What Do Amazon's Computers Have Against Fictional Gays And Lesbians?
from the just-wondering... dept
The big controversy of the weekend (there's always gotta be at least one, it seems) is that people started noticing that Amazon.com started removing books that involve gay or lesbian characters from its sales rankings, and when asked about it, the company initially said that it was excluding "adult" material from certain searches. That struck many as odd, considering that many of the "excluded" books weren't "adult" at all. After the controversy continued, Amazon changed its story and started claiming that it was actually all just a computer "glitch." Of course, this sounds remarkably similar to the computer "glitch" Amazon found when it suddenly deleted a bunch of negative reviews of EA's DRM-encrusted video game Spore. Whether it's true or not, Amazon is certainly giving off the appearance that it blames any such mistake on a "glitch," but never seems to provide anything in the way of details to support that.Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
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Filed Under: computer glitch, gay, lesbian, rankings
Companies: amazon
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just stop, please.
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Amazon's average age is probably closer to 30 than most businesses. But unlike an older established business run by "old white bigots" these newer businesses HATE to admit they are ever wrong. If they answer inquiries at all, they always blame something else.
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I'm guessing these people are afraid that their children will do something to make themselves happy instead of pleasing mommy and daddy and passing on the family's genetics to another generation.
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I don't see why it doesn't fly. Sex between consenting adults is perfectly legal, why can't marriage between two consenting adults be legal too? I really don't get what all the fuss is about.
If it really bothers you that much, we could always say "..between two consenting human adults.." but, something tells me that isn't going to "fly" for you either.
You open one door, then you MUST open all doors.
Says who? You? I can have sex with a girl, that doesn't mean I can have sex with an underage girl. There, proof that allowing one thing doesn't allow all things. Now, show me where it says (in print, or in spirit) that allowing one thing allows all things, please.
Good luck, my misguided, fearful little friend.
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Even less do I care about fictional books written on the subject.
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Yeah, either everything should be illegal or everything should be legal. No exceptions.
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Those are really stupid, but not as stupid as the support laws.
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Anyway, The straight road to kyle (teen gay fiction), which is the only gay culture book I can think of right now, still shows. Either they fixed the glitch, or they never knew that that one has gay characters in it.
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Rock. Hard place. Introduce each other.
Remove the listing because the country is still anti-homosexual and not offend potential bible-thumping new customers
-OR-
Leave the listing and receive countless attacks from those same bible-thumping customers.
Glitch be thy name until such time listings don't portray homosexuality but still remain on the list.
Programmers are going to be working overtime on this one.
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I don't know why people get so upset about stuff like this. They are a business. We are customers. We don't have to do business with a business we don't like. If you don't believe customers have all the power, just look at Circuit City.
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Ok, and if you DO believe the customers have all the power, just look at historical examples like AIG, IG Farben, Fannie May, Freddie Mac, GM, etc. etc. etc.
When customers stop buying, but are then forced to buy via government stimulus through taxation, where does the power really lie? Face it, pure capitilism is dead, because capitalists killed it.
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This is exactly what the current administration wants you to believe. You cannot replace the current system until you prove it has failed. The goal now is to make it fail so it can be replaced with Socialism or Communism.
The current stimulus is not to get the economy rolling; it is to kill it completely.
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Heh, I saw a building the other day that used to be a Circuit City. It has a big hand-written sign in the front window that reads "Circuit City is now closed, PERMANENTLY! Thanks to all you NOT-SO-LOYAL customers that PUT US OUT OF BUSINESS!!!!!"
Yeah, they had a real good attitude there. I'm glad they're gone.
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Amen, brother! There are only two things I can imagine that could improve upon the naturalness of two hot chicks hooking up - adding more hot chicks and/or including me.
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Second, I know a 20 yr old bible thumper who spends his every waking moment trying to get laid. Let him lay eyes on a lesbian though and he lets loose a string of obscenties and insults that'd make sailor blush. I don't know what he'd say if he saw a gay man.
Funny that, how immoral most religious people are when it comes to their own lives and their own choices, but how quickly they condem everyone else.
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Most religious people realize they have faults too. Oh wait, I don't have any facts and figures either. I guess since I said it last, it must be true.
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See, you got it partially right, most religious people do realize they have faults. The problem is that most religious people, no, most people in general, spend more of their time judging everyone elses faults and shortcomings and sins than they do trying to correct or reconcile their own. That's bad enough when it's a non-religious person who doesn't hold to any truly "higher" sense of right and wrong or morality but to society's, but when it's a religious person who's specifically taught not to throw the first stone, not to judge others, and to keep their own house in order first, then it's especially bad.
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The only? No. Majority? Most definitely.
How about disgusting and unnatural?
Disgusting comes down to personal opinion, and there's nothing to be done about that. As for unnatural, hard to say on this one. But that's a topic for a different day.
Unless of course it is two hot chicks, then it is perfectly acceptable.
Again, personal opinion. Personally, I'm not against it (regardless of sex). But on the same note, neither does it do anything for me.
I wouldn't censor it just because of my disinterest in it, but clearly Amazon doesn't feel this way.
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They might take note of Blockbuster's experience in Australia - stores dying out, it seems. BB never had any of the videos *I* wanted to watch, that's for sure.
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Weird, that.
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Not only that, but it is selective deletion along ideological lines. I guess Amazon must have built the world's first computer to achieve consciousness but they're just keeping it secret.
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Bitgots???
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Right AJ, right.
What was that about "you MUST open all doors"? Hm?
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censorship
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If they wanted to give individuals the power to block certain key words and classes of things that would be one thing but deciding for everyone what tags are bad is the worst corporate nannyism.
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Someone seems to be taking (anonymous) credit for this
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who got played ?
Of course the claim may be bogus, but there is history for this sort of behavior (link) so don't be too quick to condemn Amazon.
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Doin it wrong
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