#amazonfail

And by now most of my flist have already heard about the news. For those who haven't, the Amazon ranking system has been changed to exclude authors of LGBTTQ-related materials from searches and sales rankings. In spite of their totaly bogus claim that this is a technical glitch evidence has emerged that this discriminatory practice has been going on since February.

Amazon's moronic response to a query from author Mark Probst claimed:

In consideration of our entire customer base, we exclude "adult" material from appearing in some searches and best seller lists. Since these lists are generated using sales ranks, adult materials must also be excluded from that feature.

Let's be clear. By "Adult" they mean pornography. And to judge by my own Amazon recommendations, it means hardcore, exploitative and dangerous pornography. Yeah.

So Brokeback Mountain is hardcore porn, but Laurell K Hamilton's abusive-relationships-as-romance are fine for all ages? A book designed to save the lives of suicidal teenagers, or a children's book about a child raised by two lesbians are hardcore porn, but it's fine to continue promoting Watchmen, in which a woman is slaughtered for the crime of being a lesbian, and one of the heroes is a murdering misogynist rapist?

I'm so there. Not.

For what it's worth, I have cancelled all of my outstanding orders at Amazon (which, ironically, included Sarah Waters' new novel out in June) and I have told them why.

There are plenty of other places I can shop. So I will.

#amazonfail 2

Amazon Rank...cause we can't bomb it enough.

The Guardian has finally picked up the story and Amazon told them the same steaming pile: it's "a glitch".

Meanwhile sbisson posted about how this happened from a technical standpoint none of which does anything to make the investigations done by Dear Author any less damning.

Frankly, I don't give a crap whether the CEO signed off on this or it's the work of some random code monkey. Amazon is a huge, worldwide company and is responsible. They can either explain and apologise, or I will never spend another penny at their store or any associated with them.

Classing LGBTTQ content as "adult" with no regard for whether or not it's actually pornographic, is an attempt to silence the LGBTTQ community. It's like burning books. It's like crossing the street when we pass by. It's not fucking acceptable.

But it's not just LGBTTQ stuff that's being censored. One of the many books listed in the meta_writer post of doom is a non-fiction book about sexuality and the disabled. Now even if I were to concede that perhaps some LGBTTQ material is best kept away from the delicate children (note the subjunctive mood, please - I'm not conceding this for a second, but even if) taking this book out of the rankings is horrible.

I have no words for how badly this whole thing sucks. Amazon, you fail. Big time.

ETA: I just spend the last ten minutes staring longingly at a Sony Reader. I was holding out for Kindle to be available in the UK but now...I guess not. Shucks, I loathe Sony too. Is there any good alternative?