Amazon Culls "Offensive" Books From Search System

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?"

Comments

Re:Surprise.

[Shadow of Eternity]

Apparently leather-fetish nazi self-help materials.

Re:Surprise.

[liquiddark]

Because that's what people are worried about seeing removed.

Cry me a river

[Anonymous Coward]

It's a corporate website that can do anything within the law. FTA;

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.

Re:Cry me a river

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

Ok, this comment comes up every. single. time. Can we please put it to rest?

Yes, Amazon is a business that can do whatever it likes with its website. That doesn't mean that anything it does is immune to criticism, or must be agreed with.

What is it with the "well, $ACTION is legal, so shut up." line of thinking? Sure, if somebody proposes that the Ministry of Fairness, Niceness, and Free Ponies at Taxpayer Expense be called in to save the day, than it is an appropriate response. So long as it is people drawing attention to the issue, and suggesting that others make their displeasure known, it is nothing more than a non-sequitor with a veneer of plausibility.

Re:Cry me a river

[db32]

Uhm...do you have the contact information for the Ministry of Fairness, Niceness, and Free Ponies at Taxpayer Expense? I would like a free pony.

Re:Cry me a river

[Old97]

I agree that though it's Amazon's right to sell or not sell what they want it's also our right to boycott and/or otherwise protest their policy. Nevertheless, it isn't censorship on Amazon's part. Amazon is not a government or other authority or monopoly so we are still free to shop elsewhere and many will. I think it's the people carelessly tossing about inflammatory and inaccurate terms like "censorship" that these folks who annoy you are responding to. Remember, the people who are "offended" are also calling for boycotts and issuing condemnations against retailers who dare to sell things they don't like. That's is there right too. So Amazon has to make a choice as to which group they will choose to offend by not offending the other. The sensitive people who are easily upset by some reading material apparently are better at maintaining a stink and a boycott that we more thick-skinned folks.

Re:Cry me a river

[Anonymous Coward]

Like you said, Amazon can do what it pleases with its business within the law. This is legal. More people are going to thank them for it (myself included) than be upset, thus it is in their financial best interest to keep it. That crap about the MFNFP doesnt make sense.

Its funny to me that when something conservative/moral is legally done, it is discriminitory to those with looser/liberal morals. However, when the conservative/moral people legally protest, they are told to shut up and deal with it.

AC cause i used mod points already

Re:Cry me a river

[Anonymous Coward]

PS

If Amazon suddenly started filtering all religiously themed books, would you guys still be so upset? Methinks not. It would be a lot of "F$#@ religion" and "idiots with invisible friends" talk supporting said change.

Personally, I think the best way is to have an opt in flag on your account. It is not visible to the public, but if you log in (which you have to do anyway to buy it...) then you can choose to include them or not. You get to have your dirty smut, and I dont have to see it flaunted in my face.

I think youtube has that in place, but i dont use youtube very often so im not sure.

Re:Cry me a river

[Anonymous Coward]

Let's try a little experiment..

I don't like these pro-gay comments. I'm going to boycott Slashdot until people stop writing them.

Re:Cry me a river

[Profane MuthaFucka]

Exactly. I just did a search for "cock" and found a pile of excellent materials on Amazon.

What's the fucking problem that people have? Sales ranking? Does that dildo really feel that much better in your asshole when you know it's the North American dildo sales leader?

Re:Cry me a river

[nicolas.kassis]

Yeah sure I agree a safe search isn't a bad idea. Google does it and most don't realize or care but it's plainly displayed when you do a search that it's on or off.

If they removed said books and refused to sell them then it would be worse.

And I would be as annoyed if any books were removed even religious ones but should a safe search include some of the more extreme religious books with more extreme views? It's a slippery slope.

Re:Cry me a river

[Fulcrum of Evil]

Nevertheless, it isn't censorship on Amazon's part. Amazon is not a government or other authority or monopoly so we are still free to shop elsewhere and many will.

It is still censorship, just of their search results. I don't know why it is people think only the gub can censor things.

Re:Cry me a river

[Anonymous Coward]

Think of it this way, you're sticking a moulded rubber cock into your ass that is the most popular rubber cock in North America. Thousands and thousands of identical cocks have been inserted into the anuses of men across the continent. That might be a turn on to some people!

Re:Cry me a river

[mtrachtenberg]

As we lose more and more independent bookstores, Amazon becomes less like a regular business and more like a monopoly. Monopolies DO have more legal responsibilities than regular businesses, because they become many people's only realistic option for obtaining some particular service. When they don't meet their responsibilities, they get (well, they once got) broken up by the government.

Re:Cry me a river

[mvg]

Um, if you had a pony it wouldn't be free.

Re:Cry me a river

[BitZtream]

Consider this a troll, its true but you'll not see it ...

The reason people respond like this is because the only people that care are people like you that have enough time to whine about every little thing a business does that you don't agree with, regardless of why they are doing it or the fact that you haven't bothered to look into it, you just assume 'censorship' and 'evil'.

The only attention you're drawing to it is from other whiney little bitchs on slashdot that are too busy bitching about the fact that everything in the world isn't free and isn't under GPL to actually do anything useful in society.

You should consider picking what you choose to whine about rather than whining about everything, you'll find it far more effective. The way it is now, no one cares about your whining because you're ALWAYS whining about SOMETHING regardless of how large or small it is.

Re:Cry me a river

[Anonymous Coward]

Yep. And so it would be wrong to ask the government to force them to change their policies.

However, consumers are also quite within the law to boycott businesses who's entirely legal activities they don't approve of. In fact, I'd go so far as to say it's the proper course of action.

Re:Cry me a river

[BitZtream]

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.

Re:Cry me a river

[ivan256]

Ok, sure. It shouldn't be immune to criticism, but to call it censorship is a lie.

censorship
            n 1: counterintelligence achieved by banning or deleting any
                      information of value to the enemy [syn: {censoring},
                      {censorship}, {security review}]
            2: deleting parts of publications or correspondence or
                  theatrical performances [syn: {censoring}, {censorship}]

They didn't delete anything. They catered to their primary audience by moving things they may find offensive to another area.

On the other hand, the author who is calling for boycotts is a charlatan for attempting to trick hot-headed, small-minded "do-gooders" into retaliating against Amazon by convincing them that this mythical "censorship" happened.

So yeah, it's legal. Not a good reason to tell people to drop it. But it's also moronic to bitch about this, and that's a really good reason to tell people to drop it. But feel free. Be a sheep. Boycott Amazon because the tags in the story summary told you this was censorship, even though it isn't. 'cause censorship is bad, right?

Re:Cry me a river

[Adrian Lopez]

It's a corporate website that can do anything within the law.

That's why the blogger is calling for a boycott, rather than a lawsuit.

Re:Cry me a river

[Adrian Lopez]

Um, if you had a pony it wouldn't be free.

Hence the Libertarian credo: TANSTAAFP!

Re:Cry me a river

[Anonymous Coward]

know who else was a faggot? HITLE--*gunshot*

Re:Cry me a river

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

Though, if you do get your hands on a pony, you can make a free lunch out of it.

Re:Cry me a river

[Adrian Lopez]

If Amazon suddenly started filtering all religiously themed books, would you guys still be so upset?

I'd be equally as upset. Would you, on the other hand, be quite as dismissive of it as you are now being?

Re:Cry me a river

[Anonymous Coward]

look at you like your stupid

You're not looking so bright yourself, Sparky.

Re:Cry me a river

[Kierthos]

Mmmmm.... pony sandwich.... Mmmmmm

Re:Cry me a river

[Miseph]

If they chose, as a business, simply not to sell it, would that be censorship? If so, every bookstore that doesn't carry everything ever written is engaging in censorship. Does this seem rational to you?

Sorry, but here in the real world, we have to take into consideration that sometimes not everything is appropriate for everyone to see, and being responsible people we make sure that there are proper safeguards to make sure everything works out properly. It's not evil, it's not censorship, and it's DEFINITELY not outrageous or unusual.

Re:Cry me a river

[Anonymous Coward]

The only attention you're drawing to it is from other whiney little bitchs on slashdot that are too busy bitching about ... to actually do anything useful in society.

Don't you have work to do?

Re:Cry me a river

[ibbie]

Ok, this comment comes up every. single. time. Can we please put it to rest? Yes, Amazon is a business that can do whatever it likes with its website. That doesn't mean that anything it does is immune to criticism, or must be agreed with.

Exactly. Criticism is important. How else can they know if something they've done might have been a mistake? One might even go so far as to say it's our responsibility to let them know. And to a business, the biggest criticism one can give is a boycott. There are other book sites online, a lot of them with way better prices. Let Amazon know how you feel, starting with your wallet - and thus make them feel it in theirs.

Capitalism at it's finest. :D

Re:Cry me a river

[Anonymous Coward]

Try www.whitehouse.gov. They seem to be handing out free ponies to one and all these days.

Re:Cry me a river

[Anonymous Coward]

I would like a free pony.

And I'd like a ... oh, wait.

Re:Cry me a river

[Anonymous Coward]

It absolutely is censorship. The definition of censorship doesn't require it be done by the government.

Re:Cry me a river

[db32]

Now I want to go read The Moon is a Harsh Mistress again. Throwing ponies would have made that book way better.

Re:Cry me a river

[Eternal Vigilance]

Yeah, you can tell people that 'til you're hoarse....

Wilbur? Wilbur?

Re:Cry me a river

[db32]

Sure it would...you just go back to the Ministry ... Ponies and demand that it isn't fair that you have to pay for anything connected to your free pony and it would be nice if they would pay for all of that too.

Re:Cry me a river

[mvg]

Let me rephrase that. If you had a pony it wouldn't be free *any more*.

Re:Cry me a river

[linhares]

Uhm...do you have the contact information for the Ministry of Fairness, Niceness, and Free Ponies at Taxpayer Expense? I would like a free pony.

Thank you for your interest. Unfortunately, free ponies and free monies are only available to those that control The House, The Senate, and The Executive. Which means of course Goldman Sachs. Thank you for your interest.

Re:Cry me a river

[Anonymous Coward]

But this isn't censorship. They're not blocking access to the material. They're still SELLING the fucking stuff! And is there any actual proof that this was deliberate? In the great rush to judgment, has anyone actually discovered proof this was deliberate?

Regardless, this isn't covered by the 1st amendment. That instrument is designed to protect us from GOVERNMENT censorship. Amazon is a corporation, and is free to shoot themselves in the foot if they so desire. Personally I think this was an accidental screwup, and will give Amazon the benefit of the doubt.

Re:Cry me a river

[TubeSteak]

They didn't delete anything.

They deleted books from the Amazon rankings.
RTFA and please try again.

Re:Cry me a river

[linhares]

That's a pity. I loved their child porn section.

Re:Cry me a river

[atraintocry]

If they did, at least they'd be less hypocritical. The Bible's pretty gruesome.

Re:Cry me a river

[Xaoswolf]

2: deleting parts of publications or correspondence or theatrical performances [syn: {censoring}, {censorship}]

One could say that their best sellers list is a publication. It's not a publication in the traditional sense since it appears online. But other best seller lists have appeared in magazines and the like as well. As they are deleting items from the list, one could indeed view this as a form of censorship.

Re:Cry me a river

[PachmanP]

Mmmmm.... pony sandwich.... Mmmmmm

[voice=tf2 heavy] Nom Nom Nom Nom [/voice]

Re:Cry me a river

[Anonymous Coward]

Twice you fucking bastards. It's "THEIR" not "there".

"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?"

"That's is THEIR right too"

You make me want to fucking puke. If you don't know the difference between "their", "there" and "they're" perhaps you shouldn't be writing things but should instead concentrate on getting your toilet cleaning skills leveled up.

Re:Cry me a river

[pcolaman]

This article should have never been on Slashdot in the first place.

Hi, welcome to Slashdot, you must be new here. Let me show you around.

Re:Cry me a river

[Kral_Blbec]

They owned those rankings. Censorship of self isnt really censorship, its called discretion.

Re:Cry me a river

[fugue]

If they chose, as a business, simply not to sell it, would that be censorship? If so, every bookstore that doesn't carry everything ever written is engaging in censorship.

Sort of, but there are other issues, such as striving to meet demand without overburdening the warehouse.

Sorry, but here in the real world, we have to take into consideration that sometimes not everything is appropriate for everyone to see, and being responsible people we make sure that there are proper safeguards to make sure everything works out properly.

Sorry, who is supposed to take this into consideration? The largest bookstore on the planet skews search results towards an approved reading list--and most people will never know--and you're not even a little worried? Amazon doesn't need the aforementioned warehouse (the fact that they have one for their more popular stuff is moot). But when a corporation hides material that some random group has deemed "offensive", I do not find it obvious that everything is OK. We progress by reading and evaluating the opinions of others, not by sticking our heads in the sand. This seems to be Amazon's tacit endorsement of the head-in-sand approach to acquiring knowledge. Not exactly censorship in the strictest sense, but not obviously "not outrageous" either. If there is material that is not appropriate for me to see, do you really think that Amazon is well-equipped to make that decision for me?

Re:Cry me a river

[pcolaman]

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.

Re:Cry me a river

[pcolaman]

Except that the list is published by Amazon, so it's not censorship if you are doing it to yourself.

Re:Cry me a river

[laughingcoyote]

Amazon can certainly choose to do this. No one is arguing that this is not within their rights.

On the other hand, it's my right to choose not to purchase from them because they do it, and to buy from booksellers who do not censor based on content. And that's a choice I intend to make. From the comments I've seen thus far on the issue, here and elsewhere, I also don't believe I'm the only one. When I want a book on a subject, I want to see every book available and decide for myself what I wish to read. I'm quite capable of deciding that for myself, and don't need or want Amazon or anyone's "help" in keeping "offensive" material hidden.

Just because what a company is doing is legal doesn't mean it's the right choice, or that their customers will tolerate it. Amazon would also be perfectly well within the law to triple all their prices, but that doesn't mean they wouldn't lose business from it.

And it's certainly legal for anyone who wishes to bring attention to the practice.

Re:Cry me a river

[Profane MuthaFucka]

I may have to devise an experimental series. My uninformed judgement may have been hasty.

Re:Cry me a river

[FatdogHaiku]

Well, let's just ski on down that slippery slope. I'm pretty sure we can find some large, athletic women who would find the word "Amazon" offensive... said women should request that any search results returning links to any page with this unacceptable word on it be removed from site...

Re:Cry me a river

[vajorie]

It's a corporate website that can do anything within the law. FTA;

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.

this apologetic corporate-smelling reply --a minion of sorts-- should have never been on my screen, but... evidently... shit happens... and life goes on.

Re:Cry me a river

[logicnazi]

Safe search is a misnomer. It really should be called "reasurring search" since it's not designed to be safe (that might involve sexual content if studies showed it didn't cause harm) but rather to reassure parents. There is no 'slippery slope' because there is nowhere to fall. Safe search means showing whatever results the mainstream view thinks of as acceptable.

Re:Cry me a river

[mathfeel]

I dont' fault Amazon on this one, but how about include a checkbox that says "Include Adult material" at the search engine?

Just like those useless "Click only if are above 18" button.

Re:Cry me a river

[logicnazi]

No it's not censorship but people use that word since it's the closest concept that we can readily name.

If CNN decided to only run stories about corruption allegatons against democrats that also wouldn't be censorship but yet in such a case we clearly should boycott CNN for abandoning journalistic integrity. There is an implicit expectation the news organizations stay objective and clearly delineate editorial material and we patronize a news outlet partially because we think they maintain this trust. When a news organization fails to do that we rightly feel ill served, even deceived and reasonably choose to and encourage others to patronize other news outlets.

The situation with bookstores, particularly online, is much the same. While there isn't a code of bookstore ethics analogous to journalistic ethics we have a similar expectation of being told when information is being deliberately hidden from us. So similarly if one cares about this kind of transparency it's reasonable to encourage people to only use stores that live up to this.

 

Re:Cry me a river

[Xaoswolf]

Sorry, that's not in the definition.

The does not give any requirements as to who writes the document, only that it has parts deleted.

Re:Cry me a river

[Anonymous Coward]

It's a corporate website that can do anything within the law. FTA;

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.

http://www.sexy-lena.com/?uid=386615

Re:Cry me a river

[pcolaman]

I guess I should have rephrased it. It's not censoring anyone else when you are censoring your own authored document. In other words, they are censoring only themselves, no one else. And really, they are not breaking any laws, not committing any contract violations that I am aware of (I'm pretty sure that in their contracts with authors and publishers that they retain the right to remove a book from their listings at any time for any reason). In other words, the people who care can boycott, the people who don't care can move on with life. This isn't a "Big Brother silences the little guy." This is "Big business ignores a segment of their customer base in favor of another segment of their customer base."

Re:Cry me a river

[AK Marc]

They didn't delete anything.

They deleted their own search results based on "morality."

Re:Cry me a river

[mellon]

So. Amazon. Lesbian women warriors. Amazon.com. A company named *after* lesbian women warriors. Amazon.com is anti-GLBT. Riiiiight.

Come one, folks. Slashdot readers are supposed to be geeks. Can't you tell a systematic gaming of an automated system when you see one?

By all reports, there have been a few cases of this happening since February (testing), and then a sudden spike in the week leading up to Easter. Which is when everybody who's competent is out of town.

So if you really want to know who's behind this, it's whoever's been shorting Amazon. Expect them to make a killing on Monday when the stock market opens.

Re:Cry me a river

[Failed Physicist]

You are trying to disrupt the discussion with your apparently fake definition. That, or you only quoted the part which suited you.

From Merriam-Websters:
Censorship:
1 a: the institution, system, or practice of censoring b: the actions or practices of censors ; especially : censorial control exercised repressively
Censoring:
  to examine in order to suppress or delete anything considered objectionable ; also : to suppress or delete as objectionable

Note the usage of the word suppress. Even if they did not delete it it still constitutes censorship since they are deliberately trying to diminish the availability of the material.
Also note that it isn't only Merriam-Websters that agrees with this definition.

From wikipedia:
Censorship is the suppression of speech or deletion of communicative material which may be considered objectionable, harmful or sensitive, as determined by a censor.

Re:Cry me a river

[erinhalfelven]

Nope. They are not limiting it to books with adult material, also any books with any gay, lesbian, bi or trans content. It's suppression of literature dealing with a wide area of human experience. It's exactly as if they banned all Romance novels from appearing in bestseller lists -- except that since they picked on the GLBT community, they think that is okay. It's equating ALL discussion and literature about GLBT subjects with smut and porn.

Re:Cry me a river

[Ihmhi]

Well, I know the office is located right next to The Fireworks, Candy, and Puppy Dog Store.

Re:Cry me a river

[cthulhu11]

OK, show of hands: how many reading this support Amazon's continued practice of selling cock- and dog-fighting how-to materials?

