are unaffected. Uh-huh. Funny glitch, that.
Some homophobe decided that everything gay and lesbian is automatically offensive, and this homophobe happened to be working at Amazon. That's all there is to it. The sooner they kill this policy, the more customers they'll get to keep.
04/13/09
If the troll theory is true (and it's plausible), then Amazon needs to hire more people to keep an eye out for such things. Get some nice Buddhists to work the Passover/Easter weekend.
04/13/09
It's sort of like manipulating news so that it'll reach your audience isn't it?
"Italian earthquakes kill famous Sci-fi author. Also, 15 000".
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From Jezebel:
Update 3: Commenter Gertymac points out that due to the removal of sales rankings, the first title that pops up when one searches "homosexuality" on Amazon is the aforementioned A Parent's Guide to Preventing Homosexuality. Also in the top 10 when one searches for "homosexuality:" Coming Out Of Sexuality: New Freedom For Men And Women, Can Homosexuality Be Healed?, and When Homosexuality Hits Home: What To Do When A Loved One Says They're Gay, which carries this description: "The heart-wrenching declaration that a loved one is a homosexual is increasingly being heard in Christian households across America. How can this be? What went wrong? Is there a cure?" Yikes.
04/13/09
This reminds me of the various attempts that people have made to find different titles for Nietzsche's The Gay Science. The Joyful Wisdom always sounded dirtier to me.
04/13/09
Its especially galling why now a search on Amazon for homosexuality" gets you a bunch of homophobic books like "A Parent's Guide to Preventing Homosexuality".
I am a little surprised in a good way how much this has been rounding the interwebs.
04/13/09
Thankfully, "gay" was not scrubbed completely.
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04/13/09
Unless we decide to pool our plastic and but the Dominican Republic, change the name to Gaiti and move there.
04/13/09
04/13/09
There's no way any person at Amazon was actually involved in this decision making process- this has all the earmarks of an automated process running awry due to GIGO.
What it does do is really call into question the general thought as to the "wisdom of the crowds". Flagging content as offensive has become the primary mode of online censorship. While it's intended to cut back on the honestly offensive content, it's used as a tool to vote down conflicting opinions. User-driven moderation has to be abandoned by major websites.
04/13/09
I think it's irresponsible to let Amazon off the hook by saying, "Well it was automated so it's no one's fault." At some point when they were implementing a reporting mechanism, someone should have stepped up and recognized he potential for abuse. If such a system at Amazon exists and there is zero human interaction, then a situation like this was bound to happen against some minority or group. Jews, blacks, gays, it doesn't matter. Amazon is responsible whether it was an actual human who made the decision or not.
04/13/09
that said, it's entirely possible someone saw this possibilty for abuse and elected to do nothing to save money.
04/13/09
My guess is that someone had decided that everything listed by publishers as GLBT was not going to sully the lists of the writer's safe books as early as February or March and then decided to put all these books behind the counter as of Easter weekend.
04/13/09
Don't invent bullshit excuses to explain away problems without fault.
04/13/09
A similar problem occurred many years ago at Yahoo, when all "adult themed" groups were removed from the group search function. Groups such as gay and lesbian support forums for teens, as well as other purely social groups for queers, were delisted along with groups devoted entirely to sexual hookups. Same exact category confusion: Gay = adult.
Sure, this Amazon fail resulted in an automated search-and-delist script. But somebody wrote the damn algorithm that searched for "gay and lesbian" and delisted any book associated with it. And somebody else implemented it. Probably many somebodies. Amazon is to blame, and they should apologize.
(Also, on a side note, Rebecca, I totally love your work!)
04/13/09
I'd have to disagree. Amazon has made boneheaded decisions before. They always says "it was a glitch" even when those explanations make no sense. For example, I've seen a number of times where Amazon has deleted large numbers of reviews when people are "protesting" a software product's change in policy or such.
Typically, Amazon quickly bows to the publisher complaining. Then when it gets out that Amazon was censoring reviews, they say "it was a glitch!" and the reviews all reappear.
04/13/09
maybe instead of rushing to invent conspiracy we should look into it further, it's possible no one saw this coming inspite of how obvious it might be to you or anyone else with your 20/20 hindsight.
04/13/09
Confirmed. It was a lone hacker who took advantage of a glitch in Amazon's tagging system.
[i.gizmodo.com]
But please, don't let truth detract any of you from bashing the rich, the straight, or anyone else you're just plain feeling ornery towards today. Cheers :-)
04/13/09
04/13/09
I don't know if my sarcasm is getting through, I'm probably pretty bad at it.
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04/13/09
/also sarcasm, actually finds Bill O pathetically amusing in a car-wreck way
04/13/09
(Wait, does he even close his eyes at night?)
04/13/09
It's like choosing sides in gym class and you hope to force the other team to take the kid with no talent.
04/13/09
I'm insulted as a kid who spent most of his gym class days as that kid, don't liken me to Bill O!
04/13/09
Billo really is in a class by himself, then, isn't he? Nobody wants to claim him.
Ya can't call him a retard, b/c that's insulting to developmentally disabled people, many of whom are extremely nice and kind and sympathetic.
He'll just have to be his own loathsome division then. Maybe along with the other "pundits" of his ilk.
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