On a related note, President Obama attended an Episcopal church for Easter services--a move that I took as, among other things, a shout out to the gay and lesbian community. I'm Episcopalian (former Catholic) and attend services every week with two lesbian couples (among other diverse worshipers). Yes we can be liberal and faithful Christians--if we so desire.

As I posted over on Daily Kos, something rather nefarious seems to be going on.

For instance, if you look for ISBN 9780141441498, you get the Penguin Classics Edition of Lady Chatterley's Lover.

If you then repeat the search using "Lady Chatterley's Lover," the same title DOES NOT APPEAR. (You get other editions, but not the Penguin Classics edition.)

So whatever's going on seems to drag whatever will tick off right-wing prudes, which is rather silly. (If they're offended by such material showing up, why SEARCH for it in the first place?)

I sold used books through Amazon for most of a decade. For those of us who have had to go through the frustration of dealing with their customer service over and over throughout the years, Amazon's corporate culture is very reminiscent of right-wing groups. Insular, us-against-the-world, never ever admit the company made a mistake nor offer to fix mistakes, long-term goals aimed primarily at creating a monopoly and driving competitors out of business.

Now, that corporate paranoia doesn't make them politically conservative. That mindset exists elsewhere in society too. But, it doesn't surprise me that they would institute a program like this without thinking about the consequences and then find themselves slow to reverse or modify the new initiative. For a company that prides itself on innovation, Amazon's corporate culture is very resistant to change.

We'll probably never know how the 'glitch' came to be, but it was probably a self-righteous RW Xianist staffer. It was Easter weekend, after all.

The "glitch" is in Human Resources, which approved the hiring of some homophobe freakazoid and gave it access to the ranking software.

Not a glitch, an entirely foreseeable result of trying to pander to bluenoses. Once they instituted a stupid, idiotic policy that users could get "adult" books deranked by tagging them (a policy that seems to date at least to February from the available evidence), it was inevitable that it would be gamed. That policy needs to be permanently shitcanned. It's crazy to provide a facility whereby books can be disappeared. A far better alternative would be to provide an opt-in "safe search".

Companies aren't monolithic. Some individual, or group of individuals, did this, and apparently some higher-ranking individual or group reversed the decision.

The question I have is, what did the individual(s) think they were doing? Was it biblical righteousness, perhaps with a touch of Easter fervor? Were they genuinely confused, perhaps because all the hate-speech has convinced them that anything LGBT is explicitly sexual? Are they merely trying to "svoid controversy?" Were they mau-mau'd by the Christofascists?

One thing is for sure, the hate-speech is really doing a lot of damage, indirectly as well as directly.

I'm surmising that you're right that it was a 'glitch' on Amazon's part that this change happened so suddenly and widely, so that people noticed it. But it's a rather suggestive glitch: systematic changes like this don't happen in large complex databases without an underlying reality, and that reality raises some questions, too.

My guess is that Amazon is categorizing its books and its customers, with the goal of making it less likely that some customers see certain books. For example, if the buying and searching pattern of a given customer suggests that the customer is an evangelical type, it makes sense that Amazon would not show them books that had any kind of a gay theme. Such books, Amazon might calculate, are not likely to sell to this customer, but might make the customer upset and leave the site to shop elsewhere. There were murmurs in the discussions of this incident that Amazon is creating a "Christian bookstore" within its systems for such customers, which fits this scenario.

In effect, Amazon plans to create multiple sandboxes and to feed the most likely sales -- and, more importantly, not feeding material likely to cause an annoyance or even a complaint -- to customers based on the customer's profile.

What happened, perhaps, is that this system was deployed over the weekend as a test, but turned out to either apply much too widely, or to include people in the 'social conservative' sandbox who obviously don't belong there. In effect, we all got treated to the standards of repressed right-wingers...which has rightly caused considerable anger.

Even if the glitch is something of this nature, it has disturbing overtones. Part of the benefits of a large bookstore is that readers see and learn the existence of diverse materials. From a bookseller's perspective, it may be most effective to shovel 'more of the same' to each customer, but that ultimately impoverishes the public sphere, and leads to disconnection and polarization of the kind that has been evident lately. But I suppose that's not really Amazon's problem, unless we want to designate them a public utility.

And of course, over-applying whatever filter they had set up, and creating such a crude filter, will now cost Amazon a lot of sales. I'm now sensitized that other online bookstores are available, including ones run in ways that don't pre-censor the suggestions I get and the ranking of the books on the site. I may not rigidly boycott Amazon if they apologize, but I will certainly be more proactive about checking other sites, like Barnes and Noble.

Amazon has never had a reputation for being a conservative retailer ....

Maybe you just weren't paying attention.

