Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Was the Amazon De-Listing Situation a Glitch Or a Hack?

Posted by Soulskill on from the can't-it-be-both dept.

Miracle Jones writes "As Amazon struggles to re-list and re-rank gay, lesbian, and adult books on their website after massive public outcry against the secretive partitioning process, they are claiming that the entire situation was not the result of an intentional policy at all, are not apologizing, and are instead insisting that the situation was the result of 'a glitch' that they are now trying to fix. While some hackers are claiming credit for 'amazonfail,' and it is indeed possible that an outside party is responsible, most claims have already been debunked. How likely is it that Amazon was hacked versus the likelihood of an internal Easter weekend glitch? Or is the most obvious and likely scenario true, and Amazon simply got caught implementing a wildly-unpopular new policy without telling anyone?"

10 of 396 comments (clear)

  1. Maybe... by milas · · Score: 5, Funny

    ...it was a glitchy hack?

    1. Re:Maybe... by Dutchmaan · · Score: 5, Funny

      California, of all places, couldn't agree on gay marriage. Imagine then the rest of the country.

      Iowa, of all places, could agree on gay marriage. Imagine then the rest of the country.

    2. Re:Maybe... by calmofthestorm · · Score: 5, Funny

      I don't know, one time I was writing a Huffman compressor for an applied information theory class and I couldn't find this weird bug where it would email racist statements to everyone in your address book every time you tried to compress a file larger to 50kb. Took me several hours to fix, and my solution was under 100 lines of Python.

      I can fully sympathize with companies who have to deal with overly sensitive people who think that bugs like this, which emerge quite frequently in sufficiently complex systems, are the result of bad calls or poor intent, rather than the simple technical glitches that they are.

      --
      93rd rule of Slashdot: No matter how obvious my sarcasm is, my comment will be taken seriously by someone.
  2. Alll that fuss by actionbastard · · Score: 2, Funny

    Over a few extra 'esses'.

    --
    Sig this!
  3. Re:To avoid this.. by larry+bagina · · Score: 5, Funny

    being gay isn't a personal preference, it's genetic.

    --
    Do you even lift?

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

  4. Re:Wildly unpopular? by Hordeking · · Score: 4, Funny

    Fact: 99% of quoted statistics are 150% bullshit.

    --
    Disclaimer: The opinions and actions of the US Gov't are in no way representative of those held by this author or its ci
  5. Re:To avoid this.. by Walkingshark · · Score: 4, Funny

    Eventually, technology is going to make our very genes a matter of personal preference. It will be interesting to see which side the gay community comes down on then, since even if homosexuality really is a strictly hereditary phenomenon, there will truly be a choice. Of course, that will work both ways.

    If you're making a veiled threat at lesbian porn there is going to be fucking hell to pay.

    --
    The world you experience is only a close approximation of reality.
  6. Re:To avoid this.. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

    And the walls, don't forget the walls.

    They always watching.

  7. Good scientific experiment. by TiggertheMad · · Score: 5, Funny

    Compare Indian pornography to Japanese, to Chinese, to European, to American, to South American, to African,

    Ok, will do. Links please.

    --

    HA! I just wasted some of your bandwidth with a frivolous sig!
  8. Re:To avoid this.. by The_mad_linguist · · Score: 5, Funny

    >I chose to be white. Yep, you heard correctly.
    >Me being white is a choice. Stand up oppressed minorities! You too can choose white.

    Micheal Jackson, is that you?