Re:Cry me a river

[Chmcginn]

OK, show of hands: how many reading this support Amazon's continued practice of selling cock- and dog-fighting how-to materials?

While cockfighting is still legal in a few states, last time I checked, dogfighting is illegal in every state. So this would more apply to a question of whether or not 'Assassin's Guide' type books should be sold, not erotic literature.

Re:Cry me a river

[radio4fan]

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.

Re:Cry me a river

[1u3hr]

They didn't censor the books, just removed them from the rankings. Since when do the authors have any ownership over the book rankings?

The issue is that Amazon is presenting rankings which do not represent the actual situation. They have had books arbitrarily excluded that would have ranked highly. And apparently there is no way to click "I'm a grown up, show me the real rankings" (as Google's "Safe search" can be disabled). They're just gone.

And it's important because Amazon is the dominant online bookshop. If a Site in Utah only wanted to be all "think of the children", and made it a selling point, that would be fine. But Amazon is so big that it excluding any titles will have devastating effect.

Re:Cry me a river

[Toonol]

No; but it's a freedom when private parties do it. It's a restriction of freedom when the government does it. The two are related, but shouldn't be equated to each other.

Re:Cry me a river

[Anonymous Coward]

So a sociology textbook like "The Sexual Politics of Disability" is smut that deserves to be cordoned off in some adults-only ghetto?

Re:Cry me a river

[Anonymous Coward]

Ahh not quite, there is a differnce between "don't have it" and "won't sell it".

Especially of note is that when I walk into my local bookstore if the answer is "don't have it" Its almost always followed by the question "Would you like us to order that for you?" (thats how I got my box set of The Dark is Rising Sequence) Very rarely I hear some variation on the 'discontinued' theme.

The differnce here is a matter of what they thought they could sell. Once they found out someone (namely me) wanted to buy it, they were quite happy to sell it to me.

Amazon on the other hand is specifically targeting a certain subset of books, they claim its 'offencive' content but the fact that a great deal of heterosexual literature was unaffected speaks volumes about what was really going on.

And the final point is that much like Microsoft or Ebay, Amazon's sheer size in its market means their decisions have a significant impact on that market that far outweighs just a single businesses decisions. So the argument that they can do whatever they want isn't quite correct. When one has the ability to impact major portions of society with your decisions you are held to a higher standard than the average joe.

Of course theres also those pesky anti-discrimination laws, so whatever Amazon's intent may have been by letting users flag the content without proper review they ended up with all the close minded bigots deciding what was 'offencive' and naturally their idea of intolerable content differs greatly from the rest of society. Bottom line, even if they didn't mean to if the policy gives the appearance of discriminating against gays they are in deep shit anyway.

Re:Cry me a river

[MartinSchou]

I think of it more along the lines of "safe for work", not "reasuring".

Re:Cry me a river

[pimpimpim]

I'm quite offended with all those pro-evolution books that are in amazon's page ranking, why is there not a warning label on the amazon page that evolution is just an idea, and there are other, more religiously correct theories?

Re:Cry me a river

[Hognoxious]

He means free as in the way the wind blows and the grass grows.

Now I can't get that damn tune out of my head. Thanks a bunch, moron.

Re:Cry me a river

[Hognoxious]

Self censorship is still censorship.

Re:Cry me a river

[smchris]

But it's _sex_ for gosh sakes. Censoring sex is as American as apple pie and unprovoked wars of aggression.

Re:Cry me a river

[Jesus_666]

And Amazon does base the decision of what's deemed offensive based on which criteria? I hope it's local rating systems like the BPjM the FSK or the USK in Germany, the PEGI in Europe and the ESRB or the MPAA rating in the USA. Rstricting search results based on such ratings is okay, as long as adults can reactivate them. Arbitrary restrictions, however, are not okay. We already have rating systems in place and I don't see how Amazon's decisions would be superior to theirs.

Re:Cry me a river

[Anonymous Coward]

This is just another gay sicko screaming "Look at ME, ME !!!! What about ME!!! I'm NORMAL I tell you!!!"

That's what gays do.
They are less than 1% of the male population.
Where are all the 'normal' gay people?
When I go out to my local shopping centre, I see hundreds of heterosexual couples. Hundreds, every day.
I have yet to see ONE gay 'couple', or even two men together who I think MIGHT be 'gay'.

Why is that? It's because the vast majority of gay men have anonymous sex with hundreds of partners during their lifetimes, and are incapable of forming normal relationships. What's the surprise? Being 'gay' is hardly normal.

Re:Cry me a river

[WolfWithoutAClause]

Actually in the UK we have the Office of Fair Trading although it is non-ministerial (at Taxpayer's expense), and the advertising group the Advertising Standards Agency (at advertisers expense).

They both seem to have unaccountably quickly run out of ponies in the rush since they were offered 12 days ago though.

Re:Cry me a river

[Anonymous Coward]

The act of incorporating is to legally create a corporate body from a company, giving it the acting status of a person. If we say that a corporation can do whatever it wants, without regard for morals, in the name of making a profit, then what we have really created is a legal person without conscience who only looks out for itself. In short, we have created a psychopath.

Re:Cry me a river

[Anonymous Coward]

There is no such thing as a free lunch.

Re:Cry me a river

[Golddess]

I'm guessing you mean "free as in speech" and not "free as in beer".

Re:Cry me a river

[sesshomaru]

It's just that Amazon decided to cordon off adult material into a different section, like many brick and mortar stores.

Search results for Books: Sleeping Beauty. Well, they aren't doing a very good job with that.

Re:Cry me a river

[Golddess]

If they chose, as a business, simply not to sell it, would that be censorship?

Simply deciding not to sell something does not automatically equate to censorship. If it was a business decision to not sell, generally not censorship. If it was a moral decision to not sell, generally it could be called censorship.

However, as an example, if a Christian bookstore refuses to stock pornography, it would not be censorship, even though you could make a case that it is a moral decision.

But Amazon doesn't claim to be a Christian bookstore, or a children's bookstore, or any other specific type of bookstore. They are simply a bookstore. And in this instance, it does look like censorship. TFS makes it sound like there's no option to say "include 'offensive' books in my searches", you have to know the book exists. Maybe that's not how this change works, but if that is how it is, then yes, I would qualify that under censorship.

Re:Cry me a river

[Kynde]

And I would be as annoyed if any books were removed even religious ones but should a safe search include some of the more extreme religious books with more extreme views? It's a slippery slope.

I find _all_ of the religious ones quite offensive and I think a safe search should not include any of them either. There. And while we're at it, I particularly don't any computer books that target microsoft followers, they could go, too. And music, come on, there's nothing "safe" in rnb, just can't stand that shite. And ...

Re:Cry me a river

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm a level 46 Toilet Cleaner and even *I* know the difference.

Instead of toilet cleaning skills for the ignorant, perhaps the rest of us should work the cash registers at McDonald's for a couple of days so we can master the pictographs that these imbeciles are apparently using to communicate.

Picture of hamburger + picture of dog = time to feed the dog. Or is it time to eat the dog...?
Ugh. Damn ignorant kids and their pictographs, anyway.

Re:Cry me a river

[mopower70]

Sorry, who is supposed to take this into consideration? The largest bookstore on the planet skews search results towards an approved reading list--and most people will never know--and you're not even a little worried?

Skews WHAT search results? Sales rankings? I search for Nabokov's "Lolita" and it shows up just fine. They're not hiding it. They're not preventing me from buying it. What makes you think you have a RIGHT to see their sales rankings information anyway? Get off your overinflated high-horse of entitlement and just take your business somewhere else if it bothers you. But don't try to pretend your rights have been trampled just because someone else's business changes what and how much information they choose to share with you.

Re:Cry me a river

[Civil_Disobedient]

It's just that Amazon decided to cordon off adult material into a different section

Except that it's not adult material they decided to censor. It's any book that's pro-gay rights. That's why books like The Advocate College Guide for LGBT Students and Who's Who in Gay and Lesbian History were removed while "real" adult stuff like Playboy titles went unscathed.

Unless you're one of those nuts that's paranoid about the "Homosexual Agenda".

Re:Cry me a river

[ivan256]

You are trying to disrupt the discussion with your apparently fake definition.

Simpler explanation: I used a different dictionary than you. (Wordnet 2.0, FYI. Just because it's free and on my computer)

Regardless, whether the material is being "suppressed" is subjective and contextual.

Re:Cry me a river

[Anonymous Coward]

There's no such thing as a free lunch - it's just a question of "who pays?"

In this case I think the pony pays.

Re:Cry me a river

[alelade]

Ok, we can agree it is not censorship, only redaction of their own work. And they do not violate their contract with authors since you are pretty sure it is in their contract with authors. Still there is another contract they violate. They have an unwritten agreement with their customers that those listings reflect sales of the books on the site, that users can make an informed decision based on behaviour of other customers like themselves. And IANAL, but i am pretty sure unwritten contracts are as binding as written ones.

Re:Cry me a river

[pcolaman]

Perhaps Amazon needs to have a separate sales indicator just for adult books. Could solve both problems in one.

Re:Cry me a river

[Anonymous Coward]

look at you like your stupid

You're not looking so bright yourself, Sparky.

What, the english is fine once you understand that GP assumes you have a Stupid, and your Stupid has a certain way of looking at you, and now normal people look at you the same way...

Re:Cry me a river

[navyjeff]

I think he means "free as in ponies".

Re:Cry me a river

[syousef]

Uhm...do you have the contact information for the Ministry of Fairness, Niceness, and Free Ponies at Taxpayer Expense? I would like a free pony.

It was renamed the "Ministry of Silly Walks". Try under that name.

Re:Cry me a river

[pcolaman]

I think you are right in that Amazon needs to have some sort of "Disable Safe Search" feature and I think it would help appease both sides. But that feature would also have to filter the book rankings as well.

Re:Cry me a river

[GMFTatsujin]

"Ok, this comment comes up every. single. time. Can we please put it to rest?"

As long as the OMG BOYCOTT ZING crowd keeps up their end of the conversation, the STFU ITS LEGAL crowd will keep up theirs.

Thanks for holding up your end too: the "oh god this argument is so old" part. Now that I've played my part as well, I expect the Godwin response to follow soon.

And so the great /. wheel turns once again...

Re:Cry me a river

[mea37]

Controlling what you yourself say is not censorship.

Amazon is not a platform from which others are offered a chance to speak. It is a store. What products it sells, or how it markets and presents those products, may have the side-effect of propagating others' speech, but that is not the purpose; the purpose is to make money.

If anyone is "speaking" or "expressing" anything by the content or organization of Amazon's catalogue, it is Amazon. Limiting the ease of finding certain material may (or may not) be foolish, bad business, or a million other negative things; but it is not censorship.

Re:Cry me a river

[aynoknman]

Uhm...do you have the contact information for the Ministry of Fairness, Niceness, and Free Ponies at Taxpayer Expense? I would like a free pony.

I would like some Fairness and Niceness, and think that it would be a good expenditure of my tax dollars

Re:Cry me a river

[Fulcrum of Evil]

Controlling what you yourself say is not censorship.

Sure it is. Of course, filtering objectionable material from a search result is more what I was thinking of. Google does it, but it's an optional feature. I can't turn off Amazon's version.

Re:Cry me a river

[nametaken]

Yes people, it's censorship. You've just been conditioned to think that's a naughty word.

I think we can agree that censorship of your political speech is bad.

I think we can also agree that censoring your language around children isn't necessarily bad.

Now if a company decides they don't want their adult products to show up in search results, is that bad?

Anyway... that's the discussion at hand. Should people boycott Amazon because they hid their adult materials? Did they do a bad job of selecting what materials are deemed 'adult'? Those things we can discuss. The argument about whether or not it's censorship is silly.

Re:Cry me a river

[Slumdog]

There's a saying Lions have: you don't look a gift horse in the mouth. You eat it.

Re:Cry me a river

[Slumdog]

Uhm...do you have the contact information for the Ministry of Fairness, Niceness, and Free Ponies at Taxpayer Expense?

Ayn Rand is overestimated. I don't know whats up with so many people subtly pushing her agenda on slashdot these days.

Re:Cry me a river

[Hurricane78]

It's because people are taught to not think for themselves and blindly follow the rules from a very early age.
They are not taught to not cross the road when there could be cars running over them. They are taught to not cross them because the light is red.
They are not taught to not do something because it is wrong. They are taught to not do it because the law forbids it.

So they never develop a own system of values, never learn that rules are just made-up and relative to the enforceable area, and end up thinking like that.
It's sad, pathetic, and I hope I can protect my children from it.

Re:Cry me a river

[Znork]

not everything is appropriate for everyone to see

Certainly. Personally I regard anything religious as being damaging to mental health (ranging from the extreme hardcore of scientology and other sects, through the monotheists, to the less offensive philosophy-bordering buddhism), and would rather not see young people exposed to such unhealthy materials. And hey, considering the lack of people killing each other in the name of Gay, my list appears to have more solid underpinnings for what's 'inappropriate'.

So if you think that some things are not appropriate for everyone to see (as opposed to not appropriate/mandatory for everyone to show, which may have specific reasons), then come up with reasonable answers to one of these:

* Scientific criteria for what should be considered 'inappropriate' and why. (ie, actual quantifiable demonstrations of 'harm' caused by the viewing of the material)
* An explanation why some specific groups definition of 'inappropriate' should take precedence over every other groups definition of 'inappropriate'
* An agreement that I'm the one who gets to have the final word on what is offensive and inappropriate. I'd be ok with that. I'm not sure that everyone else would be, but then again, personally I wouldn't be the one insisting that everyone should only get to see what I say they should see.

Re:Cry me a river

[Hurricane78]

Whoops. I meant to say "They are not taught to not do something because they think it is wrong."

Re:Cry me a river

[mea37]

"Sure it is."

Oh, is it? So for example, you've chosen not to say "Amazon isn't censoring", and therefore you are engaged in censorship?

Nope. When you stretch a term to include every behavior you don't like, the result is that it no longer means anything.

"Of course, filtering objectionable material from a search result is more what I was thinking of"

You've left out some key words, masking the fact that this is, indeed, merely a way in which the search engine operators control what they themselves say.

You submit a search query to Amazon -- this is you asking a question.

Amazon returns a result -- this is Amazon answering your question, i.e. Amazon saying something to you.

Any detail of the algorithm Amazon uses to come to its response -- including 'run algorithm X and then drop out certain results that algorithm would return' -- is merely Amazon choosing what to say.

Re:Cry me a river

[fugue]

You misunderstood me. I don't think I have a right to it. That doesn't mean I believe that it can't possibly cause any harm.

In some countries you don't have the right to criticise the government, or to marry whom you love, or to drink beverages that have been exposed to yeast for a while. Perhaps those don't worry you either?

Re:Cry me a river

[Anonymous Coward]

Just make sure your methodology is sound. Don't go pulling numbers out of your ass.

Re:Cry me a river

[Beezlebub33]

My rights have not been trampled. I have been (purposefully) misinformed. They labeled a feature on their web site 'sales ranking' and then provide a list that does not represent their sales ranking. They have removed books that (they feel) are "inappropriate". I think that this is mildly wrong and misleading.

It would be more honest and accurate for them to either include an asterisk saying what they have done, or include a button with which I can say "Add the porn back in". Because, frankly, I am interested in seeing how the porn ranks, and I'd rather read higher quality porn than lower quality porn. And, yes, I know that rankings are not necessarily correlated with quality, but it's a step in the search.

Re:Cry me a river

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh thank GOD. Bye!

Re:Cry me a river

[Hotawa Hawk-eye]

Is that the one that's three doors down from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms? [Dammit, that _should_ be the name of an actual store.]

Re:Cry me a river

[computational super]

Modded "-1, Potential Republican", I see...

Re:Cry me a river

[neomunk]

Well, think of it this way, many people rely on Amazon's ranks as part of their "should I buy this" equation. This breaks that.

Actually, a specific analogy struck me as I read this that I think might let some people see it from another point of view. How would you feel if Amazon contacted Gallup or Ipsos to get reviews for them from Amazon's userbase, then after they saw those results chucked many of them out (including many high-ranking ones) and released the edited list as accurate. I know that -I'D- feel like Amazon was acting in the same manner as a politician, would be curious to know WHY, and would (of course) assign a very low trust factor to Amazon in the future. I'm not the type to accept spoon-feeding thank you, unless I step to a spoon-feeding trough of my own accord (you know, like the news channels). I assume that a significant chunk of Amazon's regular userbase may feel the same way (avid readers are more likely to be independent thinkers, IMHO)

Re:Cry me a river

[computational super]

Nevertheless, it isn't censorship on Amazon's part.

Ok, what is it then? What word describes the process of "removing material that one personally finds offensive"? I would have picked "censorship", but you seem to be so certain that that doesn't describe what Amazon is doing, what does?

Re:Cry me a river

[DangerFace]

You submit a search query to Amazon -- this is you asking a question.

Amazon returns a result -- this is Amazon answering your question, i.e. Amazon saying something to you.

Any detail of the algorithm Amazon uses to come to its response -- including 'run algorithm X and then drop out certain results that algorithm would return' -- is merely Amazon choosing what to say.

Except that when you ask Amazon a question about Amazon, you could reasonably expect that if they are aware of the answer they would either tell you the answer or not. Them choosing not to answer, or to answer "Go away, we don't want to tell you." is well within their rights. No one is saying it isn't. When they intentionally add an algorithm simply for the purpose of lying without so much as a footnote or a ToS notification that is pretty bad.

As a bad car analogy, you walk into the dealer's place and say you want to buy the car he sells the most of. He thinks "Well, the answer is Car A, but I already sell lots of those. If I try to sell him Car B I might make more money, so I will say Car B." He then sells you Car B. The dealer has acted immorally in this case, even if the car he sold you was better. Freedom of speech and freedom to lie about business practice are very, very different issues and should not get mixed up.

Re:Cry me a river

[ShieldW0lf]

The entire justification for the free market is that people who don't approve won't overrule you by vote, and they won't kill you for what you're doing, they'll just stop doing business with you and ostracize you, and thus everything will get better by reason of evolutionary forces.

Yet people who are pro-free-market always get their panties in a wad whenever people start suggesting that this or that company ought to be boycott for what they're doing.

What the fuck is up with that?

Re:Cry me a river

[bugi]

Who do I sue when my neighbors' free ponies trigger my horse allergy and send me into anaphylactic shock?

Re:Cry me a river

[bugi]

It's part of the stimulus package, to give all those equine science majors something to do.

Re:Cry me a river

[SiChemist]

Do you not understand the meaning of the term "Flamebait"?

Re:Cry me a river

[bannerman]

You don't have to play on semantics man. "Safe" search in the case of Google is in the context of work safe or relatively safe from offensive crap. It would take a great idiot to misunderstand that.

