Comments
Please wait...
Comments are closed.
Commenting on this item is available only to members of the site. You can sign in here or create an account here.
More In Books
Popular Articles
is a proud member of the
media network
media network
All contents © Index Newspapers LLC
800 Maynard Ave S, Suite 200, Seattle, WA 98134
800 Maynard Ave S, Suite 200, Seattle, WA 98134
Sorry, the explanation doesn't hold water.
The argument that they can't call it a "glitch" is specious; if they had called it a "mistake" you could have asked "What kind of mistake?" "A technical one." "Oh, a technical mistake? Like a glitch?"
And then Dan Savage pops off with the howler that it's a "book burning." Nice.
Words don't mean anything. Just say that whatever words your enemies use are bad and any words you use are good.
Books > Gay & Lesbian > Parenting & Families
Books > Teens > Social Issues > Homosexuality > Fiction
Books > Gay & Lesbian > Literature & Fiction > Fiction.
amazonfail (398)
childrens books (13)
families (11)
gay inclusive (11)
lesbian parenting (8)
children (7)
moms (7)
parenting (7)
lesbian (6)
book (2)
amazoncensored (1)
controversial (1)
inclusive (1)
lesbian moms (1)
lesbian parents (1)
mommies (1)
Frankly, I find this explanation much more believable than that Amazon deliberately decided to consider everything with gay subject matter as pornography.
You don't, huh.
http://dearauthor.com/wordpress/2009/04/…
Which means that someone would still have to confuse "gay," "lesbian" and "transgender" metadata with "adult" or "erotic."
Of course, I'm still pissed that they would filter out porn without any transparency. It should be something you can opt-out of, like Google's SafeSearch.
Although, as sad as it may seem, the most popular book tagged "homosexual" and not tagged "erotic" may in fact be an anti-homosexuality book, as had been noticed recently -- which is more of a sad reflection of Amazon's U.S. buying habits. I want to refuse to believe this, but it's sadly within the realm of possibility.
Sorry, I just don't buy the explanation as it. I don't believe Amazon management purposely did this, but I do believe someone in the organization make the judgement call that as GLBT books were adult in nature.
The thing I'm wondering about is if content on the Amazon sites in other countries have likewise been impacted.
Also, does the existence of a Kindle edition have anything to do with the 'flagging' or 'reassignment'?
As was noted previously, one of Dan's books is/was not effected by the 'glitch' - "Skipping Towards Gomorrah" whereas the other three were. Of the four books, only "Skipping" does not have a Kindle version.
I bought Dan's books on my Kindle while traveling, then later bought the hardcopy versions - when I went back this weekend to find Dan's books in their hardcopy formats - only "Skipping" came up (for the others only the Kindle editions were shown).
In any case, it is good that people complain to Amazon so that they can address this problem sooner rather than later.
It's like a get out of jail free card.
But then the job of a brick and mortar store is to provide decent advice about books one way or the other.
The service Amazon provides is more like Wal-mart - really good prices and a large inventory.
While this snafu might irk a number of customers I really doubt that too many lgbt folks who shop at Amazon becuase of it's cheap prices will ultimately move to a brick and mortar shop becuase of it's superior service.
Those who already value that service over lower prices already shop at brick and mortar bookstores rather than at Amazon.
The largest seller of media ought to be embracing the very principles which allow their product to flourish rather than placating a mob.
Uh, no, you don't. You would have been looking askance at this entire fiasco from the beginning. The rest of us who know a little more about computers pretty quickly realized that "cock-up before conspiracy" was far more likely, because we have been in the trenches. And what do you know, we're right.
This was a perfect storm of a messy database structure, an idiot coder, a notoriously byzantine and secretive organization that doesn't get social media, an PR office out to lunch, a holiday weekend twice over, easily excitable authors and activists, and the nature of an organization whose data is now so sacrosanct it's become "Too Big To Fail" in Internet terms.
This was not about Amazon being anti-gay, and yet The Stranger writers stuck to that way longer than the zeitgeist. No, this wasn't a canard in the end, but a misunderstanding fomented by The Stranger's own brand of yellow journalism.
Honestly, if we really are losing news sources in town, shouldn't it be time for you all to stop with the juvenile yellow journalism?
Grow some freakin' skepticism about what's on the Internet already.
However, Amazon needs to issue a statement that they were not intending to classify all their gay-related material as pornography and that it was indeed a technical error that they are working to correct.