During the war fever years of 2002-2004 Amazon was notorious for deleting left-leaning customer reviews while allowing right-leaning reviews to stay on the site. If enough complaints were received it was "oh sorry, won't happen again" ... then it happened again.

My guess is that Amazon simply hired people into the low-level editing positions randomly and didn't have any provisions to monitor the latent far right extremists in their midst.

Sounds like it is still happening over there.

I suspect that this isn't Amazon's corporate policy, but rather that, like all large organizations, they employ a large number of people. There are going to be some wingnuts in the woodpile. Some misguided xtian out for a little freelance censorship will likely turn out to be the culprit.

Still, I can't help but be reminded of Amazon's Hallowe'en 'Terrorist' mask link that took you to a likeness of Barack Obama. Amazon's developing a history here, and it isn't a good one.

As has been noted elsewhere, "Mein Kampf", and "The Protocols of the Elders of Zion", remain ranked and easy to find.

I may not rigidly boycott Amazon if they apologize, but I will certainly be more proactive about checking other sites, like Barnes and Noble.

Amazon has never had a reputation for being a conservative retailer ....

Amazon in-house reviews tends to dump on books that someone somewhere considers unfriendly to Israel. The Amazon blurb -- not readers' commentary -- on Jimmy Carter's Palestine: Peace not Apartheid at first featured a lengthy rebuttal to the book. I emailed a complaint, and I suspect others did, because this was replaced by something more neutral.

Some right winger decided to force his or her agenda on Amazon with or without authorization. Imagine if Bill Oreilly's disappeared from Amazon.

PQuincy: Exactly. One of the great features of a bookstore or library is the ability to browse materials and find that gem you weren't seeking. The "multiple sandbox" categorization you describe is exactly what we don't need.

And that "glitch." Reminds me of Neo seeing the cat twice in The Matrix. Trinity: A déjà vu is usually a glitch in the Matrix. It happens when they change something.

This is from an email received by Mark Probst on Saturday-"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." This was NOT a glitch, no matter what kind of spin Amazon is giving out now. BTW, I believe they will reverse this policy by the end of business today; Tuesday at the outside.

BTW, I believe they will reverse this policy by the end of business today; Tuesday at the outside.

They'd goddamn well better.

I've been buying a lot of short story collections lately, and when I do it online I usually have two tabs going - one for Amazon and one fore ABE Books. ABE Books gets about 85% of my orders because it almost invariably comes in with a lower price. In addition I keep track of my orders' shipping time, and ABE routinely beats Amazon on that front as well. Just because they're the biggest, doesn't mean that Amazon is the best.

@dilford Much has been made of that email Mark Probst received and I'm not quite sure I understand why. Some low-level customer service drone spat out a reply that may or may not even have been directly related to this event and is possibly something s/he dug out of the "canned responses" file for just such a situation. Probst himself has since posted to say he believes it actually is a glitch: http://markprobst.livejournal.com/15507.html And I agree.

Still, an explanation as to how this happened in the first place would be helpful.

I'm guessing Monica Goodling settled for a job in retail.

GLBT books, apparently, have been something akin to googlebombed (I hereby dub it amazonfailing), basically. This is, I think, a good explanation of what's happened here:

http://www.di2.nu/200904/13a.htm

Amazon has farmed out a lot of the responsibility for maintaining its database of inventory to outsiders and consumbers. This is not a bad idea when resources are tight and you need to get things added fastfastfast, but it can bite you in the ass when people figure out how to game the system. What I'm surprised about, though, is that some unscrupulous publisher hasn't hit upon this and start getting their competition flagged as adult content.

What's odd to me, and what makes me think the above blogger's explanation is correct, is that this is inconsistently applied across search terms. The people doing the amazonfailing have done a good job nixing "homosexual" and "gay," but haven't really begun working on search terms like "lesbians." The first two show anti, cure the gayness types of books while the third shows the books I'd expect to see. I guess they like to watch the ladies go at it, but not the guys.

Second the recommendation for Powell's Books in Portland Oregon.
http://www.powells.com/home.html?header=Logo

If you then repeat the search using "Lady Chatterley's Lover," the same title DOES NOT APPEAR.

Lady Chatterly's Lover is a classic of American literature, the fact that anyone feels it should be excluded from online retailers, libraries, et al, is absolutely absurd. It's not DH Lawrence's fault that someone chose to make a soft-core porn flick loosely (and I mean loosely) based on it.

That said, my guess is this was a technical glitch. One of the great challenges of online retail is database management, an I suspect this is an example of that. LGBT books, even non-erotic titles, probably were categorized together. Let's see what Amazon's explanation is before getting into a tizzy. We don't want to sound like the right, seeing a nefarious plot in relatively minor mishaps.

