Midnighter Would Not Stand For This Shit
Apr. 12th, 2009 03:56 pmDid you know that merely mentioning The Gay automatically makes your book porn? Amazon sure thinks so!
In order to limit the visibility of adult material, Amazon has been stripping the sales rankings (and searchability) from a number of books based, apparently, on some fairly broad and INCREDIBLY MORONIC criteria. Books that are marketed as erotica are included - but so are non-explicit GLBT romance novels, non-fiction books about homosexuality/homophobia, YA and kids' books about sexuality, classics with GLBT themes, gay parenting books - basically anything with any kind of GLBT themes. Cause Heather Has Two Mommies is just packed with lesbian porn, don't ya know! Meanwhile, many books with explicit heterosexual sex that aren't marked are erotica are being left with their rankings.
SO MUCH FAIL. I assume this is something along the lines of DeleteGate - Amazon got complaints about adult material, got all freaked out, and started yanking everything that came to mind without thought or reason or any consideration of the PR nightmare this would cause in the Twitter age. Not deliberately discrimatory, per se, but still fucking dumb and bigoted in effect. I'm a pretty frequent Amazon shopper, but I think I'll be going elsewhere until this clears up.
It's not like this is a new stupidity - I know Marvel has had a policy for awhile that comics with GLBT themes/characters have to be marked for adults, thus severely limiting their marketability. It is just mind-boggling to me - what do people really think is going to happen? Oh no, my kids now know there are gay people in the world, whatever shall I do? Newflash: if your kids are gay, no amount of shielding them from the existence of homosexuality will change that, and if they are straight, no amount of exposure to gayness will turn them. All this does is engender hate and bigotry.
http://community.livejournal.com/meta_writer/11992.html - a list of books that have been removed from Amazon's sales rankings
http://www.thepetitionsite.com/1/in-protest-at-amazons-new-adult-policy - a petition to Amazon protesting this policy
https://www.amazon.com/gp/help/contact-us/general-questions.html?ie=UTF8&type=email - contact Amazon directly at their support page
Amazon Rank - Smart Bitches, Trashy Books is doing a google bomb
In order to limit the visibility of adult material, Amazon has been stripping the sales rankings (and searchability) from a number of books based, apparently, on some fairly broad and INCREDIBLY MORONIC criteria. Books that are marketed as erotica are included - but so are non-explicit GLBT romance novels, non-fiction books about homosexuality/homophobia, YA and kids' books about sexuality, classics with GLBT themes, gay parenting books - basically anything with any kind of GLBT themes. Cause Heather Has Two Mommies is just packed with lesbian porn, don't ya know! Meanwhile, many books with explicit heterosexual sex that aren't marked are erotica are being left with their rankings.
SO MUCH FAIL. I assume this is something along the lines of DeleteGate - Amazon got complaints about adult material, got all freaked out, and started yanking everything that came to mind without thought or reason or any consideration of the PR nightmare this would cause in the Twitter age. Not deliberately discrimatory, per se, but still fucking dumb and bigoted in effect. I'm a pretty frequent Amazon shopper, but I think I'll be going elsewhere until this clears up.
It's not like this is a new stupidity - I know Marvel has had a policy for awhile that comics with GLBT themes/characters have to be marked for adults, thus severely limiting their marketability. It is just mind-boggling to me - what do people really think is going to happen? Oh no, my kids now know there are gay people in the world, whatever shall I do? Newflash: if your kids are gay, no amount of shielding them from the existence of homosexuality will change that, and if they are straight, no amount of exposure to gayness will turn them. All this does is engender hate and bigotry.
http://community.livejournal.com/meta_writer/11992.html - a list of books that have been removed from Amazon's sales rankings
http://www.thepetitionsite.com/1/in-protest-at-amazons-new-adult-policy - a petition to Amazon protesting this policy
https://www.amazon.com/gp/help/contact-us/general-questions.html?ie=UTF8&type=email - contact Amazon directly at their support page
Amazon Rank - Smart Bitches, Trashy Books is doing a google bomb