Good thing, you know, the Stranger didn't go off half-cocked and come across as a bunch of alarmists.
Glitch implies "unanticipated machine issue." This is AT BEST a human error.
You seem pretty sure about what happened in this case, yet you offer no specific evidence, only generalities about "messy databases."
Why shouldn't anyone be skeptical of what you're saying as well?
Anthony, you're yet another stupid fucking credulous hack, automatically buying the Dan Savage line without an ounce of skepticism.
And holding yourself up as some kind of computer expert (equating working on this lame website with a system as complex as Amazon's) is downright laughable.
P.S. to everyone - if you believe Amazon would intentionally remove everything gay from their book lists, you are an ignorant, paranoid hippy.
I'm not saying this is a conspiracy. I'm saying there's obviously an issue with their taxonomy/application of their classification system.
THOSE issues might reflect a deeper, less obvious bias on tv part of taggers/classifiers.
BTW, any new Kindle orders will be pre-loaded with the Book of Mormon. How sweet is that?
Those hacks at The Stranger know nothing about the highly principled and socially liberal world of computer programming. They're in their GLBT victim bubble, taking an honest mistake and turning it into a PR stunt. All advances in social justice have been due to computer programmers, and it's idiotic to assume a hack writer could ever be in a position to cast doubt or aspersions upon such principled people.
How dare you blame programmers, The Stranger. And you call yourselves a legitimate newspaper? I'm going to have to take all your articles with a grain of salt now that I realize you inject humor and opinion into almost everything you write. Your so-called serious newspaper will never be regarded in the same light again.
Please cancel my subscription and refund me a prorated amount plus bonus for my troubles.
Good day.
You should be. But if you've ever worked with Amazon's ecommerce API, you've seen inside the dark heart of their database. And it's a total mess.
But then, it's basically a 14 year old database with 14 years of data strata lying on top.
I've seen far more dumb coding errors in my lifetime than I've seen organizations that offer benefits to same-sex partners and has a long history of Seattle-style liberalism suddenly decide to dump LGBT books behind an adult filter without rhyme or reason.
As the old saw goes, "Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity."
IT WAS THE RELIGIOUS RIGHT!!
It is a CONSPIRACY!!!
To deny gays their GAY PORNOGRAPHY!!!!
Don't sit there and take this-
DO SOMETHING!!!!!!
The world is laughing at you.
Would you consider "how to prevent homosexuality" books to be appropriate to a GLBT book category? I wouldn't.
And that may be the key to understanding this. It's not that books with "homosexuality" in the title were delisted, it's books with metadata identifying it as GLBT that were.
The "How To Prevent Homosexuality" book lacked such metadata. Thus, with all the GLBT books delisted, it rises straight to the top of the search -- which is pulling off the book's name.
I mean, I JUST went to amazon's site, typed in "homosexuality" and guess what, there it is. A Parent's Guide Against Homosexuality, first fucking result. The word "homosexuality" is RIGHT THERE in the title, and is not being filtered out, according to the latest explanation involving spacegoating some French dude.
the nice man explained it already.
don't be a dumbass.
The tagging of assets at Amazon may reflect the words their respective customers will use. Bigots will use "homosexuality" more than "gay, apparently, assuming Amazon has "fixed" this issue.
I'm now curious if a search on "homosexuality" last week would have turned out the same awful first result...
Even if he's to be exonerated, please don't ever suggest that blaming the french is out of line.
SPACEGOAT!!!!
PS -- Seriously, I am not making fun of you. I love your typo.
Right, Jigae. Words mean whatever you say they mean. No wait, that would suck. Words mean whatever I say they mean. That's better. But I think we can both agree that Amazon's PR problem is that they think words mean what they think they mean.
Glitch
In several usages in information technology, a glitch (pronounced GLIHTCH ) is a sudden break in function or continuity, sometimes of a transient nature, with a varying degree of seriousness. According to Eric Raymond, author of The New Hacker's Dictionary , glitch is from the German 'glitschen,' meaning 'to slip,' via Yiddish 'glitshen,' meaning 'to slide or skid.' In different contexts, the term has different meanings.
1) In electrical service, a glitch, sometimes called a power glitch , is a momentary power failure.
2) In network service, a glitch can be any temporary loss of service in the network.
