OlderAmazon Has a Gay Glitch
The Twitterverse and blogsophere are abuzz about Amazon.com stripping hundreds of gay and lesbian books of their sales rankings because the books’ material has been deemed “adult.”
Titles like James Baldwin’s “Giovanni’s Room” and Annie Proulx’s “Brokeback Mountain” are among the book who have lost their ranking. Authors that have written about their own books losing their rankings include Mark R. Probst and Craig Seymour.
An Amazon spokesperson tells PublishersWeekly said that “a glitch had occurred in its sales ranking feature that [is] in the process of being fixed. The spokesperson added that there was no new adult policy.”
You can follow and contribute to the growing backlash about this controversy on Twitter with the hash tag #amazonfail.
Also up for debate: Entering homosexuality into Amazon will give you search results full of “healing” books including the first search result — a paperback called “A Parent’s Guide to Preventing Homosexuality.”
FYI: A full list of books that had their sales ranks removed can be found here.
39 Comments
Are you kidding me? That’s sick! And #11 Jaye, discrimination is ‘petty stuff’ now?! I’m sure if you had been gay then this would’ve mattered to you. Don’t be so narrowminded.
Dude why complain about the search results? Homosexuality is in the title. What do you want Amazon to do about it? Just search smarter.
They said they were fixing it! why is this such a big deal? Will you please READ what is going on! They said there was no NEW policy! They had a problem with the system, they are FIXING IT, they don’t deserve to be branded anti-homosexual and bigots like this because of a single problem they are addressing! Find a real problem and fight it! What in the world is that petition about?
Couldn’t be that the situation is being used for a publicity stunt could it? Good point #11 about PETA. This is just as ridiculous as the stunts they pull.
Oh this is so ridiculous! Wow if you type in homosexuality a book about preventing homosexuality comes up, so what! You have to be kidding me if you are offended by that! You have the right to sell books about homosexuality, but someone else doesn’t have a right to sell a book about preventing it? Up for debate you are so ridiculous if it offends you it’s “up for debate” but if it offends others you act all incredulous when someone mentions it! You can not expect everyone to accept you, get over it and move on! This is why I’ve stopped supporting gay rights, you make it way to hard to support you and be taken seriously anymore.
I agree, Jared… this is very discriminatory (and I’m not gay, so back off, people like IINDZ). The fact that if you search for “homosexuality”, you only get anti-gay books is pathetic.
* And Prescilla… this has been going on since February and was just caught recently. So I’m thinking it’s not a bug. Plus the spokesman said it was because books about homosexuality are “adult” books (yet you can still search and find heterosexual erotica… what the f***?)
Much ado about nothing
Well, the reason there’s such a big furor is unfairness: Deranking of relatively gay books (some aren’t even adult themed) would be okay if de-ranking of adult-themed straight books are done.
But there are lots of Playboy-related books and explicit romance novels that still have rankings, while less-adult-oriented gay books are de-ranked!
I say — and be fair to and de-rank equally, or don’t derank either…
Gays suck and should die.
lol ive heard that they r blocking them because of content but that they let a playboy book get reviewed =p
honestly i dont really care, not something that impacts me
Frida @ 04/13/2009 at 9:37 am
Are you kidding me? That’s sick! And #11 Jaye, discrimination is ‘petty stuff’ now?! I’m sure if you had been gay then this would’ve mattered to you. Don’t be so narrowminded.
———-
I didn’t say discrimination was petty, but you have a narrow view of life if you think that a computer glitch that is being FIXED is discrimination. What part of it was a ‘glitch’ didn’t you understand? Perhaps you need to be a little less uptight and not see everything as a slight against Gay people. Last I heard, they’re not the ONLY people inhabiting this world, nor are their rights the only ones to be considered.
The issue of ranking is not one that involved the SALE of the book. No one buys a book or any Gay works because of it’s ranking and they did not BAN the works. If I were Gay I’d hope I’d have more things to concern me than how or IF some website ranks a GAY book.
With regard to your view that I’m narrow minded; if you think having an opposing view is narrow minded, then so be it. I’ve never denied anyone their right to have a different opinion; nor will I let anyone prevent me from expressing mine. You might want to rethink which one of us is really narrow minded.
ahahhaaha I love Amazon now, **** don’t deserve any human rights.
Why are all gays illiterate, judging by their comments on this page?
Thanks for the coverage Jared! Yeah, this is pure discrimination, I hope Amazon looses customers over this.
Oh and besides, I’m afflicted, sad, shocked by the comments on this news… Still so many intolerant people in 2009, that’s just scary… :’-(
This is ridiculous. Who cares if people are gay or not, they’re still people so let them read what they want!
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