The Amazon Fiasco

[fredericks]

Folks all over my FL have been posting on and commenting about Amazon.com's mass removal of rankings on several books with LGBT themes, along with books deemed erotica - note that "erotica" and LGBT are not mutually inclusive, as many non-fiction LGBT works have also been deranking, making it imposible to search for them by name from the Amazon main page. The information keeps coming in (here's a link to seperis's LJ post that's continually updated with relevant links), but I get the feeling the reason behind the action won't ever be fully known (computer glitch? hacker action? angry employee? Amazon bowing to pressure from conservatives? regular ole asshattery?) no matter what PR puts out there tomorrow at 8am.

My question? if it is simple asshattery why aren't media outside of books affected? You can search for Queer as Folk and The Birdcage, but historical non-fiction about the treatment of homosexuals in WWII is suddenly MIA? Those books are more offensive and "adult" than seeing Hank Azaria mince around and play the fop? Completely confusing and somewhat random. I'm keeping my eyes peeled.

Comments

The post in question

[mersipan.livejournal.com]

Not friend's locked, I don' think:
http://community.livejournal.com/brutal_honesty/3168992.html

Nuts, though. Completely nuts.

Re: The post in question

[fredericks.livejournal.com]

...uhm, ha? I'm leaning more towards "glitch" than "deliberate douchey act". But, yes, completely concur. I've been double-thinking my entire Amazon usage, if they can label perfectly benign historical non-fictions "adult" just because of the LGBT association.