Filed under: Internet
Amazon "glitch" removes sales ranks of hundreds of LGBT books
For instance, Mark Probst is author of a young adult romance novel involving two young men in the old west. His book, The Filly, shows up if you search Amazon's "Books" category. But if you search "All Departments," the paper version of his book isn't listed. Interestingly, the Kindle eBook edition is.
Probst says when he contacted Amazon for an explanation, he was told that Amazon excluded "adult" material from some searches, lists, and sales ranking. But responding to requests from several news sites this weekend, Amazon said that the delisting was actually a "glitch."
Amazon says the glitch is being fixed and that sales rankings should begin showing up for these LGBT titles again soon. But a fair amount of damage has already been done. #AmazonFAIL is one of the top trending topics on Twitter right now, with a lot of people criticizing Amazon's actions and critiquing its explanation. What do you think? Glitch, or something more purposeful? Leave your theories, conspiracy or otherwise, in the comments.
Update: A hacker has claimed responsibility for flagging these items. That doesn't mean that's what happened, but it is possible.
Update 2: And Amazon has discredited the hacker, claiming that over 50,000 books were mistakenly flagged as "adult." The system has been updated and the titles in question are now showing up in general searches.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
DiRT said 10:25AM on 4-13-2009
Glitch or fail? How about... meh?
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Arnie said 10:25AM on 4-13-2009
Its ridiculous to assume that this is a "glitch". Like the article on CNET states a book featuring 600 images of Playmates(nude of course) was not excluded. The only books to be excluded in the adult section were LGBT and a few of the books were non-fiction and some did not contain a single word describing a sexual encounter.
It's disgusting to see this kind of censorship on Amazon's part. They thought that doing this quietly would not be noticed but when it blew up in their face they are terming it a 'glitch'.
For once, I wish companies like this have the guts to say what they actually did. If they came out and said we are doing this because we are religious nutjobs then I would not like them but at least would appreciate the fact that they are being honest about it.
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Mimzy said 10:32AM on 4-13-2009
OK, seriously. If a bunch of books about cats, fishing, or home maintenance had their sales rank removed, nobody would care. But just because they happen to have a LGBT theme, it's some kind of conspiracy and shows that Amazon hates homosexuals. Yet nobody would claim that Amazon hates cats, fishing, or home maintenance. Why does there have to be this big debate each time something like this happens?
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P said 11:28AM on 4-13-2009
You can't understand why this is getting attention? Amazon essentially tagged everything with a queer theme as offensive and locked them out of sales rankings and other areas of the site. It's worlds different than a hypothetical exclusion of books about cats.
Rick said 11:38AM on 4-13-2009
Actually a lot of mainstream non-gay books lost their rankings too, because it was a glitch. Unfortunately the facts are never allowed to get in the way of a good conspiracy theory.
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kevjohn said 1:18PM on 4-13-2009
In Amazon's defense, I purchased Mark Probst's book a while ago thinking it was a cookbook. I was looking for a recipe for the perfect Philly cheesesteak, but instead I got turned into a gay.
Mmm, cowboys. :^)~~
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LeisureGuy said 2:32PM on 4-13-2009
Given that Amazon trotted out an explanation that involved no "glitch" fantasies, I would say that the "glitch" was fabricated as a (poor) way to retreat from the position.
Given the specific categories that were removed, and how loudly some homophobes complain, I believe that someone (perhaps at a not very high level) decided to delist those titles from searches and the like, and once the thing was discovered by someone with some common sense, Amazon decided to lie. Bad choice, IMHO.
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Robb Chadwick said 4:23PM on 4-13-2009
I think the glitch probably was with the person who gave the initial explanation, perhaps fishing for a plausible excuse. This happens in all customer service departments. I personally buy a lot of books from Amazon covering a number of subjects including gay themed material. I can't imagine that Amazon would tag ALL things gay as offensive on purpose. Now, it may be that something was being attempted to isolate material that might be deemed pornographic so that it would not pop up unless you were searching for it intentionally. (Some of the reports I've read suggested that if you searched in depth, you could still locate the material.) Whatever it is, I do believe that Amazon will correct the problem. I'm sure they know that their GLBT customers have a lot of discretionary income to spend with them.
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RanMan said 5:53PM on 4-13-2009
Am I the only person that looks upon this as a situation that regardless of endless conspiracies regarding a hackers or Amazon's real motive that Amazon will adopt whatever position works best to avoid the issue that their site was hacked? Any excuse that will be accepted other than " our site is vulnerable to hackers and your credit card transactions and personal identify may not be secure is what really happened" is good for their business. Anything other than admitting vulnerability, like the recent report regarding the US electrical grid and pentagon hack, is better than exposing the fact that hackers can victimize their customers. If abnormal solar activity gained a popular opinion they would go with it.
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dreamscape86 said 7:00PM on 4-14-2009
Why would this be a conspiracy? Amazon is a business. Businesses want to make money. How is making it HARDER for someone to purchase one of your products ever going to be good for business? It's a coincidence. End of story.
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