let's get the seven lines. ([info]bookshop) wrote,
@ 2009-04-12 13:31:00
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Entry tags:politics

Amazon is yanking the site rankings and search results inclusion of books with GLBTQ content.
Amazon.com has decided to strip the site rankings of books that have so-called "adult content," and remove them from "certain search results," according to an amazon representative earlier today.

[info]meta_writer has a link roundup plus a list of books that have been affected. It includes but is not limited to: Rita Mae Brown, Annie Proulx's "Brokeback Mountain", Christopher Isherwood, Edmund White, E.M. Forster, False Colours, a m/m historical with no explicit sex which had just broken through to enter into the top-10 bestselling historical novels list before Amazon yanked its search results, The Well of Loneliness, Jeanette Winterson's Oranges Are Not The Only Fruit, Tipping the Velvet, abd all of Alex Sanchez's seminal Rainbow Boys YA series. And the list is growing.

Meanwhile? Amazon continues to list straight, heterosexual erotica in its search results and rankings.

eta: the novel I mentioned, Love's Last Chance, is now showing up now under "books" as a search result; it wasn't before. I also checked this out with Krendal Kraus's other book, an AIDS memoir, and the same thing is happening - the search results were empty before but are there now. So I don't know what that was about, sorry for the confusion. also apparently when you sign out THE RESULTS CHANGE? WTF AMAZON.

CALL AMAZON. 800-201-7575 There's also a petition of protest here.

___

follow #amazonfail on twitter for updates.


(22 comments) - (Post a new comment)


[info]kagyakusha
2009-04-12 05:39 pm UTC (link)
sadly, that doesn't surprise me. For the past couple of years, EVERY TIME I purchased something with GLBTQ content Amazon has recommended porn to me as though the two were directly equated -- even though my GLBTQ purchases were VERY VERY TAME and romantic rather than sexual! ><# I guess in their opinion GLBTQ = Porn = Obscene judging by this latest B.S!

can't afford to call long distance, but I will definitely sign the petition!

(Reply to this)


[info]derogatory
2009-04-12 05:49 pm UTC (link)
All right, I hate to be contrary, but am I doing this wrong? Kandall Krauss' book is not the first on the list, but it does come up on the first page (it helps by searching under "books" rather than "all departments"). Also amazon brought up the full title when i started searching, and then showed the right results for The Well of Loneliness, also for Oranges are not the Only Fruit, Tipping the Velvet..

Is censorship this only in effect for non-member searches?

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[info]bobrhyn
2009-04-12 05:52 pm UTC (link)
Same here?

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[info]derogatory
2009-04-12 05:54 pm UTC (link)
Amazon clearly knows no amount of censorship can stop us from looking up homo books, I guess.

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[info]whoyouinvent
2009-04-12 05:53 pm UTC (link)
it's not always the searches themselves, but amazon ranks books within categories, so you know what is selling best within a category - and GLBTQ books are being stripped of these rankings, removing them fron best-selling lists.

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[info]derogatory
2009-04-12 05:55 pm UTC (link)
Oh, okay. I was just noting searching for "loves last chance" does pull up the book, albeit not the first result.

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[info]bookshop
2009-04-12 05:57 pm UTC (link)

It didn't come up for me at all (and I'm logged in) under "books" so I widened my search to "all products" and still had no luck.

i just did another search under just books and now it's there. i wonder if maybe a bunch of people clicking on the link to the book helped boost the results or something? OR ELSE I COULD BE A MORON. But I also checked this out with his other book, the AIDS memoir, and the same thing happened. So I don't know.

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[info]derogatory
2009-04-12 05:59 pm UTC (link)
haha well let's play it safe and boycott them anyway.

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[info]zillah975
2009-04-12 06:15 pm UTC (link)
Yeah, regardless of whether a given book can be found by searching on the title, stripping GLBT books of their sales rankings does have an impact. Sales rankings are used for some searches, and also for some best seller lists, so if your book doesn't have a sales rank, it's excluded from those searches and lists. Some buyers, including some booksellers researching what stock to carry, use them as an indicator of whether they should buy the book and/or whether it will sell, so having no sales rank negatively affects the chance of selling more.

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[info]bobrhyn
2009-04-12 06:06 pm UTC (link)
NEVERMIND, when you sign out the results change. >:| *signs*

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[info]whoyouinvent
2009-04-12 05:50 pm UTC (link)
caught onto this when neil gaiman twittered it to his 200,000 followers. i definitely signed the petition.
the nasty thing is, where as previous commenter noted amazon's 'you may also like ___" recommendations, those are at least produced by a bot that tracks what users buy. this is directly targeted, and disgusting. and i'm pretty sure, illegal in a lot of places.

(Reply to this)


[info]zillah975
2009-04-12 05:53 pm UTC (link)
I think their search is badly broken.

First, let me say that I'm totally with you on how egregious this decision by Amazon was, I won't be buying from them until they fix it, and I've shared this on my journals and also in email to friends who don't read my journals.

That said, if you search love's last chance in Books, it comes up as the fourth result; searching in All Departments doesn't return it at all. I had a similar issue trying to find Isherwood's A Single Man -- it's confusing as hell.

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[info]copinggoggles
2009-04-12 06:10 pm UTC (link)
Aja, there is a post that needs to come down on RBR.

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[info]copinggoggles
2009-04-12 06:11 pm UTC (link)
- And verily, as I comment, it is gone! NM!

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(Anonymous)
2009-04-12 06:26 pm UTC (link)
Thank you for posting this.

I am going to point out, though, that this post said "Here's something bad that happened! Go look here!" And that was it. You didn't go on and on and on about your internalized homophobia or the privileged status you have as a cis-gendered individual or anything like that.

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[info]bookshop
2009-04-12 06:29 pm UTC (link)

oh my god, okay, look, if you know anything about my journal you know that this is what i USUALLY do.

the difference is i don't usually have people commenting going "...but what have you actually DONE about this issue besides talking about it?" which creates a very different context.

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(Anonymous)
2009-04-12 06:31 pm UTC (link)
Yes. No argument.

You're also not normally talking about race, which is why it looks like you have major problems when it comes to talking about race.

(Reply to this) (Parent)

[info]lizfu
2009-04-12 06:46 pm UTC (link)
Yaoi and BL manga titles (both Japanese and Western) still come up under searches and are still ranked on Amazon's site. Granted, they're not exactly GLBT literature....

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[info]verstehen
2009-04-12 06:53 pm UTC (link)
You should totally check out the sales rankings on the Playboy stuff. How's that for a wtf decision.

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[info]zanzando
2009-04-12 06:57 pm UTC (link)
I'm just like, calling people on the phone about this, and I bloody hate calling people, but I've exhausted my internet contacts and PEOPLE NEED TO KNOW WTF IS GOING ON.

AUGH. THE RAGE.

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[info]regicidaldwarf
2009-04-12 07:40 pm UTC (link)
I. Just. What the fuck. Will do my best to spread the word.

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[info]daisy_chan
2009-04-12 09:23 pm UTC (link)
Just saw this on F's journal. I'm sickened that I've spent so much money on Amazon over the years.

I just tried searching for 'Unfriendly Fire' and got 'Milk' as the top result, wth. Half way down the results page is the Kindle version. WHAT.

(Reply to this)

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