That said, my guess is this was a technical glitch.

In a facility that shouldn't have existed in the first place. That's the real point. They need to have a safe search option rather than a provision for user-generated disappearing of books.

This was a concerted effort by someone to flag GLBT/feminist books and trigger Amazon's removal mechanism, and the letter was probably sent by someone who was left in charge because everyone who could make decisions was too important to stick around on a holiday weekend. It wouldn't surprise me to know that the timing was deliberate, too.

It is not only GLBT books that are being affected. Some disability-related books have been affected too, including at least one sociology text book.

For more detail, see:

http://textualfury.wordpress.com/2009/04/12/amazonfail/

and also

http://lisybabe.blogspot.com/2009/04/amazonfail.html

#amazonfail on #disability too. Please RT both http://is.gd/s5I6 and http://is.gd/s5Xr #glitchmyass #glbt #disabled

"Amazon has never had a reputation for being a conservative retailer ...."

Perhaps ...

I simply will not do business with Amazon. They have in the recent past donated the majority of their PAC money to the Republican Party.

Granted I'm sure most corporations and their PACs contribute similarly, but the point remains, they have politically tilted right.

http://www.opensecrets.org/pacs/pacgot.php?cmte=C00360354&cycle=2002

House
Total to Democrats: $6,500
Total to Republicans: $10,000


http://www.opensecrets.org/pacs/pacgot.php?cmte=C00360354&cycle=2004

House
Total to Democrats: $26,500
Total to Republicans: $45,500
Senate
Total to Democrats: $16,250
Total to Republicans: $18,500

http://www.opensecrets.org/pacs/pacgot.php?cmte=C00360354&cycle=2006

House
Total to Democrats: $27,000
Total to Republicans: $26,000

Even though in 2008 those numbers are tilted towards the Democratic Party, they still give money to the GOP -

http://www.opensecrets.org/pacs/pacgot.php?cmte=C00360354&cycle=2008

Senate
Total to Democrats: $18,000
Total to Republicans: $15,000

I third the Powell recommendation. I usually buy my books at Half.com, though, because you can't really beat it for price.

I have never ordered from Amazon because I was boycotting them for usurping the local feminist bookstore's name, but I had softened my view of Amazon over the years. I was thinking of opening an account with them, but now, I have changed my mind. There are plenty of other options out there.

I am a serious bibliophile, and this is unacceptable, whatever the reason. I am with Steve LaBonne. If they really feel the need to provide an exclusion service to their customers, they should use a safe search feature. That way, the customers can self-censor rather that be censored.

Thanks Freddie. I'm trying to stay on top of this (I want to go back to selling used books on Amazon!) and am not married to any conspiracy narrative. Mo' info, mo' info, mo' info!

"Lady Chatterly's Lover is a classic of American literature" - actually, it's British...

There was resistance to Amazon from at least the time they started fussing over their patent for "one-click" shopping. Last time I used that, they charged me for the wrong book and had a problem issuing a refund.

BEST possible place to find any book at the best price is http://www.bookfinder.com/ which searches all the available databases at once.

The best thing to do is to shop for books at your local independent bookstore. This kind of crap would never happen there. Most of them are further left than you are.

haven't really begun working on search terms like "lesbians." The first two show anti, cure the gayness types of books while the third shows the books I'd expect to see. I guess they like to watch the ladies go at it, but not the guys.
...

Biblically speaking, the ladies aren't sinning.

Yes, this is snark. I'm a left-wing gay rights fanatic, but I also happen to know quite a bit about that Leviticus verse. Actually, the wingies have it totally wrong on all accounts, and I really wish someone would seriously engage them.

Amazon's homophobia here is obvious and certainly shouldn't be dismissed, but I think this also raises some real concerns about the future of digital publishing and censorship: Making Books Disappear

Glitch? Sure.

They got astroturfed by a bunch of fundies, caved, and got caught.

well this is what you get if you send an email. it's funny because it's true:

Hello from Amazon.com.

Thanks for contacting us. I truly understand your concern in this regard. Please accept my sincere apologies for this inconvenience. We recently discovered a glitch in our systems and it's being fixed.

Thank you for your understanding and we hope to see you again soon.

Please let us know if this e-mail resolved your question:

If yes, click here:
http://www.amazon.com/rsvp-y?c=ffbwexuf3472960320
If not, click here:
http://www.amazon.com/rsvp-n?c=ffbwexuf3472960320

Please note: this e-mail was sent from an address that cannot accept incoming e-mail.

To contact us about an unrelated issue, please visit the Help section of our web site.

Best regards,

Ram S.
Amazon.com
We're Building Earth's Most Customer-Centric Company
http://www.amazon.com/your-account