Re:Cry me a river

[Old97]

It's a business decision about what products they choose to sell and what customers they choose to cater to. It is in no way their intention to deny you access to certain books. They just choose not to be the ones to sell them. What would you call it if a vegan grocery store chooses not to sell meat?

Re:Cry me a river

[Anonymous Coward]

...lunch? What about glue?

Re:Cry me a river

[ultranova]

This article should have never been on Slashdot in the first place.

Why? Is Slashdot not a corporate website that can do anything within the law? Or does that only apply to whoever pays your bills, astroturfer?

Re:Cry me a river

[Miseph]

Really? I asked a Barnes & Noble to order me a copy of "Big Booty Hustlas Part 4" in paperback and they wouldn't... seriously though, my girlfriend has asked them about certain legitimate photography books and they've said no on the grounds that they believe it to be too inflammatory or pornographic. They were happy to direct us to some places that would sell it, but their management simply decided that they were not willing to sell those books because it would be potentially harmful to their business if they did. They aren't calling for the book to be banned, or restricting others from selling it, they just aren't willing to sell it themselves. it just can't bring myself to the point of calling that censorship, not least because I think doing so would water down what we mean by that term so as to make it trivial.

"Sorry, who is supposed to take this into consideration? The largest bookstore on the planet skews search results towards an approved reading list--and most people will never know--and you're not even a little worried? Amazon doesn't need the aforementioned warehouse (the fact that they have one for their more popular stuff is moot). But when a corporation hides material that some random group has deemed "offensive", I do not find it obvious that everything is OK. We progress by reading and evaluating the opinions of others, not by sticking our heads in the sand. This seems to be Amazon's tacit endorsement of the head-in-sand approach to acquiring knowledge. Not exactly censorship in the strictest sense, but not obviously "not outrageous" either. If there is material that is not appropriate for me to see, do you really think that Amazon is well-equipped to make that decision for me?"

So because Amazon is large, they are forbidden the right to do business as they see fit? Did I fall asleep and not being able to easily locate something on Amazon somehow became tantamount to the Final Solution? They don't even come close to being a monopoly, and people most certainly noticed this change immediately. Heaven forbid I ever open a bookstore and become successful, because when I refuse to sell the latest Ann Coulter Conservative erotica novel or the Westboro Baptist approved biography of the Right Reverend Fred Phelps or the New edition of Mein Kampf now with extra Jew-hate on the grounds that I feel it is simply repugnant to my morals I too will be a censor.

I find the notion that Amazon should ever be forced to sell anything in a way which they do not wish to be far more reprehensible than the idea that they might choose not to sell something based on grounds which are malevolent or ignorant. In response, of course, I can continue to not buy anything from them (my total amount spent at Amazon during the last 12 months: $0.00).

Re:Cry me a river

[ultranova]

Controlling what you yourself say is not censorship.

It might be self-censorship, depending on what is being omitted and why. And while Amazon isn't there yet, at some point a large enough corporation has de facto power to decide what people can or can't see and is quite capable of censorship - if it isn't on Google, it isn't on the Web.

A small cornerstore is free to decide on its own what it will or will not carry. A large corporation, however, wields power close to that of a government, and thus must be held accountable for use and abuse of that power. You can't give an elephant the same freedom to run around wild in a porcelain shop you can give to a mouse.

Re:Cry me a river

[mea37]

I'm not arguing whether it's good or bad what Amazon is doing. To me that's a matter of opinion in which I have no interest in swaying others.

I'm arguing whether it's censorship. As I said before, it may be a lot of things, but it is not censorship.

Re:Cry me a river

[ultranova]

Yet people who are pro-free-market always get their panties in a wad whenever people start suggesting that this or that company ought to be boycott for what they're doing.

What the fuck is up with that?

Most pro-free-market types are actually pro-corporation types who hide behind bullshit about freedom.

Already removed my links.

[palegray.net]

I removed all Amazon affiliate links from my sites some time ago for unrelated reasons: extremely low CTR (even on highly relevant articles), "funny" reporting on their stats system that didn't jive with my internally monitored figures, and crappy support.

This gives me yet another reason to steer people away from their programs.

Re:Already removed my links.

[TubeSteak]

I removed all Amazon affiliate links from my sites some time ago for unrelated reasons: extremely low CTR (even on highly relevant articles), "funny" reporting on their stats system that didn't jive with my internally monitored figures, and crappy support.

Those reasons might inflame nerds and business people, but even semi-censoring sex is something guaranteed to inflame vast swaths of society.

As always, the best way to effect change is through directed complaints to the company and more importantly, to Amazon's advertisers and partners.

Re:Already removed my links.

[qengho]

Yeah, I gave up on Amazon when it started throwing its weight around in the print-on-demand arena. It's become as big a market-distorting force as Wal-mart, and I don't feel like supporting them anymore.

Re:Already removed my links.

[eck011219]

MOD PARENT UP, please!

I work every day with self-publishing authors, and Amazon's recent policies have completely blown away the concept that you could spend your money, get your books, sell your books, and make your millions. Now your MANUFACTURING PROCESS, not only your book itself, has to be approved by (and provided by) Amazon to be considered valid. Now you have to use Amazon's self-publishing arm (BookSurge) if you want your self-published book to be listed on Amazon. That's wrong on the surface, but when you dig deeper you find that they provide crappy product at prohibitive pricing, too.

Amazon can do what it wants, I suppose, but it's screwing a lot of earnest authors who are trying to make a name for themselves and haven't, for whatever reason, been able to sell their book to a royalty publisher. As I understand it, the "Chicken Soup For the Soul" series started as a self-published book -- say what you will about it, but it certainly spoke to a lot of people. That series would have never gotten off the ground under the current situation -- Amazon has taken control of the online bookselling world, and you are required to use their crappy services to produce your book if you want to sell it there. I'm sure this doesn't legally constitute a monopoly, but it's sure bad behavior given what Amazon used to say it was.

Personally, I think Amazon has lost sight of what it started out to be -- a community of book lovers. (I'm not just making this up -- I was at a Jeff Bezos keynote where he said this very thing.) Again, they can do what they please, but I was done spending money there when they began to discriminate against non-Amazon self-publishing authors.

Re:Already removed my links.

[Jesus_666]

Personally, I think Amazon has lost sight of what it started out to be -- a community of book lovers.

What it started out to be is irrelevant. Important is what it is now: A publicly-traded company. Thus, any love for books or decency takes the back seat to the one rule, which would supersede even God himself: Increase shareholder value for the next quarter. It doesn't matter if you ruin entire industries doing it, shareholder value absolutely, positively has to increase.

Re:Already removed my links.

[bwalling]

Costco is publicly traded and does not behave in this manner. It's part of why I shop there.

Re:Already removed my links.

[Jesus_666]

Apparently nobody has yet had the idea of making money by suing them for not slavishly catering to shareholder value. With lawsuits being considered a valid business concept, I'd expect that to change, though.

Re:Already removed my links.

[Anonymous Coward]

Wouldn't work. A lot of Costco members (like bwalling and myself) shop there specifically because they treat their employees (and customers) better than the other monstro-marts. If they tried to be more like WalMart, I'd leave.

Re:Already removed my links.

[winwar]

"Costco is publicly traded and does not behave in this manner."

Only because the CEO ignores its shareholders on this issue and wants to create a long term relationship with its customers. The company takes crap from large shareholders about not making as much money as it could.

Re:Already removed my links.

[bwalling]

As far as I'm concerned, he's a model for how other CEOs should run their companies. The stock market is too short sighted and has created unsustainable business practices focused only on the current quarter.

I smell something.

[Gordonjcp]

Smell's coming from under that bridge there. Can't quite place it...

Re:I smell something.

[larry bagina]

Probably just cowboy neil. I gave him some soap and deodorant for his birthday but he didn't get the hint.

Re:I smell something.

[Anonymous Coward]

It's sort of nitpicky, but it's Neal, like Neal Cassady. "Cowboy Neal at the wheel / of the bus to never-never land..."

At least, I have to figure that's where it comes from.

Re:I smell something.

[Anonymous Coward]

Smell's coming from under that bridge there. Can't quite place it...

Pink troll snot??

Re:I smell something.

[Gordonjcp]

Could be. Smells a bit like troll and... hair products.

The new reality

[ringbarer]

There was a time when we'd trust our collective knowledge to impartial institutions like libraries.

The gestalt of society is now firmly in the hands of corporate interest. Books from Amazon(tm). Friends from Facebook(tm). Meeting for Starbucks(tm). One brand identity after another. As soon as the books offend the brand identity they are stricken from the record.

One day the world will be Disneyland. Forced rictus smile sterility.

And we let it happen.

Re:The new reality

[digitig]

Does your public library have a prominent gay porn section? Mine doesn't seem to, but maybe things are different where you are.

Re:The new reality

[Anonymous Coward]

Does your public library have a prominent gay porn section? Mine doesn't seem to, but maybe things are different where you are.

My library has no prominent porn section of any kind.

On the other hand, my library has plenty of books with erotic content-- hundreds of romances, literate volumes, and some of those have GLBT content.

My library has not dropped "heather has Two Mommies" off its children's shelves. My library has kept titles like "The Well Of Loneliness" in the stacks where it belongs.

Amazon has not only removed gay erotica from it's search results-- it's deleted anything with a GLBT tag, regardless of erotic content. Self help, history, health, psychology.

Re:The new reality

[logicnazi]

Yes, but the important difference is that we expect the local library to be deliberately excluding this kind of racy material. On the other hand if the local library refused to stock novels containing even brief sex scenes with gay sex, anal penetration or teenage sexuality or any other sort of content that one wouldn't normally expect to be excluded I think they are breaching the public trust if they don't make the community aware.

If amazon wants to put the adult books in the back they can go ahead (though some of us might switch to other bookstores) but I think they are breaching the consumer's trust if they do so without warning them.

Re:The new reality

[Anonymous Coward]

The local libraries here in Melbourne have gay books mixed in with the general fiction section (as they should). They also have subscriptions to gay lifestyle magazines like DNA and Blue.

Re:The new reality

[Anonymous Coward]

I can think of a public library which has "sexy" gay books (think queer Mills & Boon), in the general fiction area.

Re:The new reality

[julesh]

Does your public library have a prominent gay porn section? Mine doesn't seem to, but maybe things are different where you are.

No, but then the article mentions several books that aren't gay porn. It seems Amazon *intended* to drop porn from certain listings, but somehow managed to drop all books with gay themes even if they don't contain explicit sex. That's a very disturbing development, as it suggests that somebody in Amazon's categorisation department thinks that anything about homosexuality is offensive.

Re:The new reality

[Anonymous Coward]

Does your public library have a prominent gay porn section? Mine doesn't seem to, but maybe things are different where you are.

This isn't about porn. It's about non-erotic gay-themed books being censored where similar non-gay books aren't.

Re:The new reality

[Anonymous Coward]

Does your public library have a prominent gay porn section?

Your mind has been amazonranked already. Where does that equation gay = gay porn come from?

Re:The new reality

[ultraexactzz]

Does your public library have a prominent gay porn section? Mine doesn't seem to, but maybe things are different where you are.

Mine doesn't either, when last I checked - but it does have nonfiction books that discuss it. It looks like all sorts of books dealing with homosexuality were removed, except for some notable anti-homosexuality texts (such as the aforementioned "Parent's Guide to Preventing Homosexuality"). If the topic is too racy for amazon to sell or rank, fine - but the issue is when the topic is only too racy if the work disagrees with Amazon's stated position (which is apparently "Homosexuality is bad, mmm-kay").

I note also that works such as Mein Kempf are still ranked and available. Surely there are themes there that bear examination?

Re:The new reality

[Walkingshark]

Does your public library have a prominent gay porn section? Mine doesn't seem to, but maybe things are different where you are.

No, but my private library...

Re:The new reality

[BoothbyTCD]

No, but I can go check out Brokeback Mountain and Naked Lunch...

Didn't block for me?

[olddoc]

I used a fresh browser session so I waasn't logged in and I searched for Brokeback Mountain and the Filly and found them both.
Did they change policy?

Re:Didn't block for me?

[kv9]

My god, if they would filter crap like brokedick fountain I would actually use Amazon. I'd consider that an improvement.

you still in the closet?

Re:Didn't block for me?

[Anonymous Coward]

II searched for Brokeback Mountain and the Filly and found them both.

Lack of a customer ranking for an item doesn't keep it from being searchable by name or author, but that's the only way to find said item, so far as I know; it won't come up via keyword. ::braces for storm of corrections::

Re:Didn't block for me?

[liamoshan]

I tried the same search and got a 451 error

Re:Didn't block for me?

[Anonymous Coward]

Evidently not: http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_ss_gw?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=Bible&x=0&y=0

Consistency

[gmuslera]

What they have the books in the 1st place if they dont plan to sell them or at least being locatables?

If some search results requires i.e. over certain age to see them, so be it, but not for every user.

Re:Consistency

[MrMr]

The explanation is called hypocrisy.
That means they will happily accept the money, but they don't want to be seen taking the money by people whose money they also happily accept but also who don't want to be seen giving the money, especially to people who are happy to take the money.
Did that help?

It's Amazon's business

[tftp]

Amazon has no obligation to advertise (or even sell) books that the company considers detrimental to their business. It may be that they will eventually limit themselves to politically correct generic choices that offend no one - but again it's up to them to decide.

This will only create more business opportunities for other people to sell what Amazon doesn't. The barrier of entry into book selling online is very low. Everyone who whines and screams right now should be registering domains and dusting their LAMPs off.

Re:It's Amazon's business

[palegray.net]

Amazon has no obligation to advertise (or even sell) books that the company considers detrimental to their business.

You're absolutely right. That said, their affiliates have no obligation to continue promoting their products if they disagree with Amazon's practices. I won't sell their stuff.

Re:It's Amazon's business

[davidgay]

Amazon has no obligation to advertise (or even sell) books that the company considers detrimental to their business. It may be that they will eventually limit themselves to politically correct generic choices that offend no one - but again it's up to them to decide.

I just hate this mindset, which is rather common here: "Why are you complaining? They're perfectly within their rights to do that!" The rebuttal is trivial: We're perfectly within our rights to rebuke them/boycott them/etc if we don't like their actions. If we're lucky they'll be shamed into acting better and/or decide that what they did was detrimental to their business...

David Gay

Re:It's Amazon's business

[hoskeri]

I just hope we are not on the road to this.

Re:It's Amazon's business

[crossmr]

They very well may if they have any kind of contract with the publisher of the book regarding its promotion or expected visibility.

Re:It's Amazon's business

[Anonymous Coward]

Amazon has no obligation to advertise (or even sell) books that the company considers detrimental to their business.

I agree. There's really no free speech issue because Amazon is not a government agency.

This will only create more business opportunities for other people to sell what Amazon doesn't. The barrier of entry into book selling online is very low. Everyone who whines and screams right now should be registering domains and dusting their LAMPs off.

Well... perhaps if you are Google, Microsoft, Apple, or one of their respective billionaire founders there could be an opportunity. Anyone else who is not a billionaire (full disclosure: I am not a billionaire) would have a tough time convincing a bank or VC to back their competing online bookselling venture.

If you google for online booksellers, it seems that practically all of them leverage Amazon's warehouse, IT systems and distribution in some way. There are probably specialty book retailers out there that don't go through Amazon, but I don't think that was what parent was talking about.

Re:It's Amazon's business

[glwtta]

It may be that they will eventually limit themselves to politically correct generic choices that offend no one - but again it's up to them to decide.

And it's up to their customers to let them know when they make bullshit decisions - what's your point? It's not like anyone is suggesting that they be forced to advertise or sell books they don't want to.

Re:It's Amazon's business

[tftp]

I just hope we are not on the road to [F-451].

Yes, we are, but not because of book stores. We are because people watch TV more and more, and read books less and less. 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, just as today hardly anyone is rushing to read Sumerian clay tablets.

Re:It's Amazon's business

[Anonymous Coward]

It may be their right to do this but isn't it our right to complain about something a business does that we don't like? Isn't that the whole point of "letting the market decide" and all these other values that seem to be sprouted so much on /.?

I don't see a problem with complaining about something a business does when you don't like what your doing.

Everyone who whines and screams right now should be registering domains and dusting their LAMPs off.

It would be a good idea to set up your own alternative, but for most people that is simply an unachievable task. There are already plenty of alternatives already available. Everyone who is "Whining and screaming" now should simply boycott amazon and urge their family and friends to do the same. I know I won't be using amazon again.

Re:It's Amazon's business

[tftp]

It's not like anyone is suggesting that they be forced to advertise or sell books they don't want to.

Here is a quote from the summary:

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.

What does this resemble more - "letting them know" or "forcing them to advertise/sell" ?

Re:It's Amazon's business

[nedlohs]

No shit sherlock, that's why people try to organize a boycott rather than taking them to court.

Re:It's Amazon's business

[Man On Pink Corner]

This will only create more business opportunities for other people to sell what Amazon doesn't. The barrier of entry into book selling online is very low. Everyone who whines and screams right now should be registering domains and dusting their LAMPs off.

Damn straight. This is America. We don't have an oppressive government, right? When one major corporate vendor drops you, you just pick yourself up by your own bootstraps and start a new store yourself. "Find a need and fill it," as Henry Ford and Ron Jeremy would no doubt agree.

So I'll just crank up my Linux/Apache skills and launch a storefront for erotica and other adult content, just like you're saying. Never mind Amazon Payments, I'll accept PayPal instead, and... wait, what?

You mean that any sufficiently-entrenched oligopoly is indistinguishable from an oppressive government?

Who would'a thunk it?

Re:It's Amazon's business

[kimvette]

Likewise, their affiliates and ultimately their customers can voice their opinion and follow up by voting with their wallets, as they are free to do so. Amazon can respond by catering to customer preferences or they can go the way of the dodo.

Re:It's Amazon's business

[fumblebruschi]

So, if I run into the guy who owns one of the two gas stations in my town, and I tell him, "You know, Jim, I use Bill's gas station instead of yours because I can get coffee at his place," I am forcing Jim to start selling coffee?

Re:It's Amazon's business

[Anonymous Coward]

In Sumeria, clay tablets read you.

1. Sumeria
2. Clay tablets
3. ???
4. Profit!

Imagine a Sumerian clay tablet cluster of these!

I, for one, welcome our new Sumerian clay tablet overlords.

All your Sumerian clay tablets are belong to us.

Sumerians with frickin' clay attached to their tablets!

Re:It's Amazon's business

[DirePickle]

...it is customers organizing to display their dismay at the changes. If the customers don't care one way or another, they don't participate. If Amazon is more profitable with the changes and without the angry customers' business, then they are free to keep the changes.

