Comments | kali921: More on Amazon's EPIC fail

kali921

More on Amazon's EPIC fail

Apr 13, 2009 07:38

More on Amazon's epic fail. It's all over the news outlets and blogsphere, and I'm still sitting here stunned at Amazon's stupidity.

( Read more... )

rl, epic fail, politics

Comments 31

tbosky April 13 2009, 15:28:29 UTC

This is awesome work! I'm sending this post on to my friends.

kali921 April 13 2009, 15:34:24 UTC

NONE of this was compiled by me - all the credit for this goes to lots and lots of other people on LJ.

Please, please repost and/or link to the above and all the other links that I've posted. It's so very, very important to expose what Amazon is doing.

"In consideration of our entire customer base" MY FRESHLY SHOWERED ASS.

thehefner April 13 2009, 16:22:47 UTC

I found Valerie D'Orazio's thoughts on the matter rather interesting as well:

http://valeriedorazio.blogspot.com/2009/04/seven-thoughts-about-amazon-fail.html

The monopoly factor makes me hesitant to go back to them, even if they do issue a massive fucking apology and fixes this. Are there better places to get books and stuff for those kinds of prices? Someone at ONTD_P mentioned DeepDiscount.com, but I know nothing about them.

kali921 April 13 2009, 16:25:08 UTC

There are plenty of posts on LJ discussing alternatives. I spent hundreds of dollars at Amazon last year, but that's it. No more. I'm not buying a goddamn thing from them henceforth unless they reverse their policy and offer a sincere and all-encompassing apology.

I really, really urge you to contact them and protest. It's important that they hear from EVERYONE, regardless of sexual orientation.

zvi_likes_tv has a post up talking about alternatives to Amazon for books and music.

WARNING: UNVERIFIED syringavulgaris April 13 2009, 16:30:02 UTC

Someone claims responsibility, says he did it all through the 'report as inappropriate' links. Manifesto found .

It looks plausible, but I have no knowledge whatsoever as to the veracity of the poster's claim or purported method.

Re: WARNING: UNVERIFIED kali921 April 13 2009, 16:32:24 UTC

I'm not sure how one person could possibly cause Amazon to make such an idiotic decision unless he spammed Amazon with a thousand e-mails complaining about their rankings. Unless a million sock puppet e-mails were involved.

WARNING: I would NOT click on any of that guy's links. There might be malware involved.

Re: WARNING: UNVERIFIED syringavulgaris April 13 2009, 16:46:38 UTC

Well, that's what his post indicates; he got friends with high-traffic web sites to, effectively, catch referring traffic from all their visitors and using that session info to generate bogus complaints.

Programmatically, it looks like it would work (if that's how Amazon's complaint system in fact works). Or it could be some idjit trying to cash in with a plausible-sounding explanation, but the usual idjit doesn't bother with posting working code.

Re: WARNING: UNVERIFIED dj_spider April 13 2009, 17:10:31 UTC

If they had a hole in their system, then it only takes one idjit to find it and prove a point.

My feeling from the start was that it was something tied to the tagging that they do, and a lot of books were caught in the crossfire, perhaps that they had to remove everything that was tagged with "so-and-so" and didn't realize what a massive purge it was, and didn't have the manpower to actually review each title to see the connection.

_call_me_snake_ April 13 2009, 16:49:24 UTC

So, are they also planning on removing every book about Greco-Roman society too? What ridiculous bullshit.

kali921 April 13 2009, 16:52:57 UTC

I don't know if they'd go that far. But any book explicitly discussing homosexuality in ancient societies? Yeah, I could see them doing that.

_call_me_snake_ April 13 2009, 16:56:30 UTC

That's my point. This is far above and beyond what most people would assume. This isn't only books on modern topics but history. I have red several books on the treatment of gays in the holocaust and I sit here wondering if those will get blacklisted too since some go into explicit detail of life as a gay in that era.

outlawpoet April 13 2009, 18:04:23 UTC

Maybe they'll do what most popular books about Greco-Roman societies do, and try very hard to avoid mentioning it if at all possible. (Or better yet, pick a favorite society(Athens, Sparta, Alexandria) and then talk about the 'other' societies sexual mores while not mentioning the favored one's.

nefariouscory April 13 2009, 16:50:25 UTC

Yeah, it's sickening. Harvey Milk, Stephen Fry, Ellen Degeneres biographies? I mean, REALLY?

It's not only LGBT books affected - also anything that discusses sexuality in a positive light, and several books on feminism. (They also removed one book about sexuality and disabilities. Ugh!)

Also? Terry Moore's Strangers in Paradise = unranked. Graphic novels are affected too.

Looks like it wasn't just over the last few days - complaints about this were trickling in since February, but they seemed like isolated incidents. It didn't gain attention until Thursday-ish last week when a few more books it happened to were noticed, and didn't blow up into the current shitstorm until yesterday, Easter Sunday.

Amazon now claims that no policy on adult content exists, and that all of this is the result of a glitch. Some books (such as Brokeback Mountain) have had their rankings reinstated.

Got links? kali921 April 13 2009, 16:52:09 UTC

A "glitch." WOW, Amazon.

Do you have links confirming information about Amazon calling this a "glitch"?

Glitches: now with extra homophobia and double standards! nefariouscory April 13 2009, 16:53:27 UTC

I read it in several places. Give me a couple of minutes and I'll dig it up for you.

Re: Got links? nefariouscory April 13 2009, 16:58:28 UTC

Here's two sources -

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2009/04/12/entertainment/e195040D58.DTL&tsp=1

http://www.publishersweekly.com/article/CA6651080.html?desc=topstory

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