Amazon deranks books that have homosexuality in them:

The Core RPGC Main Forum
21

I’ve seen gay lovebirds too.

Will they ban Harry Potter because Dumbledore is Gay? I wonder. =p

22

You’ve got a lesbian dominatrix mouse? Cool.

I’m sure the same people who’ve been filtering books on homosexuality would be pissed at the current exhibition in the museum here - Against Nature? Homosexuality in the Animal Kingdom.

23

UPDATE: http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/jacketcopy/2009/04/amazon-responds-to-adult-queries-blames-a-glitch.html

Amazon is blaming a “glitch” in the ranking system, which I don’t buy. It heavily affected LGTB books as well as books on feminism- blaming it on a rogue “adult” content filter doesn’t fly, especially when:

  1. Many of the books listed have little to no “adult” content in them whatsoever.

  2. Many books CONTAINING adult content, such as the classic (if poorly written) book The Monk, are still listed. By the way, the reason I mention this particular work is because it contains fairly explicit rape and incest.

Furthermore, Amazon is telling authors something completely different: http://markprobst.livejournal.com/15293.html

24

uhm, to quote what I pasted above :stuck_out_tongue:

Here’s the letter a concerned Amazon customer received upon inquiring about this:

In consideration of our entire customer base, we exclude “adult” material from appearing in some searches and best seller lists. Since these lists are generated using sales ranks, adult materials must also be excluded from that feature.

Hence, if you have further questions, kindly write back to us.

Best regards,

Ashlyn D
Member Services
Amazon.com Advantage

Now, someone from Amazon has since said that this is a glitch, and that there isn’t even a rule about adult content. How does a “glitch” go about sending an email explaining the adult content rule? If all the LGBTQ books suddenly disappeared, just “Woop! All gone!”, that would be a database error. But this has been happening slowly, over a period of months, with things being taken down one by one. This leads me to believe it is a person, or group of people, systematically removing the ranks by hand. I suppose it could be a few rogue employees, but I highly doubt it.

'nuff said.

25

Aye, it says as much in the second link on the edit I have. I love it when corporations backpeddle so much.

Also, you read I Was Kidnapped by Lesbian Pirates from Outer Space!!!? Good choice.

And let us look at this non-adult ranked item, shall we? http://www.amazon.com/Doc-Johnson-Anal-Black-Medium/dp/B000LQKAUI/ref=sr_1_6?ie=UTF8&s=hpc&qid=1239566077&sr=1-6 That’s the most family friendly assplug I’ve ever seen!

EDIT: http://textualfury.wordpress.com/2009/04/12/amazonfail/ It seems they’re de-ranking books on disability, as well. How lovely.

26

Obviously, you should see what they think about this article. Or, maybe it was their form of radical protest? Emphasis, btw, on “RADICAL.”

27

I actually wrote my first animal psychology paper on examples of supposedly “unnatural” human behaviors, especially homosexuality and intentional intoxication, being discovered in other animals.

I think what was meant about the glitch was that when intentionally removing books with “adult content”, a glitch caused most books related to LGTBQ to be filtered as well, which isn’t altogether unbelievable. The definition of adult content would still be entirely sexual, which is dubious, but preferring violence to sex is just mixed-up American values, and less clearly discriminatory. I don’t and won’t buy from amazon, either way.

28

Arac: The problem with that idea is that books dealing with adult content that did not have LGTB themes were not filtered out.

29

I remember one of my teachers in high school commenting on how her son caught their two male guenie (I’m too lazy to look up the spelling right now) pigs or hamsters going at it.

30

Apparently this might be a gigantic prank:


31

A hacker has taken credit for the act.

http://i.gizmodo.com/5210424/hacker-claims-he-shoved-amazon-into-the-closet-using-inappropriate-flag-exploit

Edit: Beaten to the punch

32

Isn’t this sort of a double fail, since they’ve now proved themselves vulnerable to hacker attacks thus unreliable at keeping not only this, but YOUR confidential info safe?

33

In that case, the glitch is even worse, but it could still be a glitch. Programming can be really easy to fuck up really hard. By accident, as posited, or on purpose, as seems to be the case.

34

cough

35

No. Read the article on how they did it. To sum it up, the person behind it organized a group of people to register accounts and mark anything with homosexual content as inappropriate. There was no “hacking”.

36

You seem to have something caught in your throat there.

37

Let’s go back to discussing my mice now that this is over.

38

Now that this has taken a turn for the different, I ask a different question: If this troll is telling the truth, does Amazon have the right to persue a civil suit? What about the authors of the works effected?

I’m somewhat ambivalent about this. It pointed out a genuine problem with the rankings, but it doesn’t seem his intentions were noble. In fact, his grudge was with Craigslist because they wouldn’t let him post ads about heroin (that is, if you can trust his motivation, he’s apparently a notorious liar).

Also: lesbian mice should be given the right to marry.

39

I was just choking on the feeling of being right about how meaningless this entire thing is, that’s all.

40

What Minnie Mouse does behind Mickey’s back is her own business.