So... the fucktards at Amazon decided that they need to protect (erm, censor. Let's call this what it is) their precious customers from 'adult' material (re: LGBT books and romance/erotica novels, mainly) so they re categorized many books and stripped them of their sales info and ranks. What does this mean? These books will no longer show up in most searches or on best seller lists. Want to search The Joy of Sex or Oranges Are Not The Only Fruit and find related titles? Too bad. BUT... want The Anarchist Cookbook or a playboy/penthouse book of stories? NO PROBLEM. Those didn't get stripped of their sales/rank. So it's mostly LGBT books. Even the history volumes, college guides, and YA/nonsexual ones. Right now if you search 'homosexuality' on Amazon you will get a list of anti-gay/ex-gay books. It's bigoted censorship at its finest, folks. And the ladies at Smart Bitches, Trashy Books have a great idea- Google Bomb them! Hit them where it hurts- PR! Since they posted that article earlier today #amazonfail and #amazonrank have taken over. Just check twitter. Or google 'Amazon Rank' and see what the first search result is. Go ahead, I'll wait. [whistling] See. What'd I tell you. Here is a (short) list of some of the articles of affected titles/authors-
Booksquare.com's Open Letter to Amazon- here's an excerpt: "As a heterosexual, happily married adult female, I am deeply offended by this decision. As a customer, I am angered enough to take my business elsewhere, and I’d like a refund on my Kindle since, despite reports that your database sweep was not complete, you have decided to limit my ability to purchase books — from literary classics like Lady Chatterley’s Lover to newesque titles like Tipping The Velvet and Running With Scissors"
Andrew Sullivan/The Atlantic- "Mein Kampf is fine. Jackie Collins is fine. But books about gay subjects are now "adult" on Amazon and so not included on best seller lists or rankings."
AfterEllen.com's findings- "You can only find the de-ranked books if you both search by title and choose the search category "Books." If you do a generic title search from the Amazon front page without specifying that it's a book search, you will not find the de-ranked books among the top results (or anywhere on the first page of results, in some cases). Which means that not only will those who browse Amazon.com's "top sellers" lists in various genres never come across any of these books, they may not even find these books when they're deliberately looking for them."
EurOut's international take- "Why Amazon's ranking matters anyway? You can find a brief summary about the reasons here. Amazon is the biggest online (book)store, they set such a prominent bad example with this, that many could follow if we don't shout right now!"
Meta_Writer is keeping a list on LiveJournal if you have titles you'd care to add.
It's just so infuriating and unfair, I don't even know what to say anymore. Except I did sign a petition (I was 131 of 4,767 signatures so far) and I included a note: "If this is how your company chooses to treat its LGBT customers then I will take my (considerable) business elsewhere to a company who celebrates rather than censors my community."
You can sign the petition here.
(ps- This was brought to my attention today by Neil Gaiman's twitter [@neilhimself] Other celebs who have tweeted their #amazonfail disdain today- Zoe Keating [@zoecello], Demi Moore [@mrskutcher] and Amanda Palmer [@amandapalmer])
UPDATE: (Sunday night)
Someone from Amazon is claiming this is a glitch. That's a HUGE glitch AND it's been slowly happening since February AND they told an LGBT author in a letter just yeterday that:
"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"
Glitch. Mmhmm. Dear Author puts the 'glitch, my ass' arguement into much better words here.
UPDATE NUMERO DOS: (Monday)
Here is Neil Gaiman's bloggity about #amazonfail and the 'glitch'... Also, now word is that it was a hacker of some sort. Well, one hacker dude is claiming responsibility. So a hacker AND/or someone at Amazon thinks gay=sex=evil. Either way they need to fix things and APOLOGIZE!
NUMERO TROIS: (Tuesday)
Amazon apologises for 'ham-fisted' error that made gay books 'disappear': Firm apologises for sales ranking system mistake that hit books dealing with gay themes
No comments:
Post a Comment