Re:It's Amazon's business

[xigxag]

as I suggested why don't you just create an online book store that competes with Amazon

If it's such a awesomely profitable idea, why don't you do it yourself? Maybe you're already a busy person with a comfortable income? Maybe you're not interested in becoming a bookseller? And not to be overlooked: What happens if/when Amazon changes its mind two months later because a bunch of people disregarded your advice by boycotting, making noise, and shaming Amazon into reconsideration? Likely your little storefront and whatever time, energy and money you devoted to it would be instantly crushed.

Overall, this philosophy you're trying to convince everyone of, that the best response to an enterprise you disagree with is to directly compete with it, is, bluntly put, silly. If you don't like your Senator because she's too religious, you can't just vote against her, you have to run against her? If you don't like the latest blockbuster film because it's got bad science, you can't just be a critic, or warn your friends off, you have to produce and distribute your own film? If you don't like the music that's out there, boycotting the major labels is no good, you have to start your own band? Sure, some people will have the time, the ambition and the talent to make these kinds of responses worthwhile, and perhaps the world would be better if more of us had the courage to do so (although perhaps not...,) but for the vast majority of people it's simply unworkable for one reason or another.

Re:It's Amazon's business

[HereIAmJH]

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

Re:It's Amazon's business

[JoshuaZ]

We are always on the road Fahrenheit 451 and similar situations. Indeed, in the 1950s we had book burnings in the US of comic books and had all sorts of legislation passed against them. Read David Hajdu's "The Ten Cent Plague." Somehow, we've recovered from that point. It isn't a matter of being on the road or not. We are always on the road, we must constantly fight against censorship and there will always be a push for people to censor things they don't like. I believe it was Thomas Jefferson who said "The price of freedom is eternal vigilance."

Re:It's Amazon's business

[tftp]

If it's such a awesomely profitable idea, why don't you do it yourself? Maybe you're already a busy person with a comfortable income? Maybe you're not interested in becoming a bookseller?

Or maybe I'm not interested in those books...

What happens if/when Amazon changes its mind two months later

You will lose two days of work, minus all the profit that you racked up while Amazon was dithering. Besides, what business is free of risk?

this philosophy you're trying to convince everyone of, that the best response to an enterprise you disagree with is to directly compete with it

If you disagree with an online retailer then you can compete with it, and since it surrendered the ground you have a good chance. If you disagree with AT&T you'd be ill advised to go and lay your own cable. Why is it that people so often want universal answers that apply to every single situation? There is no "must" or "have to", you always have options, and your goal is to choose wisely.

Re:It's Amazon's business

[Anonymous Coward]

And I'm perfectly within my rights to make stupid arguments like he did. Isn't free speech awesome? We can go back and forth exercising our inalienable rights all day long!

Re:It's Amazon's business

[ivan256]

Actually, you may not be "within your rights". Look up 'libel'.

Through the "telephone game" we call the internet, it took exactly one hop for this to be called censorship. It's not censorship. Writing that Amazon censored an author and that people should boycott Amazon because said censorship may be libel.

Re:It's Amazon's business

[tftp]

No. However if you start organizing a boycott of his gas station just because when you wanted coffee he had none - then you'll be forcing him to either do as you say, or go out of business. You probably will be sued for tortious interference. Note that Amazon may also file such a lawsuit, and they have money to see it through.

Re:It's Amazon's business

[ivan256]

Bad analogies are bad.

"You know, Jim, I use Bill's gas station instead of yours because he sells "Big Booties" and "Choking on Cock" behind the counter. Even though I never buy them, I respect him for that."

Are you forcing him to start selling the magazines, or are you letting him know that you're totally full of shit and just like protesting stuff?

Re:It's Amazon's business

[ivan256]

A vendor that removes themselves from the market is hardly "entrenched". Much less an oligopoly.

Re:It's Amazon's business

[tftp]

Never mind Amazon Payments, I'll accept PayPal instead, and...

Get yourself a normal Visa c/c processing system. There are thousands of pr0n sites on the Internet, and they all seem to be perfectly capable of charging people's credit cards.

Re:It's Amazon's business

[garett_spencley]

You're both right.

The market is democratic in the sense that it's the ultimate vote. When you buy something you are endorsing that product and the company that makes it. If you don't like it, if it doesn't make your life better in some way, then you don't buy it. Plain and simple.

So yes, the producer has every right to do what it wants with it's property and the consumer has every right likewise. The two statements are not different at all (in reality everyone is a producer and a consumer anyway). You're both making the same point.

Re:It's Amazon's business

[Anonymous Coward]

He's talking about PayPal, not Amazon.

Re:It's Amazon's business

[Anonymous Coward]

since when don't we have an oppressive government? try growing a pot plant sometime and go to prison for owning a plant if you want to find out how free you are. try selling sex too while you're at it.

Re:It's Amazon's business

[glwtta]

What does this resemble more - "letting them know" or "forcing them to advertise/sell"?

I would certainly say that this falls under "letting them know" that this is the sort of thing that will cause some people to stop doing business with Amazon.

It seems like you are saying that while Amazon has the choice to carry whatever they want, their customers shouldn't have the choice to not buy from them? That'd be kinda weird.

Re:It's Amazon's business

[AK Marc]

It's not censorship.

Amazon actively edited results to delete things based on morality. That's censorship.

Re:It's Amazon's business

[Anonymous Coward]

Could you translate those clay tablets into American English, and put them into digital form? I'll be happy to read them.

Errrr, wait. Have I just helped to make your point? The vast unwashed horde will read the tablets when some Hollywood moron decides to make up a story, make up a translation, then put it all on film, right?

Hmmmmm

Doesn't that sound like brainwashing? I guess it would be effective, if the horde had a brain to wash.........

Re:It's Amazon's business

[msormune]

You're not promoting Amazon's stuff. Correct me if I'm wrong, but Amazon does not have stuff, they just sell other people's stuff. By not selling that you are hurting the authors, not Amazon.

Now if you really want to actually make a difference, start by promoting the stuff Amazon refuses to sell, thus helping the authors. If you don't want to do that, you're no better than Amazon and you might want to get off your high horse.

Re:It's Amazon's business

[palegray.net]

By not selling that you are hurting the authors, not Amazon.

I assure you, a significant number of affiliates who immediately remove their links to Amazon's catalog of merchandise will hurt them, especially in a down economy where people simply aren't spending anywhere near what they were two years ago. As for the authors, I sincerely doubt they're depending solely on Amazon to sell their books. As for your last point regarding promoting stuff Amazon refuses to sell, I've already registered a domain and intend to start development work on a site in the next couple of days. I'll gladly take the money they don't want.

Re:It's Amazon's business

[julesh]

Yes, we are, but not because of book stores. We are because people watch TV more and more, and read books less and less.

Interestingly, while the proportion of people reading fiction books in America is declining, the total number is remaining roughly constant. This suggests that there is little danger of reaching a point where almost nobody reads books, ala 451.

Re:It's Amazon's business

[pimpimpim]

Happened in the Netherlands, bol.com became the largest online bookstore, because amazon just couldn't be bothered to cater the Dutch market. Though we have our share of religious fundamentalists in the Netherlands, I don't think amazon will ever make it to the Dutch market successfully with their current attitude. That said, the german version of amazon shows normal books on homosexuality just fine in their first result page, so maybe it's just an US thing.

Re:It's Amazon's business

[msormune]

Well then, good for you, I'm glad you will. As for Amazon, they probably made the calculations: Does removing "offensive" material take away more customers, than keeping the material. Maybe they made the right choice business wise, maybe they didn't. But they made the choice.

I seriously doubt the down economy has much impact in online sales. Maybe the economy has been hit more in the States, but not that much here in Europe.

Re:It's Amazon's business

[palegray.net]

Major corporations "make the calculations" all the time, only to be proven wrong when consumer backlash hits. This is a publicly traded company, and at the end of the day its shareholders care about profits over the morals of others, period.

As for online sales, everything has been hit by the recession. Online sales are far from immune, and have suffered.

Re:It's Amazon's business

[Anonymous Coward]

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, just as today hardly anyone is rushing to read Sumerian clay tablets.

You should go back and re-read F-451. It's short-shouldn't take you but an afternoon. The "problem" in F451 is not that people have simply moved on from one medium to another, as in moving from clay tablets to paper, although that's certainly present. There's a difference between censorship and obsolescence. There's a difference between censorship and economics.

I suppose we should be happy that [country] has been free enough for long enough that so many people fundamentally misunderstand what censorship is. Instead, I'm disappointed that their history and social studies teachers aren't communicating the phenomenon clearly

Re:It's Amazon's business

[Anonymous Coward]

What happens if/when Amazon changes its mind two months later

You will lose two days of work, minus all the profit that you racked up while Amazon was dithering.

Do you even listen to yourself? Jesus Christ! There's a difference between rationalizing a conclusion, and actually thinking, you jackass.

Re:It's Amazon's business

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, honestly, the writing on those tablets wasn't all that good to begin with, so I'll stick to my Dickens, Tolstoy, and Twain.

Re:It's Amazon's business

[ivan256]

It's not censorship in exactly the same way as an adult bookstore not carrying the "Left Behind" series of books isn't censorship.

A vendor catering their search results to the bulk of their customers isn't censorship. There is no reason that Amazon ever needed to carry these books in the first place, much less continue to sell them. And if they stopped, even that wouldn't be censorship.

Re:It's Amazon's business

[Walkingshark]

Fool! Don't you know that if you don't know how to cook and someone bakes you a shit pie you HAVE TO EAT IT!

Re:It's Amazon's business

[AK Marc]

It's not censorship in exactly the same way as an adult bookstore not carrying the "Left Behind" series of books isn't censorship.

Sure, and it's not censorship in exactly the same way that on a navy battleship you can't buy and Ikea bedroom set. Your response is a non-sequitur. The adult store didn't used to carry it, then pull a bestseller (in that category) off the shelf because they thought that such books shouldn't be where people could see them.

A vendor catering their search results to the bulk of their customers isn't censorship.

When it's proven that the "bulk" of their customers who made searches which popped up such results didn't want to see them, then you are right. However, their search results "lie" to the customer, and most customers I know don't enjoy being lied to. I'd prefer more info than I need be available, then I can ignore what I don't want. However, some portion of the people claim to be offended by even the existence of titles of books that cover subjects they object to. And for some reason, it's considered acceptable to censor results to deny everyone useful information to protect the sensibilities of insensible people (and yes, I used an uncommon definition of unsensible to make my word-play work).

There is no reason that Amazon ever needed to carry these books in the first place, much less continue to sell them.

There is a reason. They can sell them for a profit. For Amazon to make a change that will reduce their profits, they need to justify it or they are violating the law. How do you think they would justify selling books when they are a bookseller? But they are still continuing to sell them. They are just lying on their search results to remove them from top sales lists and modifying other searches to lie about what gets hits from search terms. They are still available for purchase. They can still be found. But Amazon is now lying to you, and you prefer being lied to rather than having to skim past titles that are valid hits to your search that may not be what you are looking for (but most likely would be what someone is looking for, or they wouldn't have popped up on the searches with so high a rank).

And if they stopped, even that wouldn't be censorship.

So far, for all definitions of censorship, my statements stand. But for that one, it requires that you define what you think censorship is to respond accurately.

Re:It's Amazon's business

[ivan256]

There is a reason. They can sell them for a profit. For Amazon to make a change that will reduce their profits, they need to justify it or they are violating the law.

Which law? Seriously. Are you under some misguided impression that publicly traded businesses are legally bound to operate solely under profit motive?

And even if they were, they are under the impression that this change is in the best interests of their own profitability barring this "boycott" (which will fail for the same reason ~99% of other such boycotts fail). Any implication that somebody doing this for some implied imposition of morality doesn't have much to stand on in terms of evidence.

So far, for all definitions of censorship, my statements stand. But for that one, it requires that you define what you think censorship is to respond accurately.

Amazon's search results are generated by Amazon. You have to have a really loose definition of censorship to consider tailoring their own output to what they think their customers want as "censorship". At most they're self-censoring. To say they are censoring the authors somehow is a real stretch.

Re:It's Amazon's business

[Beezlebub33]

I believe it was Thomas Jefferson who said "The price of freedom is eternal vigilance."

Well, no, it was either John Philpot Curran or Wendell Phillips, though it is frequently misattributed to Jefferson.

Re:It's Amazon's business

[AK Marc]

Are you under some misguided impression that publicly traded businesses are legally bound to operate solely under profit motive?

Unless explicitly stated otherwise and justified to the shareholders, yes, they are.

At most they're self-censoring.

Wasn't an answer to the question for you to define censorship so that we'd be starting with a common definition of the word. There's more than one meaning, and that you assign meaning assert an answer under that meaning and don't share it with us leaves me unable to say whether you are or are not correct. They are taking an action, based on "morality" that impairs access to works. They deleted information. They are acting to reduce access to information. And they are doing so based on morality. Seems pretty clear to me.

Re:Surprise.

[Shadow of Eternity]

actually from TFA that was the stuff amazon LEFT.

Amazon goes both ways

[retech]

So they sell them just not publicly allow them to be searched. On one side the pander to the bible thumping cons on the other they give service to their share holders.

I'd be more shocked if they took a stand... any stand.. and said this is the code of ethics that we're bound to uphold. But that's not what business is about.

Next up on /. - Disney makes horror movies and other profitable R rated flicks, shocking.

Re:Amazon goes both ways

[downix]

Um, you know Disney was the backing behind Dimention films, a major horror film distributor, right?

Re:Amazon goes both ways

[retech]

It was sarcasm. Disney has it's hands in more than just Dimension. I used to work for them, horror is VERY profitable for them. But mom and pop don't want their kiddies to know about that. Squeaky clean and all that.

Re:Surprise.

[Anonymous Coward]

a/s/l?

Prejudicially including GLBT material as adult

[Gailin]

One item that I find very offensive is that Amazon is classifying GLBT material as adult, while not designating similar heterosexual titles as such.

They are a private company and are free to classify items how they wish. Similarly, I can choose where to spend my money. I'll spend my money with a company that celebrates diversity. Not one that is so blatantly prejudicial.

Citations:
http://community.livejournal.com/meta_writer/11992.html (contains growing list of books)
http://markprobst.livejournal.com/15293.html (screen caps and more info)

Re:Prejudicially including GLBT material as adult

[Gailin]

Hmm, I thought the linked article was a different one I read this AM. Sorry for the duplicate comment and links to the article.

Re:Prejudicially including GLBT material as adult

[Anonymous Coward]

One item that I find very offensive is that Amazon is classifying GLBT material as adult, while not designating similar heterosexual titles as such.

They'd probably lose a lot of money if they had to ban every corny romance novel for women from their rankings.

Re:Prejudicially including GLBT material as adult

[Anonymous Coward]

What's with the GLBT bullshit? Can't you just say "FUCKING QUEER"????

The word is in common use among the poof community, after all. Gays don't need, or want, to be politically correct. I don't need to be. You sound like an idiot when you go to such extremes to be so.

Try it. Q - U - E - E - R Fudgepackers, peterpuffers, muffmunchers, faggots, flaming fucking queers

There, that wasn't so hard, was it?

Now, shove your acronyms up your ass along with that big fat cock you already have up there.

Re:Prejudicially including GLBT material as adult

[Civil_Disobedient]

What's with the GLBT bullshit? Can't you just say "FUCKING QUEER"????

Gay
Lesbian
Bisexual
Transgender

"Fucking queer" only covers 25% of that equation.

LEARN YOUR ACRONYMS, DIPSHIT.

Re:Prejudicially including GLBT material as adult

[Anonymous Coward]

No need to learn a bunch of gay acronyms. Learning and using the damned things means one thing only: You have already been brainwashed to accept whatever the queers tell you to be so.

And, hey, moron. "Fucking queer" includes ALL of the GLBT, plus a whole lot more. Hit the dictionary, and learn what queer MEANS. Deviant is a pretty good synonym, for starters.

Or, do you just enjoy being "politically correct"? If so, you're just another commie pinko being led around by the nose.

digital revolution = shut up, stupid prudes

[Anonymous Coward]

While this is an idiotic move designed to placate a small number of ignorant prudes who, in their feeble attempt to sanitize the world according to their own individual codes of morality, take the time to write in and bother Amazon with complaints, at the same time, we are now living in a world where it is no longer possible to put genies back into bottles.

In the digital age, information is finally truly free and fully accessible and will remain so short of the very destruction of civilization itself.

Powells.com

[narrowhouse]

They are everything Amazon is not, privately owned, good to their employees, socially responsible even when it doesn't show up in the press. They even have some brick and mortar locations (Portland OR, and Chicago). And the toll free phone number to contact then is on the front of the web page instead of being something you can only find in a 3rd party blog around Christmas time.
Are they perfect? No. Are they small enough to care what even one or two percent of their customers think? YES. When corporations get too big they get arrogant, it is in your interests to not let companies you like feel as if they can ignore you. Punish bad behavior with vocal and public criticism.

And to all those who say they are just creating an adult section, ask your self why children's books that try to discuss homosexuality delicately are delisted, but racy explicit romances is not.

Re:Powells.com

[Registered Coward v2]

They are everything Amazon is not, privately owned, good to their employees, socially responsible even when it doesn't show up in the press. They even have some brick and mortar locations (Portland OR, and Chicago).

While I am a big Powell's fan and visit whenever I am in either city; the Chicago and Portland stores are not owned by the same people. They were started by the same family, however.

Re:Powells.com

[MostAwesomeDude]

Oregonians 3 Powell's.

Re:Powells.com

[tftp]

ask your self why children's books that try to discuss homosexuality delicately are delisted, but racy explicit romances is not.

My guess is that nobody will mistake a racy explicit romance for a children book, buy it and give it to a child.

Re:Powells.com

[palegray.net]

And someone would mistake a racy explicit gay romance novel for a children's book?

Re:Powells.com

[TrekkieGod]

ask your self why children's books that try to discuss homosexuality delicately are delisted, but racy explicit romances is not.

My guess is that nobody will mistake a racy explicit romance for a children book, buy it and give it to a child.

Any reason why you didn't quote the entire relevant section you were responding to, other than trying to be deliberately dishonest? Allow me:

And to all those who say they are just creating an adult section, ask your self why children's books that try to discuss homosexuality delicately are delisted, but racy explicit romances is not.

(emphasis mine)

Are children's books supposed to be in the adult section now?

Re:Powells.com

[fermion]

While I agree with you, Powells and Amazon have one thing in common. The are mega book outets that tend to put smaller, more service oriented outlets out out of business. Powells has the other negative impact of encouraging people to travel to their brick and mortar store rather than just visiting their local independent book store, which probably has no other employees than the owners who just love books.

And amazon has one big advantage over Powells. Those stores that Powells would likely be happy to see out of business, Amazon gives them a leg up by posting competitive prices when showing the results of a book. So, if a customer wants to buy from an independent, they can.