3) In a computer program, a glitch can be a bug that isn't encountered very often, resulting in a problem that sometimes goes away because next time the combination of events is different. Glitches like this are often encountered with Web browsers . (Browser glitches are often fixed by closing the browser program and then reopening it, or by restarting the operating system.) A glitch can also be an intentionally planned trap or other program device that results in exposing a user's password or in some other security breach.
4) In computer audio , a glitch is a quick temporary noise in a file that sounds like a "snap."
Must have been that Bands With "Goat" In It thread.
"If you like Xena, you might like {some hot lesbian fiction}."
Imagine the phone calls that came in from irate parents of 8-year-old girls who loved Xena.
And so began the bedeviling task of keeping young eyes safer from troublesome titles, while maintaining access to those who find those titles informative, titillating, or whatever. Invisibly.
The amazing thing isn't there was a glitch, the amazing thing is there haven't been more missteps.
Please lighten the hell up, y'all.
p.s. Powell's is still better and I'll always be their loyal customer. So suck it, Amazon!
The link you provide that 'disproves' the hacker story is just someone with fewer tech skills than me trying to run the script and saying it doesn't work. I think the hacker was just lazy and going for the lulz, saying it could be done in 10 lines (and not testing them) when he probably did it with a more sophisticated 50-liner. The disproof is implementation, but the concept works rather simply if you care to write 50 lines instead of 10.
Besides, Amazon took down the feature he said he exploited, which doesn't prove his claim but supports it.
Still, he might have been going for the lulz when writing the LiveJournal post, and got me ^_^
Anyway, my two cents.
What amazes me are all the RIDICULOUS conspiracy theories flying around in the various social networks. People mouthing off about shadowy corporate abuse straight into the unregulated ether; as if there are two internets: The fetid sewer of misinformation and buggy code we wallow in, and the opaque, flawless, tightly coordinated datacenters of the corporate elite. Sorry wingnuts and tinfoil-hatters, but there's only one internet, and it's ALL A SEWER.
A clever anarchist can light a match in the right place and cause an explosion. And when the shockwave reaches you, it's just a wall of sewage. If you can even figure out where the explosion came from, consider yourself well informed. Consider applying for an IT position. If you try to learn more, chances are you won't be consuming verified information, you're chewing on some blogger's freshly laid corn fritter.
Normally Amazon shows you suggestions as you type characters in the search box. For example if you type "Christian m" you will see a list of suggestions including "Christian marriage". You don't have to type the full search, just select from the suggestions.
If you try this same search by typing "gay m" you get nothing. Unlike the term "Christian", the word "gay" just shuts off the search suggestions feature completely. Same for "lesbian."
This sucks.
I wonder what kind of "glitch" this can be attributed to.
Another reason we need registration -- there'd presumably be some way of sending personal messages.
You may know shit-loads about CS security but you obviously know sweet fa about Amazon's systems. Think of the IT equivalent of toilet rolls held together with duct tape & string and you're on the right lines.
I worked at Amazon for way longer than Mike Daisey and I can tell you that it's not only entirely plausible that one employee could screw up the listings for 58K items on the site, it's the only plausible explanation - far more likely than a hacker - and has happened on other occasions with other things (there were a number of very public pricing errors years ago until we managed to shore up those systems & put safeguards in place so you couldn't en masse mis-price items).
As for keeping the kiddies safe - that's one of the reasons Amazon has those types of flags in the database, and it's a perfectly reasonable reason. Even the illustrious Dan Savage would want to keep his little boy away from porn before puberty, wouldn't he?
I'm also with the above posters - why purge the rankings of porn? Make it like Google safe search.
That does explain the early de-listing of Craig Seymour's book, and its subsequent re-listing, and the "policy letter" - probably an automated form letter for when your content gets delisted. 100% consistent with early testing of the attack before mainstream deployment.
Of course someone is going to take credit for it. Since Amazon has a public cover story we have almost no way of knowing if he is the real attacker, or if it was an attack or not (unless Amazon changes their story).
Maybe Amazon is like toilet paper rolls and string, and maybe one employee did just fuck it up. I don't pretend to know anything about Amazon's internals.
Still, the weak architecture might also strengthen my case, no? Sorry if I don't believe you when you say the flimsy-ness of its construction makes employee error "far more likely than a hacker," since said construction makes it far easier for a hacker to exploit.
Even the smallest hole in construction can lead to a hacker breaking it (Twitter fell for a dictionary attack a few months ago, after all), so bad construction is not a strong defense when claiming a hacker couldn't have done it.
But again, this is all what I think, not what I know.