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Amazon’s New Homophobic Policy

April 12, 2009 By Ryan

I’ve spent about $100 on Amazon.com so far in 2009. I won’t spend a $1 more until this stops.

The good people at Amazon have made a small change to the way you can search for books. It’s Easter Sunday, so you’re probably not supposed to notice. The target of their new approach is anything that they consider to have adult content, and especially anything that might involve GLBT issues. The writing community is already staring to blaze about this, but it needs much wider attention.  

Basically, any title that Amazon consider “adult” will no longer be included in the “Best Sellers” lists – or ranked at all. These titles will not show up on all searches, even when the exact title of the book is entered. Who decides what books are “adult”? That’s not at all clear. But whoever’s making the choices is casting the net far and wide, and hauling in an awful lot of GLBT books.

What are some of these books?

This is the ever-growing list of titles that have been scrubbed by this policy change from Meta Writer at Live Journal. Many are non-fiction works, such as Dr. Nathaniel Frank’s  Unfriendly Fire: How the Gay Ban Undermines the Military and Weakens America and The Advocate College Guide for LGBT Students.  

It gets worse when you go to the Live Journal site.

What a slap in the face. I’ll take my business over to local bookstores and other online sites. Please, sign the petition now. Thanks.

Crossposted at www.RyansTake.net.  

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Filed Under: User Tagged With: amazon, books, civil-rights, glbt, random

Comments

  1. ryepower12 says

    April 12, 2009 at 9:09 pm

    http://www.pamshouseblend.com/…

    I found this and lost the link, but tried it myself:

       I did a search on “homosexuality” on amazon and checked out the top ten results (by relevance).

       All but two had no sales rank.

       Here are the two that still had rankings:

       A Parent’s Guide to Preventing Homosexuality (Paperback)
       Can Homosexuality Be Healed? (Paperback)

    <

    p>

  2. ryepower12 says

    April 12, 2009 at 9:40 pm

    http://latimesblogs.latimes.co…

    “American Psycho” is Bret Easton Ellis’ story of a sadistic murderer. “Unfriendly Fire” is a well-reviewed empirical analysis of military policy. But it’s “Unfriendly Fire” that does not have a sales rank — which means it would not show up in Amazon’s bestseller lists, even if it sold more copies than the Twilight series. In some cases, being de-ranked also means being removed from Amazon’s search results.

    <

    p>Also, from the LA Times, among the books being banned is the 1992 National Book of the Year. Can’t have any of those queer books listed with all the straight ones — including homophobic bigoted pieces of crap & the hateful Ann Coulter who’s lies and deceits are legendary.  

  3. john-hosty-grinnell says

    April 13, 2009 at 10:35 am

    I find it hard to believe this is true of such a big company, but Ryan has brought the proof. I’m aboard banning them until we see a change in their policy.

  4. huh says

    April 13, 2009 at 11:40 am

    I checked ten links from the Live Journal list (e.g. Rubyfruit Jungle, Maurice, Heather Has Two Mommies).  They all had sales rankings.

  5. joets says

    April 13, 2009 at 1:28 pm

    from gay to pedophilia, it’s got it all, but also the best book I’ve read in a while.  Ridiculous.

  6. lynne says

    April 13, 2009 at 2:01 pm

    Read up on the real reason. And yes, it’s a glitch, albeit I think Amazon should come out and talk about how their system was vulnerable and how they are going to or have addressed it.

    • lynne says

      April 13, 2009 at 2:04 pm

      hold on, still researchign this one

    • ryepower12 says

      April 13, 2009 at 4:27 pm

      I’ve read about (gay) authors who have had this happen to them for over a month — who were told that their books were “adult” whilst other, similar straight books were not banned from searches and rankings. Sometimes complaints have reversed it, but it shouldn’t have to come to that.

      <

      p>Like Andy Towle, I have a very hard time believing that this was a glitch. Amazon will have to come out and explain, in depth, why it mostly happened to gay-themed books and why it happened on Easter Weekend, when few would be paying attention. That’s an awfully convenient glitch, if you ask me.  

      • lynne says

        April 13, 2009 at 7:52 pm

        You know I’m the biggest support GLBT people have out there, but I think you are jumping the gun on this. I don’t think it’s an Amazon-sinister anti-GLBT policy here. Amazon does not have a history of being owned or cowtowing to wingers, and honestly, I’ve heard people on the ‘nets today talking about how much of a pain in the ass it is for ANY author to get their problems addressed, not just recently and not just GLBT.

        <

        p>The one thing I really hate about the internets and activism is how fast everyone jumps on their high horse (including myself at times). I think you’re wrong on this, even if you’re right. Let’s say we find out this was a total external attack of the sort that others have laid out. Wouldn’t you feel pretty badly that you jumped all over Amazon for being “antigay”? How does this help Amazon want to be “progay” in the future?

        <

        p>Let’s wait to see what the f happened here before we go off half cocked.  

        • ryepower12 says

          April 13, 2009 at 8:08 pm

          hear Amazon out, but 3 things:

          <

          p>1. Quite frankly, I’ve read about the external possibilities, including one person who claims to be responsible — and is almost certainly a hoax. People have tried to redo what would have done this and failed, just to see if it was possible. That doesn’t mean its impossible, but does make it less likely.

          <

          p>2. If it was some external thing, then that means Amazon’s left their entire site vulnerable. I still want explanations.

          <

          p>3. No matter how you slice if, if this is your costumer service, your company needs to work on civil rights issues.

          <

          p>

          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.

          <

          p>http://www.dailykos.com/story/…

          <

          p>Now, you’re right. Jumping the gun is a problem in the blogosphere. That’s why I always say the blogs are a conversation more than anything else. We’re always learning more information that helps shape and form that conversation, one piece of info at a time. No matter what happened here, it’s now Amazon’s turn to do the explaining and, so far, they’ve proved unwilling – with lousy CR and lame, skeleton explanations without any assurances that this won’t happen again in the future.  

        • ryepower12 says

          April 13, 2009 at 8:08 pm

          hear Amazon out, but 3 things:

          <

          p>1. Quite frankly, I’ve read about the external possibilities, including one person who claims to be responsible — and is almost certainly a hoax. People have tried to redo what would have done this and failed, just to see if it was possible. That doesn’t mean its impossible, but does make it less likely.

          <

          p>2. If it was some external thing, then that means Amazon’s left their entire site vulnerable. I still want explanations.

          <

          p>3. No matter how you slice if, if this is your costumer service, your company needs to work on civil rights issues.

          <

          p>

          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.

          <

          p>http://www.dailykos.com/story/…

          <

          p>Now, you’re right. Jumping the gun is a problem in the blogosphere. That’s why I always say the blogs are a conversation more than anything else. We’re always learning more information that helps shape and form that conversation, one piece of info at a time. No matter what happened here, it’s now Amazon’s turn to do the explaining and, so far, they’ve proved unwilling – with lousy CR and lame, skeleton explanations without any assurances that this won’t happen again in the future.  

          • skewl-zombie says

            April 15, 2009 at 1:12 am

            The title of your post is a little harsh, maybe even premature.  And the double posting????

            • ryepower12 says

              April 15, 2009 at 1:20 am

              twas not intentional.

              <

              p>Be it glitch or hacker or whacky employees taking matters into their own hands, Amazon may not be totally at wrong here… but it would be nice if they’d have handled this better. They still haven’t been forthcoming with a good explanation as to what happened — full with an honest apology.  

              • skewl-zombie says

                April 16, 2009 at 4:39 am

                Dude, don’t you think you should edit your title?

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