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

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?"

Comments

To avoid this..

[tjstork]

Services like Amazon could just have a personal preferences for users that allows them to selectively exclude either gay content or content from gay authors. Problem solved.

Re:To avoid this..

[sudotron]

*sigh*

Not sure if you were being serious or not, but either way I'm going to respond with my usual rant on the subject because I think it's important: Whether or not being gay is genetic shouldn't matter in the context of any policy whatsoever. It appalls me to no end that people debate about this when the real issue at hand is that adults ought to be able to have consensual sex with whomever they want. What I do in the bedroom is between me and whomever I'm in there with.

Re:To avoid this..

[MindlessAutomata]

Homosexuality is and isn't a choice. The behavior is a choice, but the actual attraction is not. If I could choose who I was sexually attracted to then I would make myself asexual because like most Slashdot nerds I ain't gettin' any.

Ask yourself a simple question: if homosexuality were not a choice, why are the two most common insults directed at anyone who is against public promotion of homosexuality "well you must be in the closet" and "you must be afraid you'll try it and like it"? The mask slips just a tad too often, showing that the "it's not a choice" propaganda is pure lies.

This is because, or at least because it is perceived to be true, that many gay men in the closet deny their homosexuality for social reasons and to try to hide it or excuse for it or "make up for it" they crusade against homosexuality which they have been brought up to think is wrong. Does Ted Haggard ring a bell...?

Re:To avoid this..

[Walkingshark]

Lets just take it from the top.

First up, you try to back up a claim by linking to a fluff piece interview with an WNBA basketball star. You then talk a bunch of other shit that is essentially just repeating the same assertion over and over again supported with variations of "becuase I said so." Then, you claim that we should make policy on something because you said so.

Your finaly gem is this bit about closeted self hating gays being a common phenomenon:

Ask yourself a simple question: if homosexuality were not a choice, why are the two most common insults directed at anyone who is against public promotion of homosexuality "well you must be in the closet" and "you must be afraid you'll try it and like it"? The mask slips just a tad too often, showing that the "it's not a choice" propaganda is pure lies.

You're saying that because it is a widely observed phenomenon that some of the most anti-gay people are actually gay themselves (Ted Haggard being one of the more recent and spectacular flameouts), this somehow supports your "being gay is a choice" assertion. Again, because you said so.

Look, I know you're not smart enough to understand whats happening here, so I'll spell it out for you:

When people suggest that homophobes are closeted self-loathing gays, it in no way implies that they think that inward sexual orientation is a choice, it means that they are saying that lots of people are gay but that they lie about it.

You know, lies. You might have heard of them. Hell, you're probably lying to yourself right now. About how much you like cock.

Re:To avoid this..

[Moryath]

Interesting thought.

Culture influences what you think of as "attractive" as much as anything else. Compare Indian pornography to Japanese, to Chinese, to European, to American, to South American, to African, and compare not only from the 20th/21st century but also go back in history in the various places.

Compare modern Persian culture from Iran (heavily influenced/controlled by Islamic "thought") to the much richer, more vibrant Persian culture prior. You'll find that the Persians were much more open about sexuality and what they considered erotic, and you'll find just as much that the "tastes" have been changed.

Consider the cultural issues that made Westerners have such a weird place when the Japanese first saw them - to a culture where moderately dark skin and hair are the norm, but where the art forms venerated the lightest skin and hair tones as beautiful, to all of a sudden see very pale people and a number of red and gold hair tones among them.

Take the phenomenon of black males in America (as opposed to most African nations) who carry a sexual fetish for paler, light haired women. Amazing amounts of pornography are devoted to this, but only in America. Why is this? Because in America, those women are put forth as the ideal of "beauty", and with very few exceptions, even the successful models of black/african heritage have lighter than normal (for their genotype) skin tone and tend to do things like color their hair, towards either golden tones or golden highlights.

