AmazonFAIL
If you have a Twitter account and have logged in at any time during the last 24 hours or so, chances are you’re already familiar with #amazonfail, the current number one trending topic on Twitter, but just in case, here’s the deal—Amazon.com is and has been stripping sales rankings from LGBT, sexuality, and feminist books because of its “adult” content as part of Amazon’s new discriminatory censorship policy.
First of all, if Amazon wants to remove the sales rankings from products containing adult content throughout their site then they should not be selling books, as people tend to have minds of their own and the right to write and read books of their choosing. It is also not okay to go on a witch hunt specifically targeting content that only the religious right has had a vocal problem with. Some titles that have had their Amazon Sales Rankings revoked include Whipping Girl: A Transsexual Woman on Sexism and the Scapegoating of Femininity, Full Frontal Feminism, Gay Life And Culture: A World History, Lady Chatterley’s Lover, Queer Theory, Gender Theory: An Instant Primer, Men Who Rape: The Psychology Of The Offender, one of my favorite books of all time, Little Birds by Anais Nin, and quite a few others that can be seen here, as well as books as harmless as Heather Has Two Mommies, a children’s book, Ellen DeGeneres: A Biography, and The Truth Is…My Life In Love And Music by Melissa Etheridge. However, some titles that have not has their Amazon Sales Rankings removed include The Complete A**hole’s Guide To Handling Chicks, Ron Jeremy: The Hardest Working Man In Showbiz, Playboy: The Complete Centerfolds, and generally any book spreading the hetero love. In fact, the first search result that appears on Amazon for ‘homosexuality’ is A Parent’s Guide to Preventing Homosexuality followed by a series of other hateful, discriminatory titles written with the purpose of “curing” homosexuality in mind.
Amazon’s director of corporate communications, Patty Smith, has made a statement saying that there has been a “glitch” in their systems and it is being fixed, but as many people have been pointing out over the last day, it does not take a technical glitch to pick and choose through a list of books on queer, gender, and women’s studies and remove their sales rankings and turning into yet another corporation catering to the homophobic religious right; that takes a human touch. As Renee of Womanist Musings points out:
Glitches usually happen randomly and this seems far to calculating to just be some sort of error. When we consider the fact that two states approved gay marriage last week, does the timing of this whole fiasco not seem to be just a little be too convenient? I think the fundies are trying to sell us their special brand of kool aid again.
But this “glitch” hasn’t just been affecting titles this past weekend; as Craig Seymour, the author of All I Could Bare: My Life in the Strip Clubs of Gay Washington, D.C., this discrimination has been happening since February.
It is about time that the word about Amazon’s hateful behavior has spread like wildfire throughout the weekend and there is sure to be more press on this topic in the morning. In the meantime, please enjoy this video by YA author Jackson Pearce:
Read more about AmazonFAIL at Womanist Musings, Feministe, Shameless, Daily Kos, and Smart Bitches, Trashy Books. You can also sign a protest regarding Amazon’s new “adult” policy here.
If you’re looking for a replacement for your Amazon needs, check out Powells Books, who also have a Partners Program for those of you with affiliate accounts.
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