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Loading ...Amazon blames ‘glitch’ for labeling gay lit as porn
04.13.2009 8:51am EDT
(New York City) A “glitch” on Amazon.com has caused the sales rank to be removed from gay- and/or lesbian-themed books by James Baldwin, Gore Vidal and others.
“There was a glitch in our systems and it’s being fixed,” Amazon’s director of corporate communications, Patty Smith, said in an e-mail Sunday.As of Sunday night, books without rankings included Baldwin’s “Giovanni’s Room,” Vidal’s “The City and the Pillar” and Jeanette Winterson’s “Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit.” The removals prompted furious remarks on Facebook, Twitter and elsewhere online.
Craig Seymour, author of the gay memoir “All I Could Bare,” wrote on his blog Sunday that his sales rank was dropped in February, then restored nearly four weeks later, after he was told by Amazon that his book had been “classified as an Adult product.”
Glitch? I’ve been in IT 30 years, and the probability of a glitch targeting a specialized group within data is, while not impossible, extremely low.
Somehow I doubt Amazon as a major sales company would be so stupid to do such a thing on purpose. Even if there were to be individuals near the top of the company structure who don’t like gay people, as a corporation they would be stupid to attempt anything like this because of all the flak they know they’d get, which is exactly what they’re getting. However, the notion of a glitch seems at least somewhat farfetched. Or maybe it’s totally likely, as most software bugs come from human error, whether that human error is an oversight, a naivete, or a prejudice.
Thing is, I know there are a depressingly large amount of people who think of “gay” and “homosexual” and instantly think “who are they having sex with”? And with the pervasive dogma found here and there in social corners that insists it’s a chosen perverted lifestyle, it becomes easy to see how someone could have simply assumed it’s all porn. Someone with way too much power over the database and inadequate supervision, making a logic leap based on prejudice. If that’s the human error, then yeah, technically it’s a glitch. But considering the effect it had, “glitch” seems like a nervous euphemism for “they screwed up in a big way”.
Well at least Amazon has a listing for Gay lit. 365Gay has virually nothing and when there is a review of “gay” lit it is Lesbian Lit inthe Afer Ellen section. I have frequently tried to see what may be new in Gay lit and never once found anything written here. It seems that 365 enjoys fostering the myth that gay guys are only interested in quick fix reads of trash. Why can’t there ba a real book review section to this online site. This has been especially true since 365 went under teh new format.
This is bull[crap].
I worked in eCommerce for two years at Macys.com. In order to label a product a particular attribute the content management system used must affirmatively provide the attribute to the given product. A person or script could do this. So either a person attributed the books as porn or a person programmed a script to do it.
This is bullsh*t. That was no “glitch.” I hope they reverse this homophobic policy right away, and until they do, I am no longer their customer. Here is another petition link about this: http://www.thepetitionsite.com/1/in-protest-at-amazons-new-adult-policy
Just to let everyone know there is a petition against this. Robin Reardon, author of “Thinking Straight”, is asking her readers to sign it. You can find the Petition here http://www.thepetitionsite.com/petition/119673661
No company the size of Amazon just let things like this happen. This McCarthyism was OK somewhere inside of Amazon heads of state. The computer Code that let this happen did not just put itself together and magically started delisting author’s books. Let be honest here we need to leave the Magical thinking up to the experts here: The religious extremist who put Amazon up to this. This is the real story: Who Got Amazon to do this, and who gave the corporate OK to do this? I personally would like to see who authorized this to leave or be fired from Amazon. This Censorship is a form of hate! IT also says that Amazon does not believe their GLBTQ employees should be treated as equals- I guess the employee hand book is next on Amazon book burning.
This is so wrong. Most likely one or a small group of people doing “The Lords Work”. Huge differance between a gay themed novel or history book and porn.
Me thinks some low watt made the system rank anything with the word gay as porn???
To be fair Amazon should rank any book that has anti-gay comments be ranked as the Hate Speach Propaganda that it is.
Tom in Long Beach
Here is a petition link.
change.org/actions/view/tell_amazon_to_stop_discriminating_against_lgbt_books
(Note Care2petition and the petitionsite are just email phishing scams…says so in their bylaws)
I’m afraid Amazon’s attitude toward the gay community is not confined to rankings nor is it recent. A few years ago I bought some mysteries featuring a gay detective. When the books arrived the address label had been altered in a homophobic manner. I have not bought anything from Amazon since, and I have several friends who have made the same decision. If they don’t want our business, we should vote with our wallets. Amazon may be big, but retailing is about to become a much tougher sell. Amazon is on their own as far as I am concerned.
If it was truly just a glitch, why didn’t this happen to any old random category of books, such as pet care or mysteries? Somebody made a conscious decision here and instead of owning up to it and apologizing, the company decided to lie.
Welcome to modern-day book burning!
I notice that *The Queer Encyclopedia of the Visual Arts,* *The Queer Encyclopedia of Film and Television,* and *The Queer Encyclopedia of Music, Dance, and Musical Theater,* which I edited, are apparently considered too racy to be given a sales record. I would be laughing about this “glitch,” except that it seems to have been altogether deliberate.
Typical! Funny, it wasn’t considered a “glitch” when it was brought to the company’s attention recently. They brushed-off the complaint with a smug and evasive email.
But once the press gets involved, and millions of people are tweeting “AmazonFail” all around the world, the tune changes.
“Oh, it was a computer error!” Not so fast, Amazon! Somebody programmed the system to do that, and that someone works for you. The company owes the LGBT population a GENUINE apology, not a LAME excuse.
But at least this serves as a warning to companies who would discriminate against LGBT people. eHarmony tried it, and they got sued to the wall. Amazon tried it, and their stock price is about to take a wicked hit when the mainstream national news runs the story of their “glitch,” which will make the TV news cycle as a “kicker” story as early as midday today.
Word to the wise: corporations struggling through an economic melt-down cannot afford even the appearance of prejudice and discrimination.
LGBT people as an oppressed minority have had enough of this nonsense, and we’re not about to let it slide anymore. And there are a great many fair-minded decent hetero folk on our side. As the younger generation moves to the forefront, all this idiotic instutional homophobia will be blasted away, and good riddance.
Glitch? I thought gays were the one’s with glitches. Or we’d be all perfect and hetero.
However, I can get any smutty shitty breeder book? I can read about forced marital rape without going in the adult sections. When breeder sex is the most vile of all?
I say we all call for a boycot of reading in general.
As we all know no good could come from reading, right?
Half of the religious right could use a good reading of brokeback.
Perhaps all the closeted gays just couldn’t handle it. Come out come out where ever you are… nasty closeted breeder self hating homophobes.