I am certainly ambivalent about what Amazon is doing, mostly because I have never bought anything based on the Amazon rank. I assume it is fixed, and this tends to prove it. I am not ambivalent about Powells, and see no reason to buy there, just because they are cool Portland book store. In most cases I can use Amazon used books to find a seller much more local, which means I don't have to excessively pollute the environment just so I can say I order from Portland, where the cool light skinned people live.

A long time ago, I used barnes and noble used book service, which was very good. They messed it up and I went to Amazon. Maybe it is time to go back. Or Alibris.

Re:Powells.com

[snaz555]

Powell's only sells books though. Only a tiny fraction of what I spend through Amazon is actually on books. I too would like a viable-one stop alternative.

Re:Powells.com

[narrowhouse]

I have to disagree for the following reasons.

Powells is an independent bookstore that has been a LITTLE more successful than average but they still have fewer than 15 stores. They certainly do nothing to encourage you to come to their brick and mortar shops unless you live near one. I think they are a good online bookseller because they have spent some time and effort to develop a web presence, but by all means use an independent local store if you have one.

Calling Powells a mega book outlet is ridiculous compared to Barnes and Nobles or Borders. As a matter of fact Barnes and Nobles probably has a many locations in Oregon as Powells has in the country.

So it has nothing to do with Powells being "cool" or "where the cool light skinned people live" (WTF?) I live in Cincinnati as a matter of fact, but when I order something on-line that I can't get easily at a local store (because most of them are closed because of Borders) I use Powells because they have a decent selection and good turn around on order.

Re:Powells.com

[Anonymous Coward]

Books written about homosexuality are not for children, whether or not they want to be. Homosexuality used to be listed as a mental illness, until purely political pressure caused it to be removed from the DSM. Mental illnesses are things you fight against, not embrace. But I digress.

Books written _about_ any kind of sexuality aren't for children. Children's books usually contain people in heterosexual relationships, because that is the way life is.

Re:Powells.com

[seebs]

Agreed, I'm a big fan of Powell's. Also, they've never spammed me.

Re:Powells.com

[julesh]

A long time ago, I used barnes and noble used book service, which was very good. They messed it up and I went to Amazon. Maybe it is time to go back. Or Alibris.

I've found ABE Books a good site for this kind of service. They don't try to impose a standardised delivery charge, which means you can actually get stuff cheaper than Amazon (where the delivery charge was set too high and many vendors ended up essentially giving the books away).

Re:Powells.com

[YourExperiment]

Are they perfect? No.

This is why I refuse to buy from Powells. I would ask people to boycott their site, and remove links to it from their own pages, until this despicable policy of imperfection is reversed.

Re:Powells.com

[kabocox]

And to all those who say they are just creating an adult section, ask your self why children's books that try to discuss homosexuality delicately are delisted, but racy explicit romances is not.

Are you kidding? It's just a demographics thing. If the population were mainly homosexual, you'd see the reverse. It's just the normal, hey I want my kid to read/absorb only material that will make them like me thing. It's not really a big thing to me. I understand where it's coming from. I'm more amazed that slashdot seems to view it as end of the world crap when it actually happens. Another thing that you might want to think of is that all major religious books will hardly ever be banned/restricted other than categorized as religious. This is because the millions of folks that do buy that stuff would either complain or worse go some where else to buy it.

I'm sure that if you are willing to fill out a lengthy form of products/people/ideas that you dislike/hate then amazon and others would be thrilled to attempt to limit all that stuff from your search returns. That'd require actual work though. It would be easier just to through everything that has some one complain about it as adult and then give the adult section unlimited stuff. Heck, I think most politics, religion, and explicit sexual related material could be safely labeled adult and most wouldn't complain.

And they're Amazon's customers.

[Virak]

They have no obligation to let Amazon make changes they dislike and not complain about them. It may be that they could buy from somewhere else that doesn't pull such bullshit instead of (or in addition to) complaining; but again, it's up to them to decide.

Re:Surprise.

[Shadow of Eternity]

90/male/brazil

Interesting

[oldfashionedlovesong]

I use Amazon for the same reason I shop at Walmart. It is of no concern to me that Amazon hand picks their book selection. They have just as much right to not sell particular books as I have to buy them. It will not affect my future purchases. But I am disturbed to read that some still strive to limit access to literature. What kind of enlightened people are these? Are we all stupid and only they are smart?

Adult toy section?

[Banichi]

Any word on what this means for Amazon's unobtrusive sex toy section?

Re:Adult toy section?

[palegray.net]

No kidding. Those toys might wind up in the evil hands (errr... other places?) of people of the same gender, hell-bent on corrupting the morals of America with their deviant practices. I guess we've got to ban anything that could conceivably be used in a non-comforming manner.

Shades of Abunga?

[JoshuaZ]

Abunga http://abunga.com/ was a "family friendly" alternative to Amazon. Abunga was similar to Amazon but people could vote on books being family unfriendly. If a book received enough votes it was removed from the website. Abunga failed miserably. It isn't clear to me why, given Abunga's failure, Amazon would do this. Censorship on the internet even when you have a right to engage in the censorship (as Amazon does as a non-government organization) frequently pisses off far more people than you make happy.

Re:Shades of Abunga?

[perlchild]

Well Amazon already has succeeded in getting mindshare, before starting.

Seems to me abunga might have failed to gather enough interest, regardless of family friendly or not, and just got selected out of the market.

Re:Shades of Abunga?

[Anonymous Coward]

Abunga wasn't family friendly it was insecure fundamentalist religious friendly. They were all about voting out anything that offends a fundie xtian...which is everything but the bible and the left behind series. I guess they ran out of things to sell and having a target audience made up of homeschooled people who can't read anyway is probably not so great for a bookstore.

Re:Shades of Abunga?

[festers]

"Abunga.com will only succeed with the support of the Lord as its business model makes no earthly sense - reduce inventory to protect families (basically turning away certain customers) and giving 5% of revenue to charities that support good works in communities across the nation," Martin wrote. "These are not the business practices taught at Harvard."

Lee Martin, Chairman Abunga.com

LOL.

And Amazon Japan is for pedophiles

[Neptunes_Trident]

I wonder how Amazon would filter this shit? This http://www.amazon.co.jp/gp/product/B000N2CXFU?ie=UTF8&redirect=true is one step closer to fulfilling a particular desire, you think? And you do not even want to know the other crap that Amazon sells. I am absolutely convinced and cautious that the consciousness of the people in this world and their respective "business's" are confused. In the end your sanity and safety will always fall second to greed and profit. I look at my son and daughter and do my best for them.

Re:And Amazon Japan is for pedophiles

[thetoadwarrior]

She's clearly 18 but shaves and just happens to like to dress like a school girl. What's the harm in that?

Re:And Amazon Japan is for pedophiles

[AHuxley]

.co.jp soulds like a phishing, hackers or leet speak to middle America.
So I think, the PR team only cares about .com :)
But there is a wider political push for control of the adult books and sites.
I wonder if credit card use of this new 'section' will be flagged and passed on to customs agents around the world?
"crap" is passed on to you, adult orders are opened and arrive weeks later covered in yellow tape?
One day you get a letter to report for a 'chat' at a set time.

counterproductive

[Anonymous Coward]

Is there a book that doesn't offened someone in someway; furthermore isn't one of the virtues of literature its ability to offend. I think half the books we call great are great because they are so offensive. The classic example is "The Assayer", but I'm sure we can all think of an effective example.

can anyone coroberate this from a seperate source

[bombastinator]

The source of this article is not exactly a main line news source. Can anyone corroborate this?

Re:OT: SSH discussion closed early

[larry bagina]

I see 3 comments posted after 8:13, so it's not currently archived.

RTFA - Erotica removed from RANKINGS

[TheMiddleRoad]

Erotica books were removed from page rankings. This particularly impacts gay-themed books since they're labeled more often as erotica, even when they have real plots. "Brokeback Mountain" get's no ranking while "Clan of the Cave Bear," with its throbbing members entering vaginas, gets a ranking. Meanwhile "Protocols of the Elders of Zion" sits happily with a ranking. Amazon is censoring sex, the fucking pansies, while considering hate-speech OK for the wider audience.

Re:RTFA - Erotica removed from RANKINGS

[Anonymous Coward]

I can search adult and gay material fine and all titles I checked appear in the sales rank.

Re:RTFA - Erotica removed from RANKINGS

[Anonymous Coward]

No, sorry. Het erotica hasn't been affected. Apparently it's not offensive.

Re:RTFA - Erotica removed from RANKINGS

[Anonymous Coward]

while considering hate-speech OK for the wider audience.

while speech that I consider hate speech is OK for the wider audience.

There, fixed it for ya'.

Re:RTFA - Erotica removed from RANKINGS

[nbates]

They are not censoring just sex, but all kind of gay related books also, fiction and non-fiction. Check site After Elton for this week's article about this problem.

Re:RTFA - Erotica removed from RANKINGS

[glwtta]

That's one thing I don't get in the various responses to this: would it really make things better if Amazon was also censoring political speech?

Re:RTFA - Erotica removed from RANKINGS

[Nicopa]

And I thought the only nazis here were grammar related...

Re:RTFA - Erotica removed from RANKINGS

[mvdwege]

Are you being deliberately obtuse, or just plain stupid?

Of course it wouldn't make things better. But censoring one and not the other does show that their criteria are hypocritical.

Sheesh.

Mart

Re:RTFA - Erotica removed from RANKINGS

[Jesus_666]

If said political speech is restricted in the area the particular version of Amazon services - yes. As I pointed out in another post, companies shouldn't apply their own arbitrary rules on what's appropriate for minors and what's not. There already are rating systems for that and if Amazon cares about protecting minors they should stick to those.

And in case you mention that unrated articles would break this system: The German USK considers "unrated" to be equivalent to "adults only", a notion which Amazon could apply to everything. Bing, the children are protected and Amazon didn't impose their moral values on everyone.

Re:RTFA - Erotica removed from RANKINGS

[Anonymous Coward]

Listing of sales rankings based on erroneous or misleading criteria is grounds for civil fraud in some states. They can be sued--by both customers and authors, and also in some states by the state AG.

Re:RTFA - Erotica removed from RANKINGS

[OhHellWithIt]

I think it's a bad summary. I had no problem turning up the authors listed in the article. It'll be interesting to see how Amazon's "recommendations" change for me. I guess some people pay attention to the page rankings, but I don't. It's not censorship if I can still buy the book from them.

If we all pitch in and send a copy of the titles listed in TFA to Cowboy Neal (whom I am suggesting simply because he is a convenient victim), Amazon will have to reassess their page rankings. I'm sure that when Brokeback Mountain was in the theaters, there was no way they'd have failed to list it as a bestseller.

Re:RTFA - Erotica removed from RANKINGS

[rrohbeck]

Amazon is censoring sex, the fucking pansies, while considering hate-speech OK for the wider audience.

That seems totally appropriate for the US of A.

Re:RTFA - Erotica removed from RANKINGS

[TheMiddleRoad]

Yes, love the Nazis and hate the homos.

Re:can anyone coroberate this from a seperate sour

[Kibblet]

LA Times blog ok? http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/jacketcopy/2009/04/amazon-deranks-gayfriendly-books-the-twitterverse-notices.html

Re:Surprise.

[Anonymous Coward]

90/male/brazil

I need to tell you something. I'm Chris Hansen with Dateline NBC.

What books would they ban?

[actionbastard]

'The Bonfire of the Vanities'?
'Atlas Shrugged'?
The collective works of Jacqueline Susann?
After all, this isn't 19th Century Boston.

Re:What books would they ban?

[DirePickle]

Please ban Atlas Shrugged. The world needs fewer 15-year-old newly-enlightened libertarians; some of them never outgrow it, and then we have to deal with them on Slashdot for all of eternity.

Re:What books would they ban?

[pcolaman]

Obama, is that you?

Nothing to complain about here.

[Animats]

What's he whining about? His book has a rank of 6,811 in the electronic (Kindle) edition, which is quite good for a niche book. It's at the top of "Any Category > Books > Gay & Lesbian > Literature & Fiction > Fiction > Romance > Gay". Amazon published the author's note promoting his web site, his YouTube video, and a bunch of other links.

If there's a problem here, it's that Amazon seems to be heavily favoring the on-line Kindle editions.

Same shit, different company

[fadir]

When Facebook started to delete pictures of breastfeeding moms as "offensive" there was the same outcry - and a few months later no one really cares anymore.

I bet Amazon is playing the same card. They know very well that people will complain but they also know that people forget faster than a fly.

Amazon business decision on whom to annoy!

[redelm]

Amazon is not required to respect human rights (particularly free speech) beyond a _very_ limited set of Equal-Employment and anti-racial consumer credit & service laws. The right of free speech can be claimed only against governmental authorities.

Amazon most particularly is not required to stock any books that it does not want to, for any reason or no reason whatsoever. Nor report any sales to the general public.

What Amazon has done is make a business decision that it preferred annoying GLBT people and their allies rather than "The Moral Majority"types who undoubtedly complained.

Perhaps a rather sad state of affairs, but probably accurately reflective of Amazon's customer base. You cannot legislate preference or tastes, let alone morality.

Glass half-empty or half-full? One can at least be happy Amazon carries the books at all.

Re:Amazon business decision on whom to annoy!

[mikechant]

If they don't clearly state that certain books have been removed from the rankings, and thus that the rankings of other books have been artificially inflated, they could be liable under some consumer law involving misrepresentation. Saying that a book ranks number 3 in your sales when it is actually at number 7 (say) seems a pretty clear case of fraudulent advertising.

Re:Amazon business decision on whom to annoy!

[redelm]

Yes, it would be misrepresentation. But they probably have that covered with a disclaimer star "excludes some sexually themed books".

Overblown but a catalyst for me

[forgottenusername]

I've always felt vaguely guilty about all the box I've ordered from Amazon over the years. Probably about 800-900ish. It's just so damned convenient to click n ship, and with Amazon Prime, I don't pay for 2day (or greater) shipping.

However, it does have an impact;

- Extra (recyclable) packing material
- Extra resource usage in shipping and delivery (fuel etc)
- Most importantly, I really love smaller, independent bookstores.

I work on the same block as Elliot Bay Books in Seattle, yet almost never go in there. Several other good bookstores are in the area.

I supposed one could argue that I'm providing work for people regardless - I guess it comes down to where you want your support in the form of money to go. This article brings up a very late new years resolution - buy most books in local bookstores!

WRT to this article, I found it to be particularly sensationalist and uninteresting. Amazon does have a huge issue in restricting 'adult' material such as pr0n, sex toys etc - not to mention unexpected search results (try like 'Girl Scout Cookies') and this is clearly not the way to address it. However it's not like they're refusing to sell or display adult books.

I think it is just recommendations

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't shop at Amazon.com, so I am a little confused about what this is about -

but I think it is that when you enter the Gay & Lesbian category list and then search on customer recommendations, that adult material has been filtered. It is not that they have stopped selling certain books. And they consider all LGBT books to be adult, unless they are anti-gay. Gay people get quite upset when the top-rated book is on how to change the sexual orientation of your gay teenager.

Also I think they have already reversed this policy, so I think you will not be able to recreate the problem if you go to Amazon.com

Private company

[thePowerOfGrayskull]

Amazon is not government run. They answer only to their shareholders, primarily through the board of directors.

This means that they have complete and total control over not only what they choose to sell, but how they choose to present it (or not present it). Your only recourse is to not support them (as the author recommends).

Re:Private company

[FroBugg]

Certainly. And their customers have a right to know exactly what sort of practices they're engaging in, so that those consumers can make an educated decision about where to spend their money.

I, personally, would probably not be looking for many of the books that are erroneously being delisted as "adult," so I may not have noticed this myself. But now that I've been made aware of it, I can disapprove and take my money elsewhere.

Re:Private company

[Anonymous Coward]

Indeed. While 99.999% of the rest of their customer base will continue to shop there because they offer the best prices around. (Myself included. I feel it's within their rights to do this, and am not particularly offended by it. They could just as easily decide not to carry the 'offensive' material, but they're not going that route.)

For most people, taking a moral stand is great until it inconveniences the wallet. And that's really the problem - there's no way that enough people will feel as you do who are also willing to forgo the prices & services amazon offers.

Re:Private company

[thePowerOfGrayskull]

Arg! I have no idea why that posted anonymously, I didn't intend to...

Re:Private company

[Anonymous Coward]

but I did intend to!

Seems to be USA only

[digitig]

I've just compared the listing for Brokeback Mountain on the US Amazon site with that on the UK Amazon site. I can't see a sales rank on the US version, but there's one on the UK version.

Re:Seems to be USA only

[TheSpoom]

Unfortunately, it sounds like they know their customers.

Re:Seems to be USA only

[Cathbard]

Perhaps the UK has anti-discrimination laws?

Re:Seems to be USA only

[pimpimpim]

Canadian search on homosexuality even gives the children's books. Does amazon have shareholders? They shouldn't be too glad with amazon trying to scare off the huge market of US gays who buy online. Religious nut-jobs shouldn't be on the internet anyway, as the internet is made by the devil, so one wonders which market amazon US is trying to cater with their new policy.

Re:Forget the gay nonsense

[Cassander]

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.

THEY PISS ME OFF

[Anonymous Coward]

REALLY. IT'S ENOUGH! I GET SICK OF IT! Now this stupid system is telling me I'm yelling. Yeah so what. It's frustrating and it deserves yelling!

This story smells funny

[belmolis]

I can understand Amazon not wanting erotic books to show up when social conservatives or children do searches, but the implementation described makes no sense. If they want users to be able to filter, give them the choice the way Google does. Perhaps even default to "safe search", but allow users to choose "full search", or provide a more nuanced system with multiple categories that can be excluded.

In any case, there's no reason that a book should be excluded from sales rank in order to exclude it from search results. Surely Amazon has better programmers than that.

Re:This story smells funny

[Anonymous Coward]

It's just kowtowing to religious conservatives who are scared of the truth. Personally, I bet that Utah is behind it because they didn't want everyone to know how much porn they were buying.

Re:This story smells funny

[superwiz]

It's just kowtowing to religious conservatives who are scared of the truth. Personally, I bet that Utah is behind it because they didn't want everyone to know how much porn they were buying.

"...how much coffee they were..."

There. Fixed it for you. Trust me. If you know Mormons, they are just as offended by coffee as they by porn.

Re:This story smells funny

[pcolaman]

Or perhaps a large segment of the Amazon customer base is families and parents don't want their kids to find stuff that is completely beyond what they need to see at that point in their life. I do agree with the poster you replied to though, they could allow for a search filter to be on by default and turned off with the change of a setting.

Re:This story smells funny

[Jesus_666]

However, it has been pointed out that it's not sex that gets a book banned, it's homosexual content. As far as I can tell, even fairly tame books with GLBT content get their ranking removed while racier straight books don't.

The smart way would be to put in several filters for adult, violent etc. items and allow registered users to turn them on and off at will. That way it becomes a service and not a questionable practice.