Now, take even a second-generation (child of immigrant parents but born in, or imported before say age 5) individual. What do you find? More likely than not, they do not as a rule share their parents' cultural kinks, either in regard to sexuality or otherwise, unless they've been held in an environment that is very similar to where their parents grew up (for instance, chinese raised in a "chinatown" area, or latino raised in a largely latino neighborhood).

Given the preceding, why is it unfair that parents (whose interest is in seeing their kids marry and produce the next generation) would be worried about their kids being told that homosexuality was "perfectly normal", "acceptable", or something else? You can propagandize impressionable minds into thinking that "sexual attractiveness" is a schoolgirl in a fuku. Or, for that matter, something a little more realistic of most of the population. Why, if homosexuality is "fixed", are pro-gay groups working so hard to get books promoting their lifestyle into kindergartens if not that they're trying to propagandize kids the same way and pick up some numbers?

Re:To avoid this..

[wickerprints]

"Homosexuality" is not a behavior, at least no more so than "heterosexuality" is a behavior. It is an intrinsic identification regarding one's sexuality. It is misleading and incorrect to conflate sexual orientation and sexual activity by using the same word to describe both.

Furthermore, being "in the closet" is not a denial of one's homosexuality per se. It is merely the set of actions (or in some cases, lack of action), that lead others to presume that the given individual is heterosexual. Such actions range from simply doing nothing--the assumption is preexisting--to active denial, which is the case you described. There is an entire spectrum in between those extremes that you fail to take into account.

The question of whether homosexuality is a choice is in itself a loaded one, because it assumes that the answer is germane to how GLBTs (i.e. anyone who isn't heterosexual) ought to be treated by society. GLBTs don't present the question of whether heterosexuality is a choice. Neither do the heterosexuals who are so apparently fascinated with the analogous question as it applies to gays. To GLBTs, it is as if society asked, "Is being blue-eyed a choice" as a precursor to determining whether or not blue-eyed individuals should be held to a lower social and legal status than non-blue-eyed individuals.

Therefore, the debate over the nature and origins of homosexuality in humans is, in my view, a deliberate and calculated attempt by homophobes and bigots to manipulate the dialogue about the role of GLBTs in society away from the ways in which we share commonalities and the discrimination we face, and toward the biased, dogmatic thinking that underlies their prejudices about people who are not like themselves. And they have been incredibly successful at this sophistry and perversion of logic, as is witnessed by the asking of the "choice" question nearly every single time a discussion about gay people happens online. The ensuing useless debate is proof and product.

Re:To avoid this..

[mkcmkc]

Whether [...] society has an interest (based on there being more good than harm, overall, to society) in the promotion of homosexual pairings.

Since no one is suggesting that we "promote" homosexual pairings, this question is entirely moot. (No, objecting to discrimination and violence against gays does not count as "promoting" homosexuality. Good grief.)

Re:To avoid this..

[fractoid]

Take the phenomenon of black males in America (as opposed to most African nations) who carry a sexual fetish for paler, light haired women.

Among dark-skinned races, lighter skin is seen as beautiful. I don't know why but I guess it's the counterpart to light-skinned races' fixation on sun tans. I know I found it amusing going from Thailand (where the TV is full of advertising for whitening creams to lighten skin colour) to England (where the TV is full of advertising for Johnsons' Holiday Skin, a popular fake tan). And it's not just dark-skinned women trying to look like white women - I've heard actresses criticised for not looking "asian enough".

As for sexuality being a choice - I challenge you to (assuming you're straight and male, adjust genders as appropriate if not) look up some gay porn and find it arousing. I bet you can't. If you can't 'choose to be gay', then how can you realistically expect others have chosen so, or that they can 'choose to be straight'? Unless you take the absurd position that everyone is intrinsically straight and that every person who claims to be gay is lying, your position is inconsistent.

Given the preceding, why is it unfair that parents (whose interest is in seeing their kids marry and produce the next generation) would be worried about their kids being told that homosexuality was "perfectly normal", "acceptable", or something else?

