Amazon censors sales ranking of LGBT books

**Tati** · April 12th, 2009, 11:58 PM

I'd been about to place a big order with them for my summer classes, leisure and book club reading. Nah, not anymore.

**buttmunch** · April 13th, 2009, 01:00 AM

Remember that Amazon caved to teh Cos awhile back over a book critical of the koolaid drinkers so this doesn't surprise me at all. If you're in Europe use play.com. Better prices and no delivery costs.

**Aella** · April 13th, 2009, 01:23 AM

Originally Posted by buttmunch

Remember that Amazon caved to teh Cos awhile back over a book critical of the koolaid drinkers so this doesn't surprise me at all. If you're in Europe use play.com. Better prices and no delivery costs.

Hm, I checked their delivery policy, and for some reason they won't deliver items over £30 to Greece. And just Greece too-aren't we special.

Not that Amazon will ever get money from me again. Assholes.

**DeadDwarf** · April 13th, 2009, 03:32 AM

This is some real bullshit. I order from Amazon a lot and I was going to order some books this week. Guess I won't be doing that now. I just can't give them my money knowing that they are fucking homophobic.... not cool at all!

**western** · April 13th, 2009, 05:05 AM

Apparently Amazon are calling it a "glitch". Nifty glitch that only affected certain books in specific categories.

What I find completely baffling is the pulling of "adult" content. Amazon is a sales site, in order to purchase anything you must have a credit card. In order to have a credit card you must be an adult. Ergo their primary consumers are adults.

I'm going to give this a few days to see what their response is and how they correct it. It's possible it truly was a glitch, or an employee taking something too far, so I'm giving them the benefit of the doubt for now. The next few days will show their true colours and if it's as ugly as things look now I'll be taking my business elsewhere. Shame really as I do like their prices but I can't support a company who engages in discrimination and censorship.

**Beeyotch** · April 13th, 2009, 05:13 AM

Glitch, pleeeze! They admitted in that email response to that author Probst that it was done intentionally under the guise of "adult" content censorship. I guess they're hoping the email doesn't get widely circulated in the general media?

Total bullshit. Fuck Amazon.

**Aella** · April 13th, 2009, 06:01 AM

It's no fucking glitch. When an author contacted them about his (young adult lit book with a gay character) being unranked, the customer support service told him it was part of the new policy. Besides, there's reports of this shit going down as far back as February. They're backpedaling like crazy now and refusing to take responsibility-STELLAR customer service!

And as for 'adult' material...well, searches still bring up explicit heterosexual books and also sex toys. But apparently self-help on gay teens contemplating suicide are too 'adult'.

I'm surprised Amazon tried to pull that this-are they not familiar with how the Internet works?

**ana-mish-ana** · April 13th, 2009, 07:50 AM

Dear Author explains how this 'glitch' occurred - definitely not a glitch if these books was affected and others didnt.

Amazon Using Category MetaData to Filter Rankings | Dear Author: Romance Novel Reviews, Industry News, and Commentary

**sparkly** · April 13th, 2009, 09:39 AM

They're too much of a pussy to admit why they pulled this prejudiced stunt. I don't like the way they're handling this at all, so I won't be buying from them again. Guess it's time to give the lesser known book sites a chance.

**Grimmlok** · April 13th, 2009, 10:40 AM

Amazon is a big right wing fundie supporting site anyway, anti-choice as well. Don't give them one red fucking cent.

**Hermetica** · April 13th, 2009, 06:31 PM

Looks like Amazon might not be to blame here. Notice I said *might*. Over on the Consumerist, they have an article on the guy who said he orchestrated the whole thing as a prank and explains how he did it. Here's the link:

http://consumerist.com/5210378/amazo...t-claims-troll

I'm not sure whether I believe it or not but if it's true, this guy did an unbelievable amount of damage. True or not, I suspect we'll hear a lot more about it in the days to come. Amazon has a lot of damage control to do.

**Beeyotch** · April 13th, 2009, 06:43 PM

I don't buy it. Why did they explain it by citing policy to the author in the OP? Makes no sense if it was a prank.

**NoDayButToday** · April 13th, 2009, 06:57 PM

Just received a 2nd form email response from Amazon (I sent a longer, more angry letter this morning after I got the form "glitch" response). This time they called it an embarrassing and ham-fisted error while saying they hope to get my business back and that most of the items have had their ratings reinstated, but never really apologized. I'm still looking for a big public apology before I consider shopping there again.

**Grimmlok** · April 13th, 2009, 08:28 PM

huh. Apparently it was all an internet hack.

tehdely: On Amazon Failure, Meta-Trolls, and Bantown

**ana-mish-ana** · April 13th, 2009, 08:54 PM

No its not - hes just a troll, Hes saying its via tags its not its via metadata system. Dear Author has a great analysis about this -
http://dearauthor.com/wordpress/2009...lter-rankings/

I also read that books that had adult content not only GLTB themes was being delisted far back from Aug 08.
It only got the attention once mainstream books got hit and got picked up by twitter. Amazon excuses are just excuses and its pathetic - this was targeted for a reason and yet rabbit vibrators/Playboy centrefolds is okay and ranked so using the argument about delisting adult stuff goes out of the window. Also ranking of the anti gay books is still up as well so its not exactly a 'glitch' in that respect. Plus I think amazon has leaked that story of the hacker to muddy the waters I wouldnt be surprised if that was the case.