Re:This story smells funny

[pcolaman]

I like your idea on the filters, as many people also object to books that describe violence in great detail (or have pictures that depict violence in great detail, such as graphic novels).

Re:Forget the gay nonsense

[fumblebruschi]

I also have to point out people have no right to tell any store what they can and can't sell

Of course they do. It's called the free market. It goes like this:

1) Amazon decides to categorize what they sell in a manner that a certain group of people finds objectionable.

2) The offended group responds by withholding their business from Amazon.

3) If the losses Amazon suffers from this are above a certain threshold, they will reverse the policy; if not, they won't.

Every interest group in America uses this approach all the time. It was probably an interest group that caused the policy decision at Amazon in the first place. It's Amazon's fiduciary responsibility to maximize its income, so it will appease whichever group spends more money.

Sales De-Lising Includes Political Books

[dtaciuch]

Andrew Sulliva;s Virtually Normal has been delisted: http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2009/04/amazon-delists-gay-books-as-adult.html Sullivan's post may be misleadingly titled: is Virtually Normal, (a non-fiction book about gay rights, from a conservative perspective) a "gay-themed" book? Or is it just that its politics is likely to make someone uncomfortable?

Re:You should have logged in.

[Anonymous Coward]

Personally, I'd be embarrassed to have a comment like yours attached to my name

Personally, I'd be embarrassed to have a name like yours, alfs boner.

Hmm, what's Offensive?

[aitikin]

I greatly deem the Left Behind series of books to be extremely offensive, how do I get these results to match up with the books and movies that they decide are offensive?

Re:Hmm, what's Offensive?

[pcolaman]

Well, unless you work in the Amazon corporate office, you really can't do much about it. Maybe you should shoot them a copy of your resume.

It Gets Even Better...

[jhage]

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:It Gets Even Better...

[Esteanil]

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.

"A Parent's Guide to Preventing Homosexuality " as the #1 result? Now that's what I'd call a really offensive book.

Re:It Gets Even Better...

[substraction]

That's really disturbing! The first book is one telling parents how to stop their kids from being gay! --Yeah, great way to mess up your kids for life! I've met some closeted married people and their whole lives have just been shot to hell because of being raised to hate themselves and deny who they are. It's sadistic! I just sent Amazon.com an e-mail telling them where to shove their homophobia and then canceled my account. --the bastards take way too long to ship things anyway. Borders/Barnes&Noble/Ebay, here I come!

Re:It Gets Even Better...

[phantomfive]

It's your search term. Apparently the main groups of people using the term 'homosexuality' are people trying to cure it. Try 'homosexual' and you will see something more interesting. Try 'gay' and you'll hit the jackpot.

Re:It Gets Even Better...

[mooingyak]

Try 'gay' and you'll hit the jackpot.

Somehow I doubt that's quite how I'd describe it.

Re:It Gets Even Better...

[Anonymous Coward]

"A Parent's Guide to Preventing Homosexuality " as the #1 result? Now that's what I'd call a really offensive book.

Wow, that's a real eye-opener. I've been learning about this a bit, as one of my sons is going to become my daughter. I liked the line from the editorial blurb: "In this groundbreaking book Joseph and Linda Ames Nicolosi uncover the most significant factors that contribute to a child's healthy sense of self as male or female."

From what I've learned, view of self (as male or female) is a completely different thing from what it attractive in a partner. Some trans folks like people of their old gender, some are attracted to partners of their new gender. While the numbers are hard to dig up, there are certainly hundreds of data points supporting this view. That a licensed psychologist / published author ignores the opinions of pretty much everyone else out there is at least bad science. Yikes.

(Posting AC as it's not my aim to out her before she's ready.)

Re:It Gets Even Better...

[Anonymous Coward]

Mind boggling, rarely have I been so offended by a company.

They had better fix this soon.

Re:It Gets Even Better...

[syousef]

"A Parent's Guide to Preventing Homosexuality " as the #1 result? Now that's what I'd call a really offensive book.

It takes a whole book for a bigot to write "Beat your kid if they even look like they're about to do something homosexual. Meanwhile shut your eyes and pray"???

Re:It Gets Even Better...

[Anonymous Coward]

There's still that pesky little chromosome that prevents you from calling him her.

Re:It Gets Even Better...

[Anonymous Coward]

Awesome. Now excuse me while I go anger a bunch of faggots.

Atheists would fight for your religious books

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm an atheist who used my mod points. Yes, I would be outraged if they did the same to religious books. I may not believe what you believe, but I will never side with those who would silence your faith.

Some time ago, some friends invited us to a baptism at their church. We went in order to be polite. They had a place for the toddlers and little kids to go and play, and hear bible stories. Which didn't bother me, until I realized that in this context these weren't stories - they were true lessons. The children would likely be asked to repeat back and affirm what they had learned about Jesus or God or what have you. I don't know that I have ever felt so protective towards my son. I had to get him out of there *right now*. I don't think about religion much, so I had never realized how passionately I feel. And in that moment I understood how many religious people must feel. I may not respect their religion, but I do respect people as human beings with a fundamental right to believe what they want - and yes, to teach it to their kids.

So don't run around making stereotypes of those who don't believe what you do. I have seen religious Americans on TV about the depravity of atheists, about how perhaps they should not even be recognized as full citizens. Then I have seen atheists turn around and say exactly the same thing about believers. Don't stand for that stupid, stupid ignorance and hate. We are still friends with that family. That is one of the greatest things about our society.

By the way, I think your opt-in/opt-out solution (yes, YouTube does that, as does Google) is perfect.

Re:Atheists would fight for your religious books

[Adrian Lopez]

You aren't an atheist, you're afraid of religion. A true atheist wouldn't be afraid of it, they just wouldn't care.

An atheist wouldn't be afraid of God, which is quite a different thing to fear than religion. There are many legitimate reasons to fear religion, not the least of which is the way in which it warps the minds of the young.

Re:Atheists would fight for your religious books

[Snark365]

Imagine this: I (an atheist) invite you and your family over for a party. While there I invite you kids over to the couch and tell them all that everything they've been taught to believe is a lie. Chances are you would not want me doing this. This doesn't mean that you're afraid of what I have to say, but that you'd rather your children not have to hear it. The same goes for AC.

Re:Atheists would fight for your religious books

[kv9]

Please stop claiming to be atheist until you confront your fears, you make the rest of us look stupid.

I don't think you need any help to look stupid.

Re:Atheists would fight for your religious books

[znerk]

So you'll stand by me when they try to censor my religion, but you're okay with censoring what your child gets because you don't agree with religion?

Hypocrite, you just fell into the typical stereo type for someone who claims they are atheists.

You aren't an atheist, you're afraid of religion. A true atheist wouldn't be afraid of it, they just wouldn't care. I'm not sure what priest molested you or raped you, but you need to look deeper into why you're so afraid of religion, and start practicing what you preach.

Read your post again, you are exactly what you are talking about in religious people.

Please stop claiming to be atheist until you confront your fears, you make the rest of us look stupid.

Actually, an atheist doesn't care about your God. I think all of us have many reasons to fear religion. Crusades, Jihads, what have you... religion has killed more people on this planet than money... oh, wait.

Re:Atheists would fight for your religious books

[Anonymous Coward]

GP here

I appreciate your response. I knew I was overgeneralizing, but i did it to show my point that ./ is typically strongly slanted against anything of a conservative/religious nature. Not everyone, as your point demonstrates, but I still think the majority of proclaimed atheists would have the described reaction. Don't get me wrong, I think anti-anti-religion fanatics (ie those waving signs saying "God hates fags) do as much/more damage as anti-religion fanatics.

In response for those saying that there should be an opt in system for religious themes, there are more problems ith that. To start, for most religions, pornographic/explicit material isnt just offensive, it is considered a sin. Viewing it makes them unclean so to speak. For athiest/agnostics, there isnt really anything to relate to that. Their personal tastes are offended perhaps by religious hemes, but it isnt that they perceive long term effects from it on their existance. They can forget about it and ignore it better. Second, while there is a lot more variation in religion, as a whole they out number those that enjoy such explicit material. Also generally religious people dont take offense at other peoples religion. There are exceptions to that, but again they are in the minority.

My closest friend proclaims herself as a "devout" athiest, while I stand on the opposite side.

sry about spelling/grammar. I hurt my arm recently and am typing obe handed. it is very slow.

Re:Atheists would fight for your religious books

[lessthan]

You're an idiot. You would cover your young kid's eyes if a naked stranger walked by. Why wouldn't the AC react the same way to religion?

Re:Atheists would fight for your religious books

[coastwalker]

Whats wrong with naked people all of a sudden? I don't mind them and the people who do are only upset because someone taught them to be upset. A bit like teaching children that people with different colored skins are to be hated really. Thats what pisses me off about religion and censorship, they only want the censorship because its in a list of mindless rules that make sure that they have to kill other people in other religions because they are different in each religion. Religion is a sickness, a self propagating information set which is designed to kill everybody with a different self propagating meme. And if you insist that athesisim is also a religion then fair enough, it means that I have to kill all these people with a religion - not because I have a meme that tells me that I have to kill them but because they want to kill me. If Amazon is censoring books because of some religious lobby group then I don't buy from Amazon any more.

Re:Atheists would fight for your religious books

[Anonymous Coward]

A different moderator who has decided to post as well, Darn.

So you'll stand by me when they try to censor my religion, but you're okay with censoring what your child gets because you don't agree with religion?

I would fall in to the same action. My children know I don't believe in god, however its up to them what they believe in. The go to scouts and enjoy it, and that has some base in religion. Myself I dislike organised religion although I generally agree with the message the people are trying to say ( be nice to each other, treat others as you wish to be treated yourself ).

I would feel unhappy with them being indoctrinated myself.

Re:Atheists would fight for your religious books

[ciderVisor]

I hurt my arm recently and am typing obe handed.

These aren't the typos you're looking for.

Re:Atheists would fight for your religious books

[anegg]

off topic: Why would I cover my young kid's eyes when a naked stranger walks by? I don't think its anything they haven't seen before. I would probably point out to them that most people don't walk around naked because its not polite. I would also point out that its also not polite to make fun of people walking around naked. I don't care if my kids see someone's genitals. I *do* care of someone inappropriately tries to introduce those genitals to my kids. No, I'm not a nudist.

On topic: I agree that if a company like Amazon treats a class of books differently than others (especially if it makes them harder to find/evaluate than others) then it amounts to censorship. I disagree with censorship directed towards adults.

I agree with those who would limit what their children are exposed to when it contradicts their own beliefs until they believe that their children are ready to question it. I also encourage parents to talk to their children about a wide range of issues, including age-appropriate discussions on sex and violence, with the aim of preparing them to interpret what they will see in the world.

Ultimately my kids will decide what they think is right and wrong, but it is my duty to prove them with a basic moral backdrop. Young kids aren't any more ready to ascertain the truth/untruth about bible stories any more than they are ready to decide whether to cut the red wire or the green wire when defusing a bomb.

Re:Atheists would fight for your religious books

[Kynde]

>> You aren't an atheist, you're afraid of religion. A true atheist wouldn't be afraid of it, they just wouldn't care.

> An atheist wouldn't be afraid of God, which is quite a different thing to fear than religion. There are many legitimate reasons to fear religion, not the least of which is the way in which it warps the minds of the young.

And not just the young...

http://news.google.com/news?q=creationism+evolution+schools

Re:Atheists would fight for your religious books

[bwalling]

How does it warp the minds of the young? Are you sure you're not referring to people doing the warping? I think the anti religious folks seem to forget that people want to control other people regardless of whether they use religion as a tool to do so. Your underlying issue is manipulative people, not religion. Same argument could be applied toward BitTorrent.

Re:Atheists would fight for your religious books

[MpVpRb]

Teaching children religion is child abuse.

Unfortunately, it is also a parent's right.

In order to be philosophically consistent, I am forced to defend that right.

Re:Atheists would fight for your religious books

[Anonymous Coward]

The red one.

Re:Atheists would fight for your religious books

[Anonymous Coward]

In order to be philosophically consistent, I am forced to defend that right.

No in order to be philosophically consistent you would have to regard teaching your child any belief system (including your own) was child abuse, and then defend that right.

Re:Atheists would fight for your religious books

[Walkingshark]

You aren't an atheist, you're afraid of religion. A true atheist wouldn't be afraid of it, they just wouldn't care.

An atheist wouldn't be afraid of God, which is quite a different thing to fear than religion. There are many legitimate reasons to fear religion, not the least of which is the way in which it warps the minds of the young.

Not to mention various religions (even today) give moral cover to rape, torture, and murder. Often it not only gives moral cover to these things, but actively encourages them to be perpetrated against the innocent and weak.

Religion is a lie.

Re:Atheists would fight for your religious books

[Snark365]

That all depends on whether atheism is defined as a belief system at all. Atheists do not so much believe that there isn't deity as simply not believe that there is one.

Re:Atheists would fight for your religious books

[not-my-real-name]

Religion is a method that men have invented to try to control God and other men. If you read the Bible and see who gets condemned the most, right up near the top are the religious leaders. Most religions don't like to talk about this.

Re:Atheists would fight for your religious books

[adisakp]

There are many legitimate reasons to fear religion, not the least of which is the way in which it warps the minds of the young.

There are plenty of reason both current and historic to fear religions which were much more immediate than the long term warping of childrens minds -- for example: stoning, burning, hanging, public flogging, child sex abuse cover-ups, ritual mutilation and torture.

Re:Atheists would fight for your religious books

[winwar]

"Your underlying issue is manipulative people, not religion."

Which then by definition is religious people teaching their religion to young children.

Look at the stats on religion change sometime-you'll notice that the religion you are taught tends to be the one you practice as an adult. Good or bad, what you teach children matters.

Re:Atheists would fight for your religious books

[WeezulDK]

I hate to go all Dick Dawkins, but.... actually, not all athiests would fight for religious books. I'm an athiest, and I think that the Bible and the Quran are offensive works. They both talk about very horrible subjects and points of view: 1) Kill someone who isn't your religion. 2) Discriminate against those who aren't of your religion. 3) Do any horrible thing you want in the name of your religion to the non-believers and women, because in the end, you are righteous, you are a man, and they are not. Granted, I may be overly broad and overstating some things there, but if you look at history, it proves me right. Those three things *alone* are enough to make any book abhorrent. But, put a religion to them and they suddenly become "protected free speech". Hogwash, pishposh, and poppycock! Religious books are the first ones that need to be restricted, as they teach ignorance and blind faith, rather than reason and independent thinking.

Re:Atheists would fight for your religious books

[Hognoxious]

you're okay with censoring what your child gets because you don't agree with religion?

I don't see your problem. It's his child, and it seems to be perfectly reasonable that he protect it from harm.

Re:Atheists would fight for your religious books

[bwalling]

Which then by definition is religious people teaching their religion to young children.

It's interesting that so many think that they can somehow separate out religion as distinct from other beliefs. Are not the atheists going to give their children a copy of a Richard Dawkins book? Are they going to tell them whether or not they believe intellectual property to be a valid form of property? Are they going to share their love of classic cars or airplanes? Beliefs about deities are part of who you are, no different from your food preferences.

Re:Atheists would fight for your religious books

[neomunk]

No, NOT believing something is a function of, well, not doing something. True agnostics DON'T believe in a deity, they're not sure. Atheists believe fully in a LACK of deity. That's a belief.

BTW, as far as believing in invisible friends who have no physical component yet somehow have massive effects on real life, I'd like you to meet some of MY imaginary friends (my pantheon of Gods, if you will). Two (and all his buddies, up and down), pi, addition, division, integration, etc. None of these concepts are "real" in any physical sense, none offer a method of demonstration or (more importantly) falsification without relying on self-referential methods that require believing at some level that these invisible, intangible entities do exists. Hell, sqrt(-1) is yet ANOTHER step further from existing in our reality than the others I've mentioned, but damned if the bugger doesn't keep effecting real life.

I BELIEVE in these things, in their existence outside and irrelevant of the time-space field. I'm not normally one to push my religion on people, but in this case I'll offer a slight bit of "witnessing"... You should believe in them too, because they are real. "Realer" than you are actually, as you're naught but some chemicals that are obeying my Gods' rules, and will outlast your corpus (and the physical reality you seem to think is the standard by which "real" is measured) by, well, they'll outlast your meat by eternity.

Whether these entities have a consciousness attached to them, I don't know, and I think we'll have to figure out more about our own consciousness (and whether it's a trick of chemistry or it's own phenomenon) to be sure. Personally, I think it's possible that any self-referential system may attain consciousness at a certain level of complexity, but that's not a belief, that's a weak theory backed by not much more than "that would be neat".

In conclusion, beliefs can be proven wrong, non-beliefs can be proven at most incomplete. Anyone who specifies that "there is no God, according to me" has shown a belief, not a lack thereof.

Signed,
A proud believer in imaginary friends.

Re:Atheists would fight for your religious books

[Skrynesaver]

Or as the Jesuits used to say, "Give me the child to 7 and I will give you the man".

Religious institutions have refined their indoctrination techniques over centuries and consequently could be viewed by those of us who view religion as offering a misguided view of the universe we live in as dangerous.

After that the degree of danger offered depends on how absolute their beliefs are, snake handlers being one extreme and Unitarians the other within the Christian churches

Another one?

[Anonymous Coward]

GODDAMMIT! I just finished building my picket sign to boycott Microsoft for closing the pub! Seriously guys, how am I going to get my 8 hours of sleep if I have to make ANOTHER sign _AND_ blog about my ire at the corporate nazi fat cats?

After reading the first link

[DaveV1.0]

Amazon is a Gay-Hating Company for Nazis

That tells me this is a bunch of bullshit and no need to read any further.

Re:After reading the first link

[julesh]

That tells me this is a bunch of bullshit and no need to read any further.

It's called hyperbole. It's a fairly standard rhetorical technique and just because it states something that isn't literally true doesn't mean that the core of the content is in any fashion unworthy.

Re:After reading the first link

[DaveV1.0]

Bigotry, bias, and hatred in the headline calls into question everything the poster said. If the reverse were done, you, the poser, and your ilk would be screaming bloody murder about insults and denigration, so just shut your trap.

Re:can anyone coroberate this from a seperate sour

[DaveV1.0]

No, an L.A. Time blog is not acceptable. Blogs don't have the same journalistic requirements as an actually article so they are not an acceptable source of anything but rumor.

Re:You should have logged in.

[Xaoswolf]

so you probably don't have my capacity for shame.

There has got to be some kind of humor found in a guy saying that who goes by Alf's Boner...

I do not think that word means what you think...

[znerk]

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.

Ministry of FNfP

[transporter_ii]

I'm from Ministry of Fairness, Niceness, and Free Ponies at Taxpayer Expense, and would like to have a meeting with you.

We will be in touch...