This is a scary viewpoint. Homosexuality is not "acceptable"? You remind me of a guy I used to work with, who said that gay couples shouldn't be allowed to adopt because "then the kids would grow up thinking it's OK".

Why, if homosexuality is "fixed", are pro-gay groups working so hard to get books promoting their lifestyle into kindergartens if not that they're trying to propagandize kids the same way and pick up some numbers?

Maybe so that those kids are more likely to think "bob likes holding hands with other boys, because he's gay, but he's still a person just like everyone else" rather than "look! it's a faggot, lets kill it!". Tolerance comes more easily with familiarity.

Re:To avoid this..

[dangitman]

Yeah. Thousands of years of romantic poetry is clearly wrong. Nobody is aroused by anything they don't want to be, and every straight guy who's looking at a hot woman must focus and think "getitupgetitupgetitupgetitup oh yeah, she's making me pop a bo... getitupgetitupgetitupgetitup"

So, what about people who are bisexual? I've been attracted to both men and women, and can make a choice at any time to choose either or both. I know plenty of people in a similar position.

I think this debate might be more about sexual repression, and both sides take the argument to extremes. Just as people arguing that it's "just a choice" are likely arguing from a sense of repression and revulsion, those gays who vociferously argue that there's no choice" and it's only genetic are also repressing their lingering doubts about their sexuality. Sexuality is amorphous, it's more of a continuum than a binary decision. There are plenty of "straight" guys who enjoy getting a headjob from another guy, and plenty of "gay" men who fetishize glamourous women.

Re:To avoid this..

[wickerprints]

You certainly have a strange concept of "favored status." Name me one right--just ONE--that gay people have, or are seeking, that straight people do not enjoy. Name me one law on the books that says gay people are entitled to some benefit that straight people are legally prohibited from having.

You think that gay marriage is somehow more favorable to gays than straight marriage? That just demonstrates your bias and ignorance.

Re:To avoid this..

[mkcmkc]

I object to violence against anyone, as a general rule. I don't see where it makes a difference as to the skin color, gender, or any other component of the person on the receiving end of the violence.

Good, I'm glad to hear it. If you think about it a while, you'll probably realize that some of the worst situations gays have to endure right now don't involve physical violence per se, but just something more like abominable stupidity and pettiness. Consider the 25-year couple, one dying of cancer, who cannot even assume that they'll be able to be in the same room when death comes. That's where we're at today in the US, and if we want things to improve, we need to make it clear that when religion and bigotry oppose basic human decency, the latter should win out.

Re:To avoid this..

[TrekkieGod]

Interesting thought.

Culture influences what you think of as "attractive" as much as anything else...Given the preceding, why is it unfair that parents (whose interest is in seeing their kids marry and produce the next generation) would be worried about their kids being told that homosexuality was "perfectly normal", "acceptable", or something else?

There's a major flaw in your theory:

I'm a male, and I have been since childhood constantly bombarded with cultural ideals of beautiful women. As a result, for the most part, I tend to agree with other males that are part of the same culture as to what constitutes a beautiful woman. Similarly, females have been since childhood constantly bombarded with cultural ideals for beautiful men. Thus, they tend to somewhat agree on what constitutes an attractive male.

Here's the catch. As a male, I have seen the same "cultural propaganda" as the females around me. However, when I see the culturally accepted attractive male, I don't become aroused. There's a simple reason for that: I'm not gay. It's a similar situation for women. They can recognize a culturally accepted beautiful woman when they see her, but the heterosexual ones don't become aroused. Instead, they try to emulate her. For the homosexual population a similar situation exists, except that they are only aroused by the same gender instead of the opposite one: even though they were exposed to the exact same culture you and I were exposed to.

Sure, culture influences attractiveness, but there are obviously limits.

Why, if homosexuality is "fixed", are pro-gay groups working so hard to get books promoting their lifestyle into kindergartens if not that they're trying to propagandize kids the same way and pick up some numbers?

