Amazon Culls "Offensive" Books From Search System 470
Miracle Jones writes "Amazon has instituted an overnight policy that removes books that may be deemed offensive from their search system, despite the sales rank of the book and also irrespective of any complaints. Bloggers such as Ed Champion are calling for a 'link and book boycott,' asking people to remove links to Amazon from their web pages and stop buying books from them until the policy is reversed. Will this be bad business for Amazon, or will their new policies keep them out of trouble as they continue to grow and replace bookstores?"
Re:can anyone coroberate this from a seperate sour (Score:5, Informative)
Seems to be USA only (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Forget the gay nonsense (Score:2, Informative)
A friend of mine has a son who is a major department head at Amazon, and he's gay. So I have to point out this is not a witch hunt against gays.
Just because Amazon happens to employ gay individuals in positions of relative importance does not mean that the company as a whole isn't on an anti-gay witch hunt to appease the religious right-winger nutjobs. A good capitalist will gleefully oppress their own kind to make a profit.
Re:It's Amazon's business (Score:2, Informative)
We will reach the F-451 point when we will still have tons of books in small, dark book stores, and nobody will want to read them.
You mean like this?
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,275840,00.html [foxnews.com]
It Gets Even Better... (Score:5, Informative)
Do a search on 'homosexuality' on the main page of Amazon now. If that's a genuine search result, Amazon has issues above and beyond just delisting books.
Re:Already removed my links. (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Cry me a river (Score:1, Informative)
It absolutely is censorship. The definition of censorship doesn't require it be done by the government.
I do not think that word means what you think... (Score:5, Informative)
Theres a shocker, someone does something you don't agree with so you scream 'censorship by the evil company'.
Ever wonder why normal people don't care about this shit and look at you like your stupid when you whine about it?
Ever hear of the boy who cried wolf?
Just because you don't agree with it doesn't mean its censorship.
From dictionary.com:
censorship [sen-ser-ship] ...
noun
1. the act or practice of censoring.
censor [sen-ser] ...
noun
1. an official who examines books, plays, news reports, motion pictures, radio and television programs, letters, cablegrams, etc., for the purpose of suppressing parts deemed objectionable on moral, political, military, or other grounds.
2. any person who supervises the manners or morality of others.
verb (used with object)
6. to examine and act upon as a censor.
7. to delete (a word or passage of text) in one's capacity as a censor.
(some text censored as irrelevant to the current discussion)
--
Next time, open your mind before you open your mouth.
Re:Surprise. (Score:3, Informative)
that joke only works if the other person was previously established as under 18.
Re:It Gets Even Better... (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Cry me a river (Score:3, Informative)
They didn't delete anything.
They deleted books from the Amazon rankings. RTFA and please try again.
They didn't censor the books, just removed them from the rankings. Since when do the authors have any ownership over the book rankings? Unless an author has a contract with Amazon that says that Amazon is required to have them in the book rankings, I see no problem here. If they do, that's another story. Last I checked they (they == the book rankings) belonged to Amazon and Amazon can do with the rankings (including getting rid of them outright) if they so desire. Maybe you should take your own advice.
Policy Reversed Already? (Score:4, Informative)
I was surfing through Amazon to confirm the story, and sure enough, all the copies of Brokeback Mountain and Lady Chatterley's lover I pulled up had no sales rank figures.
So I called my girlfriend over to see, and when I searched up the same items, I now saw sales ranks on all of them. In fact, digging through now I can't find any items of this sort without sales rank. Including Probst's The Filly [amazon.com], the very item cited in TFA.
Did Amazon reverse this policy in just the last ten minutes?
Re:The best way to combat this: (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Making my son an independent human being (Score:3, Informative)
Yeah, that's really not how it works...
Re:can anyone coroberate this from a seperate sour (Score:5, Informative)
How about going to Amazon [amazon.com] (they have a website) and looking for yourself? Andrew Sullivan's book, Virtually Normal [amazon.com], which is NOT erotica or adult themed has no ranking.
Same for Same-sex Marriage: A Pro and Con Reader [amazon.com]. Which is, as the title suggests, a book concerning the arguments for and against gay marriage.
Same for Love Undetectable [amazon.com].
But his book The Conservative Soul: Fundamentalism, Freedom, and the Future of the Righ [amazon.com] has a ranking, so the delisting is not targeting specific authors, but almost any title that isn't openly hostile to gays has been delisted.
Consider:
101 Frequently Asked Questions About Homosexuality [amazon.com]. No sales rank.
What the Bible Really Says About Homosexuality [amazon.com]. No sales rank.
Homosexuality and Civilization [amazon.com]. No sales rank.
When Homosexuality Hits Home: What to Do When a Loved One Says They're Gay [amazon.com]. No sales rank.
Some more well-known books:
Conduct Unbecoming: Gays and Lesbians in the US Military [amazon.com]. No sales rank. This is one of the definitive histories of gays and lesbians in the US military.
Don't Ask, Don't Tell: Debating the Gay Ban in the Military [amazon.com]. No sales rank.
Major Conflict: One Gay Man's Life in the Don't-Ask-Don't-Tell Military [amazon.com]. No sales rank.
Dont: A Readers Guide to the Militarys Anti-Gay Policy [amazon.com]. No sales rank.
NONE of these have adult themes.
But it's not universal... for example:
A book such as A Parent's Guide to Preventing Homosexuality [amazon.com]. Has a sales rank.
Can Homosexuality be Healed? [amazon.com]. Has a sales rank.
You Don't Have to be Gay [amazon.com]. Has a sales rank.
Now, perhaps there is a perfectly rational explanation, but looking at the evidence, I smell something funny.
Re:Cry me a river (Score:5, Informative)
Evidently, Amazon's starting to stick their "adult" shit in a virtual back room behind a virtual curtain, and his book got fingered in the first wave.
But the books are still available even. It's just that Amazon decided to cordon off adult material into a different section, like many brick and mortar stores. This article should have never been on Slashdot in the first place.
No, you are missing the point (not difficult from the somewhat hysterical FA and inaccurate summary).
Amazon have not stripped sales rankings from adult books, they have stripped ranking from gay and lesbian books.
So 'The Diving Bell and the Butterfly' which has been mistakenly added to the 'Gay and Lesbian' section has no ranking, but 'Naked Lunch' is not is in the 'Gay and Lesbian' section (despite its content being both 'adult' and in many places 'gay'), so gets a ranking.
'Heather has two Mommies' is a children's book, and has no ranking. Whether or not you agree that this book is offensive, you must agree that it is not an 'adult' book.
Few quotes (Score:4, Informative)
Removed material include:
Annie Proulx's Brokeback mountain.
Radclyffe Hall's The Well of Loneliness.
(the only "sex scene" in The Well of Loneliness consists in its entirety of the words "And that night they were not divided.")
Alex Beecroft: False Colours, m/m historical romance, just broken through and ranking in top 10 historical novels-- i.e. non-romance, non-gay-- and then it suddenly disappeared entirely from the rankings. The novel is NOT erotica, contains only one non-explicit sex scene, but the central premise features two male characters falling in love.
Geez...
more: http://community.livejournal.com/meta_writer/11992.html [livejournal.com]
Re:Filtering != Censorship (Score:3, Informative)
Neither dictionary definitions nor common usage of "censorship" require that it be done in secret. I know for example that the UK government censored a paper on terrorism and can even point you at the source of this paper, but it is still on their censored list and they have arrested a UK academic who downloaded it.
Re:Cry me a river (Score:3, Informative)
Search results for Books: Sleeping Beauty [amazon.com]. Well, they aren't doing a very good job with that.
Call off the dogs (Score:1, Informative)