Typo

[thefringthing]

Typo in summary: "there" should be "their".

Re:Typo

[julesh]

Typo in summary: "there" should be "their".

If that's the worst problem with this article, it probably puts it in top ten most accurate of the month.

Re:can anyone coroberate this from a seperate sour

[kv9]

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/jacketcopy/2009/04/amazon-deranks-gayfriendly-books-the-twitterverse-notices.html

wow, twitterverse? really? I also think I saw a try at twittersphere. what will they think of next?

Thanks for the post.

[Anonymous Coward]

Thanks for the post, timothy! I haven't seen this anywhere else and now that I've read this, I can spread the word and do something about it. :)

Just as an amusing note...

[Anonymous Coward]

If you enter the word "rabbit" into the search function on amazon, the first thing that comes up is a vibrator.

Re:Surprise.

[Shadow of Eternity]

that joke only works if the other person was previously established as under 18.

The best way to combat this:

[fishexe]

I don't think dropping links to Amazon will be big enough to make them stop this policy. However, we can certainly turn it to our advantage. According to Amazon's policy page (http://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?ie=UTF8&nodeId=200277420&qid=1239590370&sr=2-1) Amazon prohibits "Listings for items that promote racism, hatred, or religious intolerance" which is a fair description of every book by Anne "we should invade their countries and convert them to Christianity" Coulter, Glenn Beck, Bill O'Reilly, and others of their ilk.

"Amazon encourages sellers to report listings that violate our policies or any applicable law by using our Contact Us form. Select "Report a Community Rules Violation" and be sure to include all relevant information so we can conduct a thorough investigation."

If enough of us report these bestselling bigots they're sure to make the offensive list too. This has two beneficial effects: first, people will have a harder time stumbling upon these hate-filled volumes, and second, these authors will complain to Amazon and (hopefully) get the policy lifted.

Re:The best way to combat this:

[pcolaman]

You lost me at O'Reilly. Coulter and Beck I can see lumped in that category, but while you may dislike Bill, the fact that you say that he promotes hatred, racism, or religious intolerance means you have probably not listened to him on a consistent basis. He regularly defends people of all different backgrounds, even people that he may have disagreements over things like religion and lifestyle choices, and calls to task people who O'Reilly haters would say that Bill is in cahoots with. Dislike the guy for not liking his message, but at least don't completely butcher the truth because of your own ignorance.

Re:The best way to combat this:

[pcolaman]

I'd also like to point out that it is ironic that you lump Bill and Anne Coulter together, when Bill himself lambasts Coulter on a regular basis for her baseless rants. He doesn't spend too much time on her mostly because she's relatively harmless as no one really takes her seriously other than zealots on the far right and fearful idiots on the far left.

Most everyone...

[Anonymous Coward]

Most everyone dislikes something. If everything gets "censored" on the basis that someone out there dislikes it, there'd be virtually nothing left but the most mundane pieces of rubbish.

Making my son an independent human being

[Anonymous Coward]

Of course I thought very hard about why I had such a strong reaction. The main reason? I am very close to my son. His faith would create a barrier between us. I have very strong moral convictions. I want to pass my values on to him, and I look forward to discussing such things with him when he's older. Doctrinaire religion would cut communication off at the knees.

Of course he is his own person. When he is capable of making his own decisions, he will be free to believe what he wants to believe and listen to what he wants to listen to. My long-term job as a parent is not to tell him what to believe (or, at this age, to let others do that either) but to enable him to make those choices. (I very much doubt you are a parent, or you wouldn't make ridiculous suggestions about "censorship" of a 3 year-old.)

One of the other problems in this situation is that if he was taught to believe the bible story, I would feel obliged to respond. But I don't want to intervene against religion either. He doesn't need to know at all at this age. Besides, beliefs are secondary. It is values I wish to teach, not religion (pro or anti). How would it make our friends or their son feel if my boy told theirs that there is no God?

Time for a Good old Book Burning

[georgethornton]

Burn baby burn

Re:Time for a Good old Book Burning

[k1773re7f]

I think we my have stumbled upon an alternative fuel source.

Anonymous Coward

[Anonymous Coward]

Just send them a note saying you won't purchase books or anything else through them anymore and use a different company. If enough people do it they will reverse this idiotic policy. Amazon is a business, if something they implement will have a negative impact on their business they will stop doing it.

A Book that needs the Amazon Touch

[eav]

I think I'll complain about the bible; the level of sex and violence in that book is beyond the pale.

Are we supposed to take this seriously?

[afabbro]

The fine "article" says "AMAZON IS A GAY-HATING COMPANY FOR NAZIS" and includes a lovely swastika graphic declaring the author to be "Gay, White, and Proud".

Must be that New Journalism we keep hearing about.

Policy Reversed Already?

[IdahoEv]

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, the very item cited in TFA.

Did Amazon reverse this policy in just the last ten minutes?

Re:Policy Reversed Already?

[Z00L00K]

It's possible that as soon as this broke wind in the newschannels they figured out that it was a flawed action and backed down.

Censorship is always bad for business. You may have a content rating filter that the user can set, but then it's up to the user to control the censoring.

And if you have obnoxious users that wants books thrown out regardless then it's not the fault of the store but that user that should have the head examined.

Re:Policy Reversed Already?

[RuBLed]

... So I called my girlfriend over to see... Did Amazon reverse this policy in just the last ten minutes?

Well that could be the case...
Wait what?! You had a girlfriend?
Nice try man! Nice try..

Re:Policy Reversed Already?

[The Fun Guy]

as soon as this broke wind in the newschannels

Yeah, it really raised a big stink.

The worse thing is that Amazon has done this twice before. So this is the turd time.

Has anyone gotten the real poop on this story?

Since they've fixed the glitch, this story is now out of gas.

And so on, and so forth....

FUCKING BATSHIT CRAZAY

[Anonymous Coward]

Will this be bad business for Amazon, or will there new policies keep them out of trouble as they continue to grow and replace bookstores?

Will this be bad business for Amazon, or will there new policies keep them out of trouble as they continue to grow and replace bookstores?

Will this be bad business for Amazon, or will there new policies keep them out of trouble as they continue to grow and replace bookstores?

Will this be bad business for Amazon, or will there new policies keep them out of trouble as they continue to grow and replace bookstores?

Re:FUCKING BATSHIT CRAZAY

[Anonymous Coward]

http://developers.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1196623&cid=27553155 Yeah...

New device name?

[Anonymous Coward]

Is it now Kindling?

Already boycotting Amazon....

[earrame]

Well, I am already boycotting Amazon because they continue to sell dog fighting videos and magazines that promote the illegal, cruel sport. So what's one more boycott? It is not ok to sell that kind of stuff up front or out of their "back room" as much as it is not OK to sell snuff films. So I guess I agree that it is OK to boycott a company if you don't agree with their practices. (Not that I think that they give one rat's ass)

Actually

[logicnazi]

I think most people here would be much more upset.

Sure, I think sex themes and porn aren't a big deal and many people would be happier if they weren't so prudish about it (my wife and I certainly appreciate porn). I'm also in the religion is a bunch of superstitious nonsense group but unlike adult content few people would even suspect that religious content was being cordoned off so it would be a greater barrier to the free access to ideas.

Of course ultimately I think this is really about customer service and transparency more than censorship. It's not evil or wrong for Bezos to choose not to sell whatever he finds objectionable but I feel there is a certain implicit trust that most of us place in amazon that it's not secretly sculpting what books it lets you see and keeping the "bad" ones hidden. If I think amazon isn't keeping that trust I'll find a bookstore to use that does. If amazon made sure to publisize what sort of books it would be hiding then it's not as big of a deal.

Of course I expect this will turn out to be nothing big.

Re:Making my son an independent human being

[Choad Namath]

What if their child gets indoctrinated into homosexual lifestyle?

Yeah, that's really not how it works...

Glitch?

[RockMFR]

Apparently Amazon is calling it a "glitch".

Re:Glitch?

[Anonymous Coward]

The behavior (Adult 'products' not showing in general searches) is normal. The 'glitch' is that a bunch of things that should not have been Adult products were listed as such. This explains the [horrible] CS response.

What I want to know, is what broke to mark these particular items as adult? Bad feed? Bad regex? Malicious action?

Re:Glitch?

[julesh]

Apparently Amazon is calling it a "glitch".

No, what they're calling a glitch is the categorisation of the popular titles as adult. They still don't intend to go back and start keeping track of the sales rank of the real adult titles.

"Drug" books too.

[bmasel]

Search for "marijuana" sort by "bestselling" and most returns are irrelevant, with some 12 step and abstinence titles in the mix.

Independent Bookstores

[logicnazi]

I've never understood why people get so worked up about independent bookstores.

Yes, historically, the chains like waldenbooks would carry a very limited selection and the independent bookstores were often the only place to go to get something that wasn't a bestseller. Then the mega bookstores like borders and barnes and noble started to take over and since they stocked a much bigger selection it wasn't as big a deal anymore but still independent bookstores were often the only place to find certain kinds of niche books.

However, the internet booksellers have pretty much everything. The independent booksellers are dying because they no longer offer anything the cheaper internet booksellers like amazon don't. Sure, we lost a bit of atmosphere and the fun of going in and browsing but that's a fair trade for the convenience, price and selection of the online sellers.

I mean is this really any different than gripping about the fact that people won't pay extra to keep mall gadget shops (sharper image) open so you have somewhere fun to hang out with massage chairs when you go to the mall with your spouse?

Short Amazon.com stock

[jackchance]

While I certainly plan to boycott amazon in response to this repressive and insane policy change, a more immediate form of protest (and a way to get press) could be to short-sell the stock.

Can someone do the math? If we started an online movement to short the stock at a specific time and date, how many stock would each of us have to short in order to actually drive the stock down?

Re:Short Amazon.com stock

[u38cg]

And you would lose a shit load of money, because Amazon is not fundamentally over-valued, which is the only situation in which shorting makes sense. Also, movements in a company's share price mean nothing other than PR value; nothing actually changes when a company's share price goes up or down.

Resource Use

[logicnazi]

On the other hand I bet amazon ends up sending a lot less ripped off book covers back to the publisher wasting both the resources used to print that book plus the transit and disposal. Also you don't jump in your car to drive to the bookstore.

Also it's not like UPS uses a new truck for every package that's sent so the loss is only the fuel for the delivery truck to add your house to the existing route and some losses due to the lower efficiencies for the long haul trucks with less dense loads.

So I would guess that on average ordering from amazon results in less waste than picking the book up at the bookstore. For most consumers the bookstore will be significantly farther out of their way than their house was for the UPS delivery guy and the wasted unsold inventory will pick up any remaining slack.

---

As an aside is it even a net benefit to recycle paper products. Paper mainly comes from tree farms and by recycling it we reduce the carbon taken out of the air.

Re:Resource Use

[forgottenusername]

Well, to your UPS truck point - how do you think bookstores get their books? Same UPS trucks, I'd imagine. Except instead of delivering 1 to 1 customer wherever they are, they deliver several depending on popularity / saleability. Big bookstores like Powells and Eliott Bay probably aggregate fairly well - their profit margins are much less so they have to be as efficient as possible everywhere. Amazon is certainly efficient minded, but they have the advantage of gross sales margin.

In my specific case, I'd be taking the bus into work regardless, so there's no additional fuel consumption required.

Anyway, the math would be exceedingly difficult, as with the Amazon Marketplace 3rd party vendors have their own setup. I'd be willing to wager that many people do oneoff/one at a time deliveries off Amazon (espcially Prime members with free shipping) whereas if they had to go book shopping, they'd be better at aggregating purchases and whatnot.

Anyway there is still the point of who you want to support financially..

Re:can anyone coroberate this from a seperate sour

[mizhi]

How about going to Amazon (they have a website) and looking for yourself? Andrew Sullivan's book, Virtually Normal, which is NOT erotica or adult themed has no ranking.

Same for Same-sex Marriage: A Pro and Con Reader. Which is, as the title suggests, a book concerning the arguments for and against gay marriage.
Same for Love Undetectable.

But his book The Conservative Soul: Fundamentalism, Freedom, and the Future of the Righ 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. No sales rank.
What the Bible Really Says About Homosexuality. No sales rank.
Homosexuality and Civilization. No sales rank.
When Homosexuality Hits Home: What to Do When a Loved One Says They're Gay. No sales rank.

Some more well-known books:
Conduct Unbecoming: Gays and Lesbians in the US Military. 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. No sales rank.
Major Conflict: One Gay Man's Life in the Don't-Ask-Don't-Tell Military. No sales rank.
Dont: A Readers Guide to the Militarys Anti-Gay Policy. 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. Has a sales rank.
Can Homosexuality be Healed?. Has a sales rank.
You Don't Have to be Gay. Has a sales rank.

Now, perhaps there is a perfectly rational explanation, but looking at the evidence, I smell something funny.

glitch in the search engine

[fractalVisionz]

Here are two sources, saying that there was a mistake in the system.

AP: http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5iFAIOIDnSsgrsaXKgoEH9kaWAmlwD97HAGUO1
La time (blog) http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/jacketcopy/2009/04/amazon-responds-to-adult-queries-blames-a-glitch.html

Re:glitch in the search engine

[Xiroth]

saying that there was a mistake in the system.

The glitch was "We hadn't realised how many people we were going to piss off with this." I particularly love Amazon's response to the request for more detail in the second link in the parent.

there is a solution...

[Anonymous Coward]

I really say that the best solution is for everyone offended to simply cancel their account. the true question is, is that enough to hinder Amazon.com sales. I say no. And what happens then?

Shop LOCAL!

[NineNine]

Don't like Amazon? Go to your local bookstores! Oh wait, there aren't any any more! That's right. Everybody and their mother wanted to save an extra quarter so the local bookstores are all gone. Bummer, huh? Too bad people are really, really stupid en masse.

Re:Shop LOCAL!

[Lemmy Caution]

To say that "people are stupid en masse" in this case misses the point. People don't make decisions "en masse" unless organized under some form of leadership. They make decisions individually, and the aggregate effects of those decisions have the consequences you describe.

Were those individual decisions stupid? Not necessarily.

Re:Surprise.

[bignetbuy]

*WOOSH* Use A9 (*) to find a sense of humor. * A9 is Amazon's search engine. I'm telling you this now so you don't miss another point.

YMMV, but...

[ChePibe]

The are mega book outets that tend to put smaller, more service oriented outlets out out of business.

Dude, present hyperventilating over something that appears to have already been fixed, I'm having a HARD time thinking of companies that are better to work with than Amazon.

Ordering? Easy. Very, very, very easy.

Inventory and convenience? You name it, they've got it. I can order a few paperbacks, a couple of CDs, an iPod, some deodorant and a pack of razor blades all at once, and they'll be at my door in two days thanks to prime. And all at a lower price than local stores offer.

Reviews? Generally plentiful.

Shipping? Quick, efficient, almost always "same day" if you get it in before 3:30 Pacific. And as a Prime member, free two-day shipping on virtually everything Amazon sells is a life changer. Fewer trips to the store, lower prices, and easy, quick, reliable ordering.

Have a problem? Drop them a line and they have an option to either call you back immediately (or at a specified time) or extremely quick email responses. Granted, I've made over a hundred orders from Amazon and had to use this service precisely twice (both due to carrier screw-ups).

I'll take Amazon ANY day over the "independent" bookstores around town. Better service, less time rummaging through poorly organized books, and no sales staff whose sole purpose in life seems to be to remind you to "buy local!" so they can continue to eek out a tiny living because they "love books".

I've seen a few nice little indy bookstores, don't get me wrong, but they're either a) institutions (Shakespeare & Co., Paris) or b) have something else going for them (a great little restaurant/hot chocolate/coffee place that also sells good used and new books). These can work.

No problem for me....

[Anonymous Coward]

A search for what I knew would turn up explicitly adult books turned up explicitly adult books, so I'm happy.

http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_ss_gw/102-4520669-6431337?initialSearch=1&url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=gallery%20girls

Just bought over $1200 worth of merchandise...

[HanzoSpam]

...at Amazon.

And now I have a great reason to make my next purchase there too!

Re:Just bought over $1200 worth of merchandise...

[palegray.net]

Pay attention, class. Here is a fine example of living proof that being in possession of disposable income is, at best, only weakly correlated to intelligence.

If you're going to do it, do it right

[Chmcginn]

"There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old's life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs." -- John Rogers

Re:If you're going to do it, do it right

[JonStewartMill]

I am SO swiping that quote for my tagline collection.

Re:Surprise.

[radio4fan]

What do you really expect from Amazon.

A patent application for one-click book-burning?

Re:You should have logged in.

[morghanphoenix]

Is this the only one of your comments that isn't at -1?

Sorry America!

[localoptimum]

No changes on amazon.co.uk, I can see all these "unranked" books just fine in their ranking system. Not so for the amazon.com site. Maybe you've hit on the old "SEX=BAD" problem. Another example of this is Grand Theft Auto (steal cars and kill people, totally illegal) being fine for older kids; but when it's found that the main character can engage in a sex game with his lady friend (not illegal for older kids and necessary for the existence of life) the game is banned and then later released x-rated. Go figure.

I blame obese conservative wankers in suits who think that sex only exists on Sunday evenings through a hole in a sheet, when absolutely necessary, and between a married man and woman in their late 30s who don't actually know each other anymore. These are the people who's lawns are identical and for whom "different" is a virtue of the satanic and godless heathen who deserves to burn in hell for eternity. Lets just boycott these obese wankers.

In the mean time, good luck with your amazon.com campaign. My tip: order from the UK site. You'll have to wait a while longer for your books, but with the british pound worth less than a teaspoon full of gooseshit and falling you'll probably get a good deal :P

Few quotes

[Kynde]

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

Re:Filtering != Censorship

[h4rm0ny]

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:Surprise.

[Anonymous Coward]

90/male/brazil

3/female/nambia

Hmm

[ProfYaff]

I find it amusing that a search for "playboy" or "penthouse" doesn't seem to have been affected by this change. So erotica (particularly of the homosexual kind it seems) is suddenly too hardcore for customers, but the shit Playboy peddles is ok? As others have said, a simple "safe-search" would suffice.

moderation is a god given right, so is money

[rofthorax]

You don't like amazon, stop buying their stuff..
That's the answer..

Re:moderation is a god given right, so is money

[mvdwege]

Well gee, Captain Obvious, what do you think TFA are calling for?

Mart

Award-winning filtering?

[geekmux]

I was surfing through Amazon to confirm the story, and sure enough, all the copies of Brokeback Mountain and Lady Chatterley's lover...

Woah, hold up a sec. Brokeback Mountain? The movie that has 60+ nominations and 3 Oscars to its name? THAT Brokeback Mountain?

Good luck on your distribution contracts with Hollywood in the future there Amazon. Er, you might want to put that (bridge) fire out before you get fined.