I can think of two very obvious reasons, both much more likely than your conspiracy theory (especially since I can't think of any reason why a homosexual person would have a need or desire to ensure the existence of homosexuals in the next generation...it certainly doesn't help their dating pool, so why the hell would they care?):

The first is that it sucks being discriminated against, and it's much easier to prevent bigoted behavior if you properly educate your child. It's basically the same reason why people of older generations are more likely to be racists. They were born in a world where that was the way things were, and it's difficult to change your ways.

The second is that it will prevent confusion if kids know how to behave around the child with "two fathers" or "two mothers." It's unfair for such a child to be ostracized for something they have no control over.

Re:To avoid this..

[Man On Pink Corner]

That's not what is being discussed. The question is, in context of the legal arguments taking place in places such as California currently, whether it is to society's best interest to extend tax and other benefits to gay pairings.

Civil rights do not accrue to "society." They accrue to individuals, and they are not subject to popular consensus.

Separate is not equal. This argument happened before, and just as in that case, there are people who are clearly on the right side of it, and people who are clearly on the wrong side.

Re:To avoid this..

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

Here's an experiment for you - find some random object/picture and stare at it while jacking off. Do that enough times, and you'll start to get horny when you see the object. It's a conditioned response involving brain chemistry and hormones. See also: Pavlov.

You really believe that? Sounds like the kind of thing they teach "confused" kids at those camps where they try to "cure" them of them being gay. If we just make them all jerk off to pictures of the opposite sex, they will turn straight!

I think most people who try what you suggest will just end up not getting off until they either tune out what they are looking at our find something more arousing to look at.

Have you ever considered that it is possible to examine a subject dispassionately, and put yourself in the other person's shoes to see things from their perspective, rather than having to attack anyone who disagrees with you and call them names or insult them?

Don't kid yourself. You can insult someone by calling them names and you can insult someone by acting like they are those names. Just because you aren't doing the former doesn't mean you aren't doing the latter. In my experience, it is almost universal that people who act like someone is stupid get all riled up when they are called stupid in return. It is a false piety.

Re:To avoid this..

[Maxo-Texas]

Bingo.

Sexuality ranges from 100% opposite sex attraction to 100% same sex attraction to 100% dominant to 100% submissive to 100% yada yada yada (race, boobs, ass, red head, blonde, fat, thin). There are many, many axis which sexuality turns on and each of them varies from 0% to 100%. If you are only lightly attracted to the same sex or only attracted to the same sex under particular circumstances, then it can be a choice under certain circumstances. One of the most comfortably gay guys I ever knew (from a painting class I took with him) was married for 8 years and had a couple kids. Clearly, he wasn't gay but was bisexual- but it was a lot simpler for him to just be one or the other socially.

Society doesn't tend to support bisexuality very well unless you are a hot female.

and for what it is worth, the policy seems a bit extreme for Amazon to have gone to without warning. It really puts their position as a neutral retailer in jeopardy. Christians, hindus, gays, straights, etc. could all buy books from Amazon as long as they are not politicized-- it's just a question availability and inexpensive price.

My problem with Amazon, Walmart, and many other similar stores is that ultimately they are bad for me as a consumer.
I get better prices on 80% of the merchandise-- and the other 20% of merchandise I lose the ability to purchase at all.
The small pet store with the barley dog food goes out of business- but pedigree is $1.00 instead of $1.10 at Walmart.

Ultimately, we as consumers are slitting our own throats by buying from the Amazons and Walmarts. The little stores need that extra dime in order to keep providing the specialty products the big stores will not offer. In some cases, you go from 10 to 15 (or more) different varieties of a product to *three*. All the diverse products were profitable- but the three were the most profitable.

Re:To avoid this..

[Dr. Manhattan]

A viewpoint held by a large number of people in society, is that homosexuality is not a good lifestyle choice.

