![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
prusikWe've just had a week where two states decided that the state doesn't have an interest in choosing for you the gender of your spouse. Maybe then, I shouldn't be surprised that today, I find out something that reminds me that the fight isn't over. (BTW, I didn't really need a reminder. I already knew. Just saying...)
Amazon is removing sales ranks from GLBT books.
Yes, they say that they're excluding "adult" books, but this is a very convenient definition of "adult. It includes apparently any GLBT book, but excludes, for example, Playboy: The Complete Centerfolds. Based on what I've seen so far, it looks like they assume any book with GLBT content must be prurient whereas they are far more lenient with books without it. Whether they intend to or not, Amazon is sending an extremely homophobic message to its customers.
Now rather than outright homophobia, I suspect that this is heterosexism. i.e., I doubt that it had occurred to them that their attempt to remove "adult" material from their search results and bestseller lists would remove books that would not be considered "adult" but for mentions of GLBT. We've seen this in the way TV shows are rated. We've seen this in the behavior of various net nanny filters.
[ETA: I tried to give them the benefit of the doubt, but they won't take it. Jonquil points me at a list of books not deranked. *sigh*]
That doesn't make it any less annoying. It certainly doesn't make it right.
Just to get the easy rebuttals out of the way: No, this is not censorship. (Technically speaking, only the government can censor.) Amazon has not prevented you from buying the book. They absolutely have the right to decide which books they will push and which books they won't. Stores make judgments of this kind all the time.
(If we are honest though, we will admit that stores typically encourage sales. They don't typically take action to make their wares harder to find. Even when we talk about "adult" materials, it is not to their financial benefit to make that category expand into arguably non-adult materials.)
Those arguments are all correct. They also all miss the point. No one is saying that Amazon can't do this or that it's illegal to do so. They can, it's perfectly legal, and they have. That doesn't mean that they should, or that it's a good idea to do so.
What people are saying is that it doesn't make sense for Amazon to explicitly alienate this portion of their customer base. The best thing for Amazon is for them to be everybody's store. Yes, they may sell something that you don't want to read. No one's making you read it, much less buy it so don't.
It doesn't make sense for Amazon to make their search results and best seller lists less useful to the customer. If they sell it, it's in their best interest for it to be easy to find when a customer is looking for it. This isn't just homophobic. It's also bad business. They're not supposed to be in the business of preventing sales.
Nevertheless, it's done. There is a protest in place. We'll see how it goes.
As I said, Amazon has every right to send a homophobic message to its customers. In return, I, of course, don't have to buy anything from Amazon.
Amazon is removing sales ranks from GLBT books.
Yes, they say that they're excluding "adult" books, but this is a very convenient definition of "adult. It includes apparently any GLBT book, but excludes, for example, Playboy: The Complete Centerfolds. Based on what I've seen so far, it looks like they assume any book with GLBT content must be prurient whereas they are far more lenient with books without it. Whether they intend to or not, Amazon is sending an extremely homophobic message to its customers.
Now rather than outright homophobia, I suspect that this is heterosexism. i.e., I doubt that it had occurred to them that their attempt to remove "adult" material from their search results and bestseller lists would remove books that would not be considered "adult" but for mentions of GLBT. We've seen this in the way TV shows are rated. We've seen this in the behavior of various net nanny filters.
[ETA: I tried to give them the benefit of the doubt, but they won't take it. Jonquil points me at a list of books not deranked. *sigh*]
That doesn't make it any less annoying. It certainly doesn't make it right.
Just to get the easy rebuttals out of the way: No, this is not censorship. (Technically speaking, only the government can censor.) Amazon has not prevented you from buying the book. They absolutely have the right to decide which books they will push and which books they won't. Stores make judgments of this kind all the time.
(If we are honest though, we will admit that stores typically encourage sales. They don't typically take action to make their wares harder to find. Even when we talk about "adult" materials, it is not to their financial benefit to make that category expand into arguably non-adult materials.)
Those arguments are all correct. They also all miss the point. No one is saying that Amazon can't do this or that it's illegal to do so. They can, it's perfectly legal, and they have. That doesn't mean that they should, or that it's a good idea to do so.
What people are saying is that it doesn't make sense for Amazon to explicitly alienate this portion of their customer base. The best thing for Amazon is for them to be everybody's store. Yes, they may sell something that you don't want to read. No one's making you read it, much less buy it so don't.
It doesn't make sense for Amazon to make their search results and best seller lists less useful to the customer. If they sell it, it's in their best interest for it to be easy to find when a customer is looking for it. This isn't just homophobic. It's also bad business. They're not supposed to be in the business of preventing sales.
Nevertheless, it's done. There is a protest in place. We'll see how it goes.
As I said, Amazon has every right to send a homophobic message to its customers. In return, I, of course, don't have to buy anything from Amazon.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2009-04-12 09:11 pm (UTC)http://community.livejournal.com/meta_writer/11369.html?thread=215657#t215657
Amazon really, really fucked this one up. And not in the good way.
no subject
Date: 2009-04-12 09:24 pm (UTC)(Interestingly, Close Range, the collection which has "Brokeback Mountain" still has a ranking. The story published by itself has been deranked.)
I seriously hope the apology will be forthcoming.
no subject
Date: 2009-04-12 09:39 pm (UTC)(1) Programmer A, who apparently did not complete his computer science degree, gens up a search for gay erotica that works by pattern-matching "gay" and "lesbian".
(2) There is no design review.
(3) There is no test run.
(4) If there is a test run, nobody notices a problem.
Occam's Razor is getting a bit in the way here. They run a whopping big database update to correct their erotica problem, and *nobody involved* notices that they're getting false drops. Right.
no subject
Date: 2009-04-12 09:46 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-04-12 09:48 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-04-12 09:54 pm (UTC)Does God Love Michael's Two Daddies?
A Parent's Guide to Preventing Homosexuality
So, no, it ain't just keyword searches.
http://www.wetasphalt.com/?q=content/amazonfail-list-books-proving-its-not-adult-content-gets-you-deranked
no subject
Date: 2009-04-12 10:02 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-04-12 10:19 pm (UTC)Kate Borenstein?
[FX: Seething]
no subject
Date: 2009-04-12 10:48 pm (UTC)http://www.amazon.com/s?ie=UTF8&tag=mozilla-20&index=blended&link_code=qs&field-keywords=homosexuality&sourceid=Mozilla-search
no subject
Date: 2009-04-12 11:04 pm (UTC)The screencap is easy. I have it sitting on my Mac right now. Getting it on the internet is a bit tricker. (I don't have a plus or paid account.) I suppose I could throw it up on flickr, but I don't think this is what flickr had in mind.
no subject
Date: 2009-04-12 11:05 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-04-12 11:20 pm (UTC)(It's a little under a meg, and kind of tall so I didn't inline it into this response.)
http://i633.photobucket.com/albums/uu51/kleimheist/09around1850.png
(Fortunately, I had remembered to sign out of amazon before doing the screencap...)
Anyway, for the record, I did the search today some time between 6:50pm and 6:55pm EDT.
no subject
Date: 2009-04-12 11:22 pm (UTC)According to #amazonfail on Twitter, Amazon's phone reps are now saying that the problem is being worked on. If they have any PR brains at all (something I doubt), there will be a LARGE donation to an LGBTQ organization as well as an apology.
no subject
Date: 2009-04-12 11:29 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-04-13 08:04 pm (UTC)