I already boycot Amazon

[Anonymous Coward]

and get my books from Waterstones .... WTF bangs head against wall ... repeating mantra 'free market competition is great' ad infinitum

Pony Casserole...

[geekmux]

Though, if you do get your hands on a pony, you can make a free lunch out of it.

Hey, good idea! I wonder if Amazon has any cookbooks...

Re:Pony Casserole...

[Hognoxious]

You could try here

They dont like upsetting scientology either

[sjwest]

Amazon didnt want to stock The Complex: An Insider Exposes the Covert World of The Church of Scientology, in fact you cannot buy it from them in some countries, and they might not actually sell it.

author: Duignan, John
published: Merlin (published in Ireland)
isbn: 9781903582848

Amazons issue began when they started to sell 'everything' those who remember amazon as just a bookstore mean i don't take amazon seriously ever since they off shored customer queries to india and those guys smoke something weird.

I have not bought anything from amazon in years, yes i still buy books, and if i blog i quote isbn, and not provide links to an online bookstore.

If amazon want me to do free seo, they can pay me, but they don't.

Their audience wants family-friendly

[hessian]

Family friendly means your kids wait until they are mature to make decisions about their sexual futures.

Family friendly means you don't want someone else's values rammed down your throat.

I think Amazon picked sensibly. People say all sorts of stuff about diversity and justice, but when it comes time to buying homes or buying products for their families, they are conservative -- even if liberal in outlook.

One academic at Rice University studied how people vote with their feet, in contrast to what they identify as their political beliefs, in a study about how education breeds segregation because whites with higher education, even very liberal whites, avoid diverse neighborhoods.

If we are going to be scientists about this issue, we should look at the practicalities of pluralism. Pluralism means every group gets their own space; it doesn't mean we find one standard for all people, because that removes their right to have their own opinions.

Re:Their audience wants family-friendly

[argent]

Family friendly means you don't want someone else's values rammed down your throat.

Mein Kampf? The Protocols of the Elders of Zion? That's OK then?

Re:Their audience wants family-friendly

[Anonymous Coward]

Reductio ad Hitlerum.

You cretin.

The Jews are responsible for your country collapsing all around you, and turning into a crime ridden, Third World hell.

Or hadn't you noticed?

Re:Their audience wants family-friendly

[argent]

Gosh whillikers! You don't sound family-friendly at all!

Re:Filtering != Censorship

[Patch86]

Back in the days when censorship was popular, everyone knew that it was going on and who was doing it.

The original name for the BBFC (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BBFC) was "British Board of Film Censors", and it was their government sponsored job to censor all film and TV. They kept the word "censors" in their name for about 70 years.

It's only these days, now that people have decided it is a bad thing, that it might need to be done in secret.

Censorship vs. "Filtering"

[geekmux]

I agree that though it's Amazon's right to sell or not sell what they want it's also our right to boycott and/or otherwise protest their policy. Nevertheless, it isn't censorship on Amazon's part. Amazon is not a government or other authority or monopoly so we are still free to shop elsewhere and many will.

While I do agree that "censorship" may be the wrong verbage, there's a damn fine line between censorship and filtering of search results(or "cleansing our search database"), which IS what is going on here (ref. Great Firewall of China for more on this). Hate to say this, but many would still call that "censorship"

Point here is it's a really stupid move on a corporation that has based its uniqueness and identity on the customers feedback and input.

Without the rankings, reviews, and feedback, Amazon would be just another cheap bookstore. Hell, I can drive down the street for that, so yeah, you're right, people can and likely will shop elsewhere.

Amazons new name...

[geekmux]

Well, let's just ski on down that slippery slope. I'm pretty sure we can find some large, athletic women who would find the word "Amazon" offensive... said women should request that any search results returning links to any page with this unacceptable word on it be removed from site...

In other news, Amazon Inc. has reportedly filed to reserve the domain name, happygoluckystuffonline.com...

Let's ban the bible then ...

[MartinSchou]

The bible has some rather explicit passages about incest and rape.

How about Lot and his daughters (Genesis 19):

31 And the elder said to the younger Our father is old, and there is no man left on the earth, to come in unto us after the manner of the whole earth.
32 Come, let us make him drunk with wine, and let us lie with him, that we may preserve seed of our father.
33 And they made their father drink wine that night: and the elder went in and lay with her father: but he perceived not neither when his daughter lay down, nor when she rose up.
34 And the next day the elder said to the younger: Behold I lay last night with my father, let us make him drink wine also to night, and thou shalt lie with him, that we may save seed of our father.
35 They made their father drink wine that night also, and the younger daughter went in, and lay with him: and neither then did he perceive when she lay down, nor when she rose up.
36 So the two daughters of Lot were with child by their father.

That would be catagorized as a date rape in today's society. And of course incesteous.

Then there's this nice bit (2 Kings 13):

1 And it came to pass after this, that Amnon the son of David loved the sister of Absalom the son of David, who was very beautiful, and her name was Thamar.
2 And he was exceedingly fond of her, so that he fell sick for the love of her: for as she was a virgin, he thought it hard to do any thing dishonestly with her.
[... guy pretends to be sick to lure his (half/step?)sister to his house]
8 And Thamar came to the house of Amnon her brother: but he was laid down: and she took meal and tempered it: and dissolving it in his sight she made little messes.
9 And taking what she had boiled, she poured it out, and set it before him, but he would not eat: and Amnon said: Put out all persons from me. And when they had put all persons out,
10 Amnon said to Thamar: Bring the mess into the chamber, that I may eat at thy hand. And Thamar took the little messes which she had made, and brought them in to her brother Amnon in the chamber.
11 And when she had presented him the meat, he took hold of her, and said: Come lie with me, my sister.
12 She answered him: Do not so, my brother, do not force me: for no such thing must be done in Israel. Do not thou this folly.
13 For I shall not be able to bear my shame, and thou shalt be as one of the fools in Israel: but rather speak to the king, and he will not deny me to thee.
14 But he would not hearken to her prayers, but being stronger overpowered her and lay with her.

Personally I find these tings more offensive than a story about two people of the same gender who truly love eachother ...

Re:Forget the gay nonsense

[Aladrin]

I doubt any single group (unless they are a majority of the customers) will get them to change their minds.

Luckily for us, this snowballs quite readily. Soon, it will spread to other anti-interest groups. They'll start lobbying Amazon to remove more and more content until Amazon can't handle the load of complaints and requests, let alone actually sell any products.

They were a -lot- better off when they were being impartial. (Or at least pretending.)

Re:Surprise.

[TaoPhoenix]

Godwin already!?

Re:Surprise.

[TaoPhoenix]

And you're going to get that past Dept. Homeland Security HOW?

Digital searches makes censorship subtle

[WildlyParenthetical]

I'm surprised by assumption people are making here about censorship needing to be about an absolute lack of access. On Amazon, lots of people type in a topic, and don't get beyond a few pages before they buy something or tire of looking. Given that the rank of books on a topic are listed by sales rank, as far as I can tell, that means that stripping out the sales ranks of certain books makes them much harder to access. Which is part of why the argument above that they're 'catering to their market' doesn't quite work: if that were the case, then the 'offensive' books would be the 'unpopular' books; i.e., they'd come up last in any given search, and we wouldn't even be having this conversation. It's also not affecting a fair proportion of het porn and romance, whilst gay porn and gay romance (or even just literature *about* gay people e.g. "Oranges are not the only fruit") have been stripped of their ranks. But it's not just content designed to arouse that's being de-ranked: self-help books and even academic texts are being affected, even though studies of minorities such as GLBT and studies of sexuality more generally have been accepted areas of academic study for some time now. The main issue, I think, is that this is affecting how searches work. Try searching for "A Critical Introduction to Queer Theory" and you'll only be offered the hard cover versions, which are currently out of print. In order to find the current, in-print version, you have to search under the author's name. It doesn't need to be overt censorship when these kinds of subtle rearrangements of db searches are going on: it's only because I already knew all the details of the book I was searching for that I knew to keep looking til I found it. This is particularly problematic as many people rely on Amazon to have one of the most up-to-date dbs of books in the world, and info about which version is currently in print - and this includes people who work in bookstores...

Glitch vs censorship policy

[Dark$ide]

Since when did Amazon's policy decision (which is 100% wrong) become a "glitch".

A glitch is a bug or a fuck up. It's nothing like a policy decision to remove adult, gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender and questioning material.

press release

I don't agree with censorship of any kind in any form. I'm straight so this being a GLBTQ issue doesn't bother me. What does bother me is that Amazon.com can adopt a policy like this.

Give users a safesearch option (like Google), if they're sensitive to stuff like this or homophobic, but don't inflict it on everyone. Amazon.co.uk hasn't implemented the policy but I'd guess it will happen really soon.

Re:I do not think that word means what you think..

[mopower70]

Thanks for the clarification. You've made it very clear that you have either have no idea what you've just cut and pasted, or you have no idea what Amazon is doing. Under which part of that definition does removing sales rankings from Amazon's proprietary system fall under?

an official who examines books ... for the purpose of suppressing parts deemed objectionable

Not this one. No one is suppressing any part of the books themselves. They simply removed them from their sales ranking displays.

any person who supervises the manners or morality of others

Pretty sure this doesn't apply. Amazon isn't sitting over you telling you that you can't buy the book.

to examine and act upon as a censor.

They haven't fit any definition of acting as a censor yet, so it must be...

to delete (a word or passage of text) in one's capacity as a censor.

And anyone with any common sense knows that deleting a word or passage of text FROM YOUR OWN WORK isn't censorship.

there's an easy way to handle this

[jollyreaper]

Do it just like Google image search -- everyone defaults to safe mode and you can then turn it off if you don't want to be mollycoddled. As for what goes on the list, just categorize the books properly and allow them to be on your exclusion list. Do you want romance, g-rated, r-rated, x-rated, or none of the above?

I have no problem with giving individuals the means to filter their results so long as their views aren't imposed upon the majority. I personally have no use for religion but it would be rather rude of me to demand that all religious books be made 18+ saying they're not suitable for young, impressionable minds. I happen to believe that's the case but it's my choice to not expose kids to that kind of material and I can impose my standards on kids I'm responsible for, not the entire world.

More to it than that

[djd259th]

The only problem with the free-market point of view on this particular issue is that Amazon is omnipotent and controls such a huge market share. It's similar to the case with Wal Mart. Several recording artists were hurt badly when Wal Mart took their albums off the shelves for similar reasons (controversial content), effectively cutting a staggering number of consumers off from the artists since Wal Mart was the only distribution channel they bought their music through. Many people get their books solely through Amazon, and a competing site with access to books deemed inappropriate by Amazon may not be able to offer those books for such low prices (vis a vis economy of scale) thus controlling the literature that many people are exposed to. of course, they could just suck it up and get a library card...

Interesting how Amazon is calling it a "glitch"

[SirGeek]

I found this story on huffington post.

According to the article it was a glitch that "Caused Site To Strip Sales Rankings From Gay/Lesbian Books".

Should be interesting to see how fast they back pedal on this one.

Mountain? Molehill?

[Anonymous Coward]

I understand that it is only happening to books dealing with homosexuality, but why does it matter if they list a sales rank or not?

A quick look at Amazon.com shows ...

The books are still available to purchase from Amazon.com

I can search for them by title, by author, by category, by keyword, etc.

You can still link to them.

What does having a sales rank do for a book?

Re:Surprise.

[Anonymous Coward]

I am betting they wont censor the book "10 Books That Screwed Up the World: And 5 Others That Didn't Help", which is one of the biggest calls for intellectual censorship by a christian fundamentalist trying to sound "authoritative" in decades.

Re:Making my son an independent human being

[Anonymous Coward]

You don't have to brainwash by saying, "all religion is bad". You absolutely _should_ warn him about all of the exceptional claims religions make without a shred of evidence, and how "faith" (in the context of religious belief, not reasoned optimism) is a psychological Trojan horse for such beliefs.

Call off the dogs

[Anonymous Coward]

He did it for the lulz: How to cause moral outrage from the entire internet in ten lines of code

Re:Making my son an independent human being

[jacks0n]

What! No free toaster?????! Those dudes TOTALLY lied to me.

Rules of the Internet

[cdrguru]

1. Low price trumps everything else. Customer service, convenience, product quality, whatever.

2. Quantity beats Quality every time.

So Amazon having 10x more books than the local bookstore at lower prices means the local bookstore gets driven out of business.

Amazon is burning books?!

[Bones3D_mac]

***insert kindle joke here***

How about this then... they instead simply keep the "offensive" books in the searches, but offer to include a book of matches and lighter fluid as an add-on for them. Then users who want the books removed can simply buy them all up and burn them by themselves.

Has this story been checked?

[Anonymous Coward]

Searching Amazon, I can't see any difference. Kindle still has an 'erotica' section. There are still 22k books in the gay/lesbian book section.

Can someone name a book that cannot be found through their search?

Re:Rogers quote

[JonStewartMill]

I'm SO swiping that quote for my tagline collection.

Re:can anyone coroberate this from a seperate sour

[Beezlebub33]

Why does Brokeback Mountain have a sales ranking? It is, I think, one of the best known pro-gay books out there.

Am I missing Something?

[BrGaribaldi]

I went to Amazon's main page and did a search for Mark Probst, the author mentioned in TFA. "The Filly", his book also mentioned in TFA shows up on the top of the list (which is a big list with a bunch of stuff about Survivor). I went to the page and "The Filly" has a sales ranking. It listed as the number 1 selling book in the G and L literature catagory. If anyone is curious, this book has a sales ranking of #77,928.

Re:Mountain? Molehill?

[Hognoxious]

What does having a sales rank do for a book?

Apart from making it appear higher in the results listings, nothing at all. As if anybody looks at the results at the top of the list first - it's preposterous!

If you're consistantly butthurt, there are options

[neomunk]

That's some mighty fine hypocrisy there, coming from one of slashdot's most prolific and whiny recent posters.

So, really, why are you here? Everything I see from you is an obnoxious too-sure-of-itself rant about how everyone except people who think exactly like you is an idiot.

If you hate it so much, just GTFO and be happier in your life. Find something that's more to your tastes and interests, maybe you'll like the people there better. Good luck finding a new online hangout, I wish you all the best.

YHBT

[Anonymous Coward]

THIS WAS A TROLL. Well, a metatroll.

http://community.livejournal.com/brutal_honesty/3168992.html

Someone automatically flagged every gay/lesbian-categorized book with Amazon's "report as offensive" link some untold number of times over the weekend.

Amazon was framed?

[alispguru]

According to this, the mass downrating of purportedly-gay-themed books at Amazon was engineered from the outside.

Ideas on how to verify this?

Look in firehose

[esocid]

Update: someone claims to have been responsible for this by using a XSS to remove tags and force accounts to tag books as innappropriate.
So if it is true, Amazon isn't to blame here.

Re:Look in firehose

[taustin]

So if it is true, Amazon isn't to blame here.

Other than for creating a system that allows this with ten lines of code.

Re:Look in firehose

[esocid]

Touche. At least the douche pointed out a gaping vulnerability.

Re:I do not think that word means what you think..

[Incredible Elmo]

And stores selling sensitive or expensive items, that supervise my manner of eating messy subs, are excercising censorship!

Not to mention toy stores not selling adult toys...

I just called Amazon....

[Anonymous Coward]

The nice customer service lady is saying that this was a "system glitch" and that they are actively working to fix it. They are back pedalling.

Re:can anyone coroberate this from a seperate sour

[Joe the Lesser]

It's also fiction and must be interpreted, and quite well known.

It looks like they were censoring the 'self-help' books that explicitly say 'it's okay to be gay, here's how to cope with who you really are.' and other non-fiction type books, none of which I heard of.

Safe Search

[Nom du Keyboard]

Google has Safe Search available for images. As others have said, if all Amazon did was offer a Safe Search Yes/No option next to their search box then this would be a tempest in a teapot.

I'm willing to bet that if they did offer this, and tracked its usage, that they'd find out that virtually none of their customers would actually opt for it

We keep getting government nannys feeling we need V-chips for every aspect of our lives (are you listening Australia Internet government censors?). But when the choice arises, the Opt Out choice seems to win every time.

But what about the children? My children? The best V-chip is parental involvement in what your child is watching on the TV or their computer. You can't expect technology to substitute for effective parenting.

To hide a book (remove it from the card catalog, to use an obsolete reference) is to censor that book. Amazon, you're engaging in censorship and you can't call it anything else! As a bookseller you should be more anti-censorship than pro political correctness.

Re:Surprise.

[Shadow of Eternity]

Never heard of that one, but I did take the Ten Most Harmful Books of the 19th and 20th Centuries and print it out as a Required Reading list.

Re:Surprise.

[Shadow of Eternity]

Quoted from TFA.

lol weev

[Anonymous Coward]

http://community.livejournal.com/brutal_honesty/3168992.html

Bantown wins again!

Re:Forget the gay nonsense

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.amazon.com/You-Dont-Have-Gay-Homosexuality/dp/0942817087/ref=sr_1_13?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1239599266&sr=1-13

Re:Surprise.

[rrohbeck]

That one shouldn't be +5 Funny but +5 Insightful.

Sign the petition!

[rrohbeck]

http://www.thepetitionsite.com/1/in-protest-at-amazons-new-adult-policy

Re:Sign the petition!

[Blackneto]

i'll pass. 2 days of this nonsense is enough without trying to keep it going

What really happened

[Anonymous Coward]

A friend pointed out this guy claiming credit. Apparently it wasn't Amazon itself, just some guy who used some simple scripting to trick thousands of people into reporting anything categorized as homosexual as offensive, as a practical joke.

Space for competing book shops...

[Anonymous Coward]

Begging companies to change their wicked ways is stupid.

Vote with your feet instead. Or start a competing business.

glitch or hack, rather than censorship

[changedx]

http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,163024/article.html

Put away the pitchforks...

Further information from Amazon

[turvity]

Amazon has released more information. Apparently it was user error, 57 310 books were de-listed, and they are working to restore their ranks. This sounds to me to be fairly accurate; were it a deliberate policy change with an eye to being "family-friendly", it wouldn't make sense to do it covertly. After all, they would want to attract new customers to replace the ones alienated.

RE: Amazon Pidgen-Holes Jeff Bezos

[Anonymous Coward]

Jeff Bezos:

Caucasian

Male

Christian

Prostestent

Raicist

Queer

Nazi

Only on US site?

[KlausBreuer]

Well, the americans have always been a little, um, weird about sex.

If your US-version of amazon starts getting all worried about sex information, how about skipping to an european one? For example. the german version (www.amazon.de) also sells english books, and you don't need to know german at all to be able to order it...

(And yes, the english version of "Virtually Normal" showed up on the search)

Recurse please.

[aralbu]

Weren't the Amazons a bunch of women who lived with each other to the exclusion of men? Shouldn't Amazon change (censor) its name?