A whole lot of people think that the Earth is 6,000 years old, or that Obama's not like all the other politicians. The question is, are the people correct or not?

Looking at things from an evolutionary perspective, repressing homosexuality is the worst possible thing to do if it's biologically-based. Assume it's maladaptive - that there's something wrong with it in some objective sense that has real-world consequences that outweigh any possible advantages. (Sickle-cell anemia has bad consequences if you have two genes for it, but if you only have one copy, it helps protect you from malaria. Go look up what populations have a prevalence of sickle-cell, and whether malaria was common where they originated. Go ahead, I'll wait.)

If homosexuality really is bad, then it will evolve away after a while. Any effort to force homosexuals to breed will just preserve the 'bad' genes longer. (Even if it's only neutral, it'll most likely go away just through genetic drift). So laws against homosexuality are a bad idea in direct proportion to how bad you assume homosexuality is.

But if we assume the converse, that homosexuality is objectively neutral - or perhaps even has net advantages for the population that contains it - then laws against homosexuality are also obviously a bad idea.

If it's not biologically-based - and I can't see how anyone could really argue this, if sex and sexual orientation don't have a biological basis, then what the hell does? - then it's something that consenting adults choose to do. As long as nobody's being hurt involuntarily, what possible (non-religious) justification could a law against homosexuality possibly have in that case?

So, no matter what position you take on the subject, laws against homosexuality are stupid.

I don't think "hack" is the right word

[taustin]

If the claims for responsibility are even close to accurate, and they seem plausible, it wasn't a "hack" so much as gaming the system for consumers to complain of "adult content." Nothing was used in a way that it was not intended to be used, from a technical standpoint.

As for "implementing as wildly-unpopular new policy without telling anyone," there are reports of this going back to February, and very credible reports that thousands of romance novels were affected, probably more than the "gay" conent novels. Seems an odd thing for Amazon to do, don't you think?

But we'll never know, and articles like this are the reason why. If it was someone gaming the consumer tagging system, there is no way to explain it to the average person that will not make it sound like their web site was "hacked," which is to say, compromised. Given the rash of recent actual cracks involving hundreds of millions of credit card numbers, Amazon has damned good reason to not shoot from the hip in any public statements.

An apology for being so inept that a claim that a single person caused this with "ten lines of code" would be nice, though.

Re:Maybe...

[fractoid]

It sounds like "technical glitch" is the new get-out-of-jail-free card for any big corporation that makes a bad call and wants to avoid public backlash.

Napoleon (not Dynamite) said it best...

[Nutria]

ham-fisted cataloging error

"Never ascribe to malice that which can adequately be explained by incompetence."

Re:Has to have been intentional

[moosesocks]

Seems a bit paranoid.

In the end, Amazon listened to their customers, and reversed an unpopular policy very quickly. If anything, this is good news.

It's blatantly not in Amazon's best interest to censor anything. The more variety and volume they sell, the larger the profit.

Re:Maybe...

[Austerity Empowers]

I don't think if Amazon had intentionally done this, and had announced that they'd one it, that it would be that unpopular. California, of all places, couldn't agree on gay marriage. Imagine then the rest of the country.

On the other hand, since Amazon is a for profit company, they have absolutely no reason to alienate a fraction of their customers by implementing this policy silently. They're not attracting right wing sales, nor "think of the children" types of all mentalities...they'd just be pissing off a segment of the market.

So it seems like it's probably a hack, because if it isn't they'd be being uncharacteristically stupid in the only dimension they'd ever shown any real passion about.

Did some gay drop you on your head?

[mkcmkc]

Actually, the problem is that "being gay" is really a choice

I have no idea why anyone thinks this matters. The reason that gays are A-OK with me is because they're not hurting anyone by their behavior and frankly, in my experience, even seem to be slightly nicer than the rest of us (on average).

something that society wants to promote and give benefits to (e.g. preferential treatment, tax benefits, etc)

Bzzt. Gays do not get preferential treatment or tax benefits for being gay, nor is anyone suggesting this ought to be done.

any more than someone who makes bad lifestyle choices and becomes obese

Now we've completely jumped the rails. Obesity has a significant inherited component. Go trawl NCBI.

there are a large number of parents that don't want their kids recruited to.

Perhaps you're thinking of Jehovah's Witnesses? (Maybe they have a "gay" branch, I dunno.)

not something the majority of society wants to see promoted.

Shouldn't the question here be whether or not a set of behaviors is harmful to society, rather than what "the majority of society wants to see promoted"?

if homosexuality were not a choice, why are the two most common insults directed at anyone who is against public promotion of homosexuality "well you must be in the closet" and "you must be afraid you'll try it and like it"?

Well, (a) one can be gay and in the closet. Doesn't really matter whether or not being gay is genetic. Duh. As for (b), we saw a study just this month that found that homophobic males are most likely to be turned on by gay porn. So, maybe fear of just that really is a significant component here.

Anyway, please take a deep breath. Gay acceptance isn't going to mean the fall of the republic or endanger the safety of your children. For those we have Neocons and motor vehicles, respectively.

P.S. Yeah, I know you're trolling. It was good for me anyway. ;-)

Re:Good scientific experiment.

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

I'm sure you're smart enough to use google.

Your lack of a sense of humour is funny. Not hahah funny, but revealingly funny.

Your response shows that you both:
(a) Didn't get the joke and
(b) Were so put out by it that you could not let it pass without the equivalent of a tin-pot authoritarian's "shut the fuck up."

In my opinion, it shows that you aren't really being objective in your analysis. That all of your "dispassionate" prose is really just a rationalization of your bias cloaked in the form of false empathy and insincere objectivity. If you weren't so tightly wound on the subject you wouldn't have felt the need to post such a transparent and futile defence against a perceived attack, especially one that wasn't even a criticism at all.

In other words, people don't even need to read you original post and go to the effort of applying any tests of the logic therein - your one line misdirected response to that joke reveals exactly where you are coming from in a much more succinct and direct fashion.

On the bright side, at least you can claim to have been a real "straight man."

Re:Has to have been intentional

[drinkypoo]

It's simply unhealthy to implicitly distrust (and loathe) every corporate and governmental entity on the planet.

NO. WRONG. WRONG WRONG WRONG. SPIT OUT THE KOOL-AID.

It's kind of silly to loathe by default, but defaulting to trust is just ignorant.

The price of freedom is eternal vigilance, and if you don't think that preventing major retailers from discriminating by default is part of that vigilance, you don't understand the problem.

I do not loathe Amazon, and intend to continue purchasing things from them, but this is a serious issue and I would both loathe them and avoid purchasing from them if they had not undone this.

However, going into hysterics over an isolated incident that was quickly corrected seems to be incredibly unhealthy;

The incident was quickly corrected because many went into "hysterics" -- or, as I like to put it, expressed a valid concern.

society needs at least a modicum of trust in order to function.

Yes, that is true. But that trust does not extend to trusting that a company has my best interests in mind. Instead, I trust that they will serve their own interests. The problem lies in when they don't understand when their interests and the customer's are aligned, which obviously was a problem here. In fact, I really don't trust Amazon or any other web retailer very much at all. Experience has taught me not to. Instead, I have some trust for my credit card company. I had some trust for my bank, but they rejected a chargeback where I had been defrauded. I changed banks. I could have just trusted that they knew better than I do.

In short, you are a fool if you default to trusting corporations or indeed businesses of any size. In fact when you buy from a web retailer you are trusting your credit card company to handle chargebacks for you if the transaction goes awry, because you know that getting any kind of satisfaction through the court system on an out-of-area retailer is nigh-impossible. When you buy from a local retailer you don't know, you have faith in the court system; still not in that retailer. That, or you have completely failed to understand one of the basic tenets